One of the first things to understand when you’re looking to develop browser games is what game genres lend themselves favourably to the medium. Truth be told, these days Flash games can be made in just about any genre, but understanding the limitations of Flash allows us to see which genres are best suited to browser games.
Flash is slow. There, I said it. While the Flash engine has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and Actionscript 3.0 can be written quite efficiently there is no getting away from the fact that Flash games are significantly restricted compared to games developed with other technologies, such as Java. Now of course there are many other advantages to Flash, so I’m not suggesting you should ditch Actionscript and start learning Java, but if you’re creating Flash games you need to be aware of exactly what you can and can’t accomplish!
Along with the lack of performance, the other big issue is 3D. While there are now real solutions to developing 3D content in Flash (technologies such as PaperVision – which I’ll cover in another post!) Flash is still essentially a 2 dimensional technology, so you’re not going to be creating the next GTA or Gran Turismo in Flash.
So if we don’t have speed, and we don’t really have 3D, what CAN we do in Flash? Well actually quite a lot, and so let’s look at some of the game genres where Flash really excels.
Puzzle Games
In 2007 Tetris was voted as the second best video game of all time in IGN, and has sold 70 million copies worldwide. I mention this because Tetris is a great example of the type of game Flash is superb at. In fact, there have been many ports of the game to Flash, and many derivative works already.
Puzzle games or “Brain games” using Nintendo’s parlance tend to be logic based, and can be extremely addictive and lots of fun, but they are also ideally suited to being written in Actionscript. They tend to have fairly simple 2D graphics without too many moving objects on screen at once. The gameplay is often “turn based” and unlike action games a momentary slowdown will usually go un-noticed by the player.
Word Games
Word games can usually be considered a sub-set of puzzle games, but I include them for a simple reason – they are hugely popular! In fact, word games such as scrabble, word searches, crosswords and countless other variations are among the most played games online. If you want your game to be played by millions, you could do a lot worse than choosing to create a word game!
Card/Casino Games
Another massively popular genre, card and casino games are again ideally suited to Flash. When coupled with a socket server, Flash is very capable of handling multiplayer games like Texas Hold’em poker with ease. Doubt the popularity of card and casino Flash games? The top poker game on Facebook, Zynga Texas Hold’em attracts 44 million players monthly!
2D and Retro Arcade Games
Here’s a genre after my own heart, and Flash is perfect for remakes of classic 80’s arcade games, platformers and shoot-em-ups, top-down racing games, shooting games, simple adventure games… in fact any style of 2D sprite based games that you would have found in the arcades in the 1980s and early 1990s can be created in Flash.
Looking for niche genres?
Of course there are loads of “hidden” gems, as the number of genres suitable for Flash games is seemingly never ending. Dress-up games and cooking games are popular with young girls, programming games like Light-Bot are popular with techies, Mah-jongg and Go games are hugely popular in Asia, and rhythm games are popular with just about anyone who’ll have a go!
As you can see there are no shortage of genres, and choosing what style of games to develop will depend on your reasons for creating games. If you’re developing commercially then your clients will usually have the final say on the styles of games you create, but if you’re developing for sponsorship deals, to distribute your games via networks such as Mochimedia, or for your own personal entertainment then use your imagination, who knows you might come up with a new genre of your own!
Just keep the limitations of the medium in mind, and learn to work within the constraints imposed by Flash rather than trying to fight them!
 |
