Category Archives: Facebook

ActionScript3, Adobe, Facebook, Flash, Games, General, HTML5, Starling

Adobe Playpanel shows the best in online gaming

February 13, 2014 Mariam Dholkawala Leave a comment

Playpanel from Adobe is a desktop application that automatically bookmarks all the Flash games played in your browser. It is a perfect tool for online and social game players because it helps to discover new games and also see what others are playing.

What’s convenient about the app is that it silently runs in the background capturing your gaming behaviour without you having to manually do anything. The app captures information such as the games you’ve played, the game links, publisher information, the date you last played the games, number of times you played them etc.

The app is also browser independant, so you could be playing a game in any browser and it will automatically make it available in your Playpanel game list. I tried it with Google Chrome, Firefox and IE and it worked fine.

Playpanel requires you to login with either your Facebook login or Adobe login. I think this login compulsion could have been avoided because not everyone is comfortable inputting their login details. But then looking at it from a product perspective, it also needs to reach out to a wide audience through Facebook invites and virality through game sharing, so it can’t be avoided.

The feature I like most is the discovery of new games from the “Discover Games” tab. This list contains high quality games from well-known publishers. The games are divided into Featured games and Popular games. The featured games are hand picked by the game editors while the Popular games are chosen based on their ratings by other players. You too can rate/comment on these games or see what others have commented about it before you start playing it.

A feature called “Pinning” games helps to pin games which are then made available to your Facebook friends. You can also see what games your friends have pinned, thus collaborating with them on a multiplayer or social game mission.

It almost feels like Playpanel is like a mobile app store, the only difference being, the games are free and played in a desktop browser. Also, with so much gaming content out there it is almost impossible to know what to play or not to play. An app like Playpanel just makes it easier to identify good content.

However, it’ll be interesting to know how much further this product will evolve. One feature that I can think of is arranging games according to genres. Another is showing “similar games” thumbnails on a particular game details page. Also, it will be nice to have the game details page show whether the game is cross-platform.

With Adobe focusing heaviliy on HTML5, will it also serve as a future platform for those games? Just a food for thought!

Mariam

ActionScript3, Adobe, AIR on Android, Facebook, Flash

Build a URLRequest with headers of multipart/form-data content type with ActionScript

July 18, 2013 Mariam Dholkawala 5 Comments

Posting an image on a platform which requires it to be of a ‘multipart/form-data’ content type is different from posting a URL link of an image or sending an image as binary data.

For example, both Flickr and Facebook APIs require the ‘multipart/form-data’ type for uploading images and in the latter case I never realized it because there was an existing Facebook API which was doing the work behind the scenes.

Incase of Facebook, if you are using the Facebook Actionscript3 SDK for posting images to your own wall, you are required to convert your image into a ByteArray and then use the API to POST the image. The classes that handle this are the FacebookRequest.as, AbstractFacebookRequest.as and PostRequest.as, but as a developer you may never know of these classes or use them directly.

For instance the code below captures a Movieclip from the stage as a bitmap, encodes it as a PNG and then uploads it to your Facebook wall using the Facebook Actionscript3 SDK.

var bitmapD:BitmapData = new BitmapData(movieClip.width,movieClip.height);
bitmapD.draw(movieClip);  

var imageStream = PNGEncoder.encode(bitmapData);
bitmapD.dispose();

var values:Object = {message:"A test to post image" , fileName:'anyname.jpg' , image:imageStream};  
FacebookMobile.api('/me/photos', onCheckResult, values,'POST');

var bitmapD:BitmapData = new BitmapData(movieClip.width,movieClip.height);

bitmapD.draw(movieClip);

var imageStream = PNGEncoder.encode(bitmapData);

bitmapD.dispose();

var values:Object = {message:"A test to post image" , fileName:'anyname.jpg' , image:imageStream};

FacebookMobile.api('/me/photos', onCheckResult, values,'POST');

In my case I did not have any SDK or classes to work with this particular content type. That’s when I read about the UploadPostHelper.as class written by Jonathan Marston. It is an old class written in 2007 so it needed minor modifications to work with today, but nonetheless, it served the purpose of building a POST request with properly formatted headers required by the server to interpret the content of multipart/form-data type.
Assuming if I had to rewrite the code to post an image to Facebook without an SDK, the code below would work just as well.

var bitmapD:BitmapData = new BitmapData(movieClip.width,movieClip.height);
bitmapD.draw(movieClip);

var imageStream = PNGEncoder.encode(bitmapData);
bitmapD.dispose();
postData();

function postData():void{
    var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
    var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest();	
    var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();

    urlRequest.url = "https://graph.facebook.com/me/photos";
    urlRequest.contentType = "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + UploadPostHelper.getBoundary();
    urlRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
    var postVariables:Object = {}
    if (this.accessToken != ""){
	postVariables.access_token = this.accessToken;
    }
    postVariables.message = "A test to post image";
    urlRequest.data = UploadPostHelper.getPostData("anyname.jpg", imageStream, postVariables);
    urlRequest.requestHeaders.push( new URLRequestHeader( 'Cache-Control', 'no-cache' ) );
    loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;
    loader.load(urlRequest);
}

var bitmapD:BitmapData = new BitmapData(movieClip.width,movieClip.height);

bitmapD.draw(movieClip);

var imageStream = PNGEncoder.encode(bitmapData);

bitmapD.dispose();

postData();

function postData():void{

var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();

var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest();

var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();

urlRequest.url = "https://graph.facebook.com/me/photos";

urlRequest.contentType = "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + UploadPostHelper.getBoundary();

urlRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;

var postVariables:Object = {}

if (this.accessToken != ""){

postVariables.access_token = this.accessToken;

}

postVariables.message = "A test to post image";

urlRequest.data = UploadPostHelper.getPostData("anyname.jpg", imageStream, postVariables);

urlRequest.requestHeaders.push( new URLRequestHeader( 'Cache-Control', 'no-cache' ) );

loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;

loader.load(urlRequest);

}

Write to me if you want the UploadPostHelper.as class with the changes I’ve made to it or have suggestions to work with image data.

Mariam

ActionScript3, Adobe, AIR on Android, Android, Book Review, Box2D, Devices, Facebook, Flash, Flash Platform, Games, General, iOS, Mobile, Starling

Box2D for Flash Games – Book Review

January 28, 2013 Mariam Dholkawala Leave a comment

Box2D is a highly popular physics engine. Its popularity lies not only in it being a free open source engine, but also because it has many features to produce realistic physics effects in games. It has also been used by many popular games across the mobile and web.

Flash is one of the supported platforms, therefore this port of Box2D has become almost a priority for many game developers wanting to use realistic physics with AS3. The book “Box2D for Flash Games” written by Emanuele Feronato is therefore a great resource for understanding of the Box2D physics concepts and getting your hands dirty with actual game development.

The book dive starts with basic examples without going too deep into the engine theory. Every new line of code added to the examples thereafter is further explained in detail. Concepts such as friction, density, primitive and complex body types, shapes and collisons are all covered . The chapters then take a step by step approach towards developing actual game levels from popular games such as Totem Destroyer and Angry Birds.

I personally follow Emanuele Feronato blog and know that he comes with tremendous experience in gaming. He contributes to the community with his gaming articles and this book only lets him share more refined and in depth information with his readers.

ActionScript3, Adobe, App Stores, Apple, Devices, Facebook, Flash, Flash Platform, Games, General, IGameStudio, iOS, iTunes, Mobile

Stop That Silly Chicken game for iPad

January 23, 2013 Mariam Dholkawala 1 Comment

With the successful release of “Stop That Silly Chicken”, it is heartening to say that the game was developed using Adobe AIR for the iOS platform.

Stop That Silly Chicken is currently available on the iPad and iPhones. The game uses Milkman Games native extensions for social media and advertising. It also uses a native extension for in-app alerts.

Silly Chicken is a character owned by 9X Media, a brand providing entertainment on television through their various music and cartoon channels.

The game concept revolves around Silly Chicken who runs around a kitchen table in a quest to steal and break the eggs kept safely in a bowl. The player has to tap Silly Chicken before he reaches the table. The player can collect game coins from piggy banks and use them to make purchases from the game store that will make it easier to trap Silly Chicken. The game has 2 modes – Survival and Time mode and both are easy to understand and play. The game is completely free using an advertising model with Admob.

I’ve been reading the comments of the players since its release and glad to see it being liked. It seem that the idea of tapping Silly Chicken and seeing its reactions through different animations is funny for many.

Please download the game if you haven’t already and spread the word about it!

Mariam

Android, Android Marketplace, Apple, Facebook, Games, General, iOS, Mobile

Reasons not to play a game on mobiles

December 21, 2011 Mariam Dholkawala 5 Comments

I was looking at my devices today and tried understanding my game playing behaviour.

Out of the devices I use, my iOS device has more games than any other device. Next comes the Android and Symbian devices where I have some games installed, but have never played them (don’t know why!!). Out of all the current 100 iOS games, I only play around 4-5 very regularly and another 4-5 occasianally.

So what is it that gets me to download a game but not play it? I thought through some of the points and this is what I think.

1. Creative Inspiration – So we’ve played Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds and Cut the Rope on the iOS platform. Now, do we really need a game with the mechanics of Fruit Ninja, bird characters from Angry Birds and a name inspired by Cut the Rope?.
If you’ve played “Cut the Birds” and you’ll know what I am talking about (the game is now taken off the App store and has another version Cut the Birds 2). One of the primary resons why games fail to connect with users is that they lack originality and just end up being poor imitations of successful IPs.

2. Herd Mentality – Farmville created history with online social gaming, but then more games decided to follow suit with farm themes or similar “Click and Collect” mechanics. And were they successful? Probably yes, but for how long is the real question! I don’t remember the last time I played a Facebook connected game because of the “Follow the Herd” mentality used while writing concepts.

3. Game Tutor – As a casual game player, I really don’t like a casual game constantly throwing pop ups at me to teach me how to play the game. It breaks the flow and can be very obtrusive. I think a casual game should be self explanatory or atleast with minimum non-obtrusive teaching.
Help pop-ups may sometimes be necessary for games, especially strategy and time management games, which are competitive and require a learning curve to progress, so I’m not completely averse to them.

4. Forgotten Icon – Many times when I reach out for my device to play a game, I notice installed forgotten apps. And then when I recall them after looking at them, I wonder if it makes sense to ever play them again.
Forgetting to play an installed app is nothing but a result of an average game-play, designed to be non intuitive, and not great enough to get us engaged after the first couple of minutes initial play.
Prototyping and testing an idea with people trusted for feedback is the best way forward. Being open to criticisms is only getting better at designing and developing a better game.

5. User Experience – I was playing a turn based game against the computer AI recently. I won’t name the game, but the mechanics were as simple as Tic Tac Toe. However, everytime I was to play a turn or the AI was to play a turn, I would have a big popup message thrown in front of me informing me that it was my turn or the computer’s turn to play.
This is an example of a terrible User Experience design because it ends up irritating me/the player with constant reminders during every turn. A definate reason for me not to replay the game.

6. Buggy Pop-ups – What happens when I am playing a game (Chess for example), and I play my turn before the game can alert me of my turn. Now the game logic gets stuck at this point where it has my turn pop-up to display on screen but knows in the background that it is the AI who will play next. My game hangs at this point and I’m stuck staring at a game screen where I can’t progress. I have to shut down the game and restart it.
Will i play this game again? Only if it has an addictive game-play and value for time.

7. Noisy Screechy SFX – One usually plays a game when they want to take a short break in-between or after work or sometimes as a part of their learning process. Poor sound effects or background music really make me shut down the game even if I really need to play it.

8. Where’s the Entertainment – Some games just lack entertainment. And I can’t define this any further. Game development is a coordinated process and going wrong in any of the phases can lead to a non entertaining game.

9. Non accessibility of content – Today most games are sold through mobile app markets. iTunes gives the easiest access to download games irrespective of the iTunes version or the device OS. Similarly Android too offers ease of use of the Android Marketplace. For the others, it’s not been very easy at all times.

Mariam

Adobe, AIR on Android, Android, Apple, Device Central, Devices, Facebook, Flash, Flash Platform, Games, HTML5, India

Flash vs Unity vs HTML5 at Nasscom GDC

November 13, 2011 Mariam Dholkawala 2 Comments

The Nasscom GDC 2011 ended in Pune yesterday making it one of the well attended events in India. Since we don’t have many conferences like these happening here, it was great seeing this one unfold connecting the Indian gaming community on a single platform. It was also encouraging to see gaming now being accepted as an industry with students taking it up as a career option – something which did not exist some years back.

The 2 days of the event had back-to-back sessions covering various aspects of the state of the gaming industry, gaming platforms and technologies and sessions for budding entrepreneurs.

I was invited as a part of a panel discussion covering Flash vs Unity vs HTML5 and it was a fairly well attended session (we had 2 very competitive sessions running parallelly so a well attended session is a compliment!). It was great to see that most of the audience were into Flash development at some level and keen to know what the panel had to say about the three most spoken about technologies in the recent times. The panel came with their expertise and spoke about the strengths of the platform they specialized in.

HTML5 is a platform that Zynga believes will be the future with social games. They are already looking into it; their Words with Friends being a classic example of a successful HTML5 social game going cross platform.

Cha Yo Wo on the other hand felt that HTML5 has it’s disadvantages and is better suited for enterprise applications rather than game development, especially when getting it across multiple platforms. They had some good talk to share about their engine allowing easy porting of code across different mobile platforms.

Glu Mobile belives in Unity and had some good points to share about using the platform to develop freemium games.

I spoke about my experience of working with Flash on different platforms, specifically devices. My thoughts were that Flash developers have the advantage of taking their ideas to multiple mobile platforms through the Adobe AIR runtime, but that can come with some limitations. The native platform for devices offer more polished APIs than AIR thus giving it an edge over Adobe AIR. With the introduction of native extensions, Adobe AIR can open up better development options but that will only be known in time.

However having said that, HTML5 is an new standard for the web that developers can be excited about, especially since Apple has been talking about it for a very long time, Adobe is investing heavily in the tools, and companies like Zynga believe that they can push the envelope of online social gaming with it.

The consensus was that a developer should never be limited with an idea because a technology is known and comfortable to work with, instead choose tools and platforms that best help bring the idea to life.

Mariam

ActionScript3, Adobe, AIR on Android, Articles and Guidelines, Facebook, Flash, Flash Platform, General, HTML5

Flash Facebook Cookbook Review

October 12, 2011 Mariam Dholkawala 1 Comment

Facebook IS building the social web! It has more than 800 million active users and connects more than 500 million users monthly on its Facebook Platform through devices, apps and websites (source Facebook Statistics).

With such a huge demand for content on the Facebook Platform, the requirement for developers has also grown, thus leading to more learning material being available; material especially related to tips, best practices and simple guides to help one progress with the platform.

One of the newest resources for Facebook Developers is – the Flash Facebook Cookbook by James Ford. I received a copy of this book and decided to write a short review for it while reading it.

The Flash Facebook Cookbook contains around 60+ recipes for integrating Flash applications with the Graph API and Facebook. The recipes are simple and start with the basic explanation of Facebook and Flash integration. It graduates to moderate and complex examples such as News Feeds, working with the photo albums, uploading pictures, working with events and integrating HTML5 geolocation capabilities etc.

The book does not expect the developer to know the Facebook platform, but does expect some knowledge of working with Flash Builder and the Flex framework. It uses the Facebook Actionscript 3 SDK available from Github. Apparently this version is supposed to be more community driven than the official Facebook Actionscript SDK supported by Adobe and Facebook on the Google Code repository. I’ve always worked with the official version of the SDK, so I didn’t try using the Github version with the receipes.

I think it is fair to say that the book is a good resource for Facebook development on the Flash platform for the web and desktop. It does not cover the mobile platform, although a refined developer will be able to adapt the knowledge gained from this book to multiple Flash supported platforms.

Mariam

Games, Devices, Technology