This is the next step in the evolution of the nGon toy. But into what is it evolving? That's a very good question.



Try here for a full size version.

Prototyping gameplay can be a quick and dirty* way of answering design questions. The big  ones, like: is it any fun?

Here's a Flash/ActionScript prototype I did for my last game, a Wii title called "Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed."

There's a more detailed discussion of it over here.

* If you do it right.

Nothing too sexy here, unless you find Socket Servers sexy.

Don't go there. Thank you.

Scoot on over to the Downloads page, and you will find a new link for Palabre Modules.

Therein you will find modules for telling if certain entities like nicknames and room names exist on the server, and a very handy (at least until the next release) module for pre-processing messages sent to the server.

To all six of you who find this useful and exciting, hats off to you! (And see you on the forums).

For those of you who are a bit fuzzy on the whole 'socket server' thing, and read this with a kind of a 'who cares' vibe, Palabre is a open-source project that allows you to build multi-user or, dare I say, multi-player apps built in Flash.

Hah! It's only been nine months since my last post, so all of you who bet on a year between posts, pay up!

So much to talk about, but for now you'll have to live with this little teaser.

I'm building a multi-user Flash application, and having lots of fun doing it. The guts of the enterprise is a open source Flash Socket Server called Palabre, written and maintained by Conort Célio.

This has required a number of things of me, not the least of which is brushing up on my Object-Orient programming in both Python and Flash, and becoming my own little mini-ISP, of sorts, to run the socket server.

It also means I've started to extend the server software by writing add-on modules. At some point, there may be an archive for them, but for now, I post them here for your enjoyment.

existsQueries.zip

This module is exceedingly simple. The client sends a user nickname, or a room name, and the modules tells the client if it exists.

I'll be moving this site over to the new server soon. If all goes well, you won't feel a thing.

The Game Design section was starting to look a little overrun by Flash and ActionScript tutorials, so I've added a whole new page for Flash and ActionScript. Check there for the latest experiments.

Speaking of which: Drawing Regular nGons in Flash.

That's right. NGons, baby! Try to curb your enthusiasm.

I'm working on a project that requires the drawing (or at least calculating) of regular nGons (pentagons, hexagons, octagons, etc.), so I threw together a demo movie. As usual, source code is included.