Translation coming soon
‘Rolpege’ Archive
Learn to program with Scratch!
10 February 2010
Today I bring you a program created by MIT which will teach you to program with the best way: programming.
I’m talking about Scratch. It’s an object oriented “programming language” with the peculiarity that you don’t write the commands but you drag them like puzzle pieces.
![]Moving the cat](http://www.barail.es/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Captura-de-pantalla-2010-02-08-a-las-20.22.21-300x187.png "]Moving the cat")
Script created by myself used to move and animate the default cat.
Scratch brings us a lot of commands and infinite possibilities: we can make an animation, a race game, an RPG, a drawing program and even an hypotenuses mesurator.
Also we have a good and active Scratch community, full of member-done applications made with the program and ready to download and play or see how’re they done to learn, and also to play online! (not all browsers support this feature, though)
![]Playing a Scratch game in my browser](http://www.barail.es/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Captura-de-pantalla-2010-02-08-a-las-20.33.43-300x180.png "Playing a Scratch game in my browser")
Playing a game created with Scratch in my browser
Definitively, if you want to learn object-oriented programation (or programation in general too) and you haven’t had the opportunity yet, with Scratch it’ll be very easy! The program works in Mac, Linux and Windows too.
Learn Flixel
7 February 2010
The other day I talked about a Actionscript 3 library used to create flash games, Flixel (http://www.barail.es/videojuegos/flash-games-flixel)
Today I come to give you a quick note for who are interested in learning how to create their own flash games using Flixel.
I’m creating a “course” (in spanish) called “Crea tu propio juego Flash con Flixel“!.
Every 3 weeks I’ll post a new lesson in *.pdf for you to follow. If you have any doubt, you can post it in the comments and I’ll answer it.
The list of topics is the following:
- Before we begin
- Pong
- Break Out
- Space Invaders
- Simple platforms
- Simple fighting game
- Simple aRPG
- Simple turn-based RPG
- Conclusion
Here’s the first lesson in pdf (spanish): Crea tu propio juego flash con flixel: Lección 1
To develop in Flixel you can use Flex Builder 3 or Flash Develop
The next lesson’ll be posted on 22 of february.
Facebook Games: Those addictive things that we all know
3 February 2010
All Facebook users, I’m sure that you’ve already played a facebook game.
Yes! Those colorful games in which you manage a restaurant, you have a fishbowl or you have to take care of a pet. The fact is that those games give lots of money to their creators.
Happy Aquarium, a Facebook game in which you take care of your fishes (caution: very addictive).
Lastly, a good way to earn easy money on Internet is the Flash empire. A lot of money is won creating a good and addictive game and uploading it in some portal that shares the revenue. Well, now social networks are becoming a good way to make money too!
I’m sure you know them. I’m talking about the objects, common on all facebook games, that have to be paid with real money. This money goes almost directly to the developers of the game (but a part goes to the Facebook creator). Furthermore, the developers also win money from the ads around their game.
Restaurant City: another game from Facebook in which you manage a restaurant (very addictive too).
That’s why they are interested in that we have to enter so many times! Yes. That you’ve to wait 12 hours for your fish to grow it’s NOT a casualty or a caprice. It’s because you will NOT wait 12 hours in front of the game, and what you will do is close the game and visit it again 12 hours later. And that is what developers are interested in, because the money gained by ads around the game, is increased every time someone enters the game!
What can we learn from this? Well, if you’re a facebook player you will learn that those long waits for continuing to play a game (in Vampire Wars, for example, you regain blood [necessarily to realize any action] every hour) it’s not a casualty. If you’re a facebook developer (or you want to be a facebook developer), you’ll learn that for gaining more money, you have to add into your game this long waits system, and people will enter lots of times in your game.
Vampire Wars, bite your friends or fight against unknow persons while you accomplish some missions in this also-very-addictive Facebook game.
Retro Games
30 January 2010
The information of this article and its comments, in the same way that some of Daniel Rey’s ones, can be useful only to the people who wants to work in game designing, but anyone can opine!
Readers, I’m sure that most of you have played a video game. Yes! That interactive entertainment in which you control something trying to accomplish some objective. For example, Eternal Fall is a video game. Okaay, we all know what’s a video game! You don’t have to explain it to us!
I’m sure that anyone of you have stopped to think what’s behind a video game. Well, behind a video game there’s millions of operations that your poor processor has to do at a vertiginous speeds. Well, not, I’m not going to talk about technic aspects. Let’s talk about something more oriented to game design, specifically the graphic style.
Graphics… those so overrated things in an actual game. In theory, a good history and playability would have to make a game be GOD… trillions of years ago. Now, people prefer some striking graphics than a good history with a well done playability… Well, actually this aspects are rated too, but graphics are too much overrated, and I think this is not good.
That’s why I like so much retro games.
Screenshot of Canabalt
Basically, what a retro game has, are some graphics from that prehistoric video console called NES.
Screenshot of Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Lastly, a few indie-games with a retro graphics style have been created, a good example of them is Canabalt, mentioned before. Normally, those games show us a fulminant playability, with a pixelated graphics (and beautiful for a lot of persons. I prefer pixels than polygons =D) and sometimes they present a complete history, becoming beautiful in some cases.
I believe that the designers should give more opportunities to this style, because I think it looks great. In fact, some gamers prefer retro than other styles. Let’s see if a new commercial retro game is released!
Flash Minigame: Eternal fall
27 January 2010
Readers, a ball is trying to kill itself! It has fell for days from a precipice, but below it there’s another and another! Help it!
Stop, stop… WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Well, I’m talking about my new Flash Game! A game made with Erteky’s (a friend) collaboration.!
¿Que de qué estoy hablando? Se trata de mi nuevo juego flash. Un juego salido de la colaboración con Erteky.
The… 
!
Yes! It’s an improved version of a classic adapted formerly by myself, Falling Ball
In the last game, we saw a clearly minimalist style, but in it there’s a graphics improvement.
The game consists on make fall the ball as long as we can. If the ball gets out of the screen from top, we lose.
Poor ball! Is too much frustrating to fell from another precipice and… find another!
So, in our eternal fall (from here comes the game’s name) we’ve to fell off all the precipices that try to stop us and that, as time pass, they go faster.
To help us (or not) in another task, it’ll appear PowerUps, every one with a different features and that we will explain them later.
When we want to play, we press “Play” (logic!) in the Main Menu
And we’ll see something similar to this.
The ball is falling. We can see different precipices and holes to pass in. We can also see a Power-Up (the blue ball with arrows). We can see the seconds counter of our current game (the big 7) and the score we current have (the 20 at the top of screen). At left of the score, we have a suicide button. At the right, there is a button for mute the game, and another for the quality.
Once we die, we find a Game Over screen, with statistics and the final score. In Game Over, we can replay the game or return at our Main Menu.
We have also a submenu that appears when we click right mouse button. It has music and quality control, and links to Erteky and Rolpege’s profiles.
Another place to go from the main screen, is the help screen, where we can see the instructions, controls, and all the power-ups with its features:
Finally, there’s the Extras screen, when we can see the prizes we have recieved (we haven’t staied half an hour dodging walls for anything…). The achievements are the balls, choosable to play with them instead the red ball. They haven’t any special features but a visual aspect.
And now… PLAY THE GAME!
Don’t forget to rate 5 and comment in Kongregate’s page of our game ^__^
Yenka
24 January 2010
Have you ever wanted to experiment with electrical circuits, chemical mixtures or even basic programation in easy ways?
Now you can with Yenka!
This software, available in both Windows and Mac, lets you:
- Learn to code with a very simple way (Drags & Drops), making programmation diagrams. You can combine that with 3D models or other program elements.
- Experiment with 3D figures.
- Learn statistic.
- Experiment with 2D and 3D coordinates.
- Make electrochemistry experiments!
- Do reactions with Inorganic Chemistry.
- Experiment with sound and light.
- Investigate projectiles, oscillations, gravity and motion.
- Simulate power generation and transmission, and analogue electrical circuits.
- Basic Circuits: Use pictorial components to build simple circuits
- Electronics: Design and simulate circuits using over 150 types of component, testing and refining your design as you work.
- Yenka PCBs: an add-on for Yenka Electronics, which takes the circuits you simulate, and converts them into 3D PCB simulations, whose layouts can be exported for manufacture.
- PIC/PICAXE chips: write routines using simple flowcharts, and test them on-screen, before using them to program real PIC or PICAXE chips.
- Gears: Experiment with a range of mechanical components, in full 3D.
All of this and much more is what Yenka lets you to do! The program is free to use in home, but you have to pay for it if you want a school licence. It’s oriented to learning and education. Experiment with Yenka!
