Cloud based games services are aiming to be the next big thing in gaming. Rather than having a console or expensive PC process the game, a server in the cloud does it for you. The resulting frames will be streamed down over the internet. With it all being done so fast it’s as if it’s happening locally. So you can get your games on demand.
Onlive is the closest service to being ready. With beta tests going on right now. They’re currently aiming for a June 17th launch in the USA.
I’m pretty sceptical at the moment, as its got to be perfect if its going to work. Even a slight bit of lag and it will be annoying. Also $15.00 a month plus the cost of the games might not make it cheaper than just buying a console and games. Still with nearly all the big game publishers are backing it, its got great potential.
Flixel is a framework for Flash to make creating games easier and its completely free!
A framework is basically a set of prewritten classes or code that can be re-used for different projects. It means that a lot of the ground work for creating a game, such as a state machine, is already set up for you.
It’s been designed with old style pixel based games in mind, hence the name, but can be used with any other style.
It seems to be getting updated pretty regularly too. I started making my game in version 1.52 a couple of months ago and its already on version 2.0.
Recently someone has ported the framework to Unity which is a 3d game development tool. Basically meaning that you can create a Flixel game and export it to a variety of different systems such as the iPhone and Wii, providing you have the right software licenses.
Unity is definitely something I want to learn how to use and its basic version, which lets you create games for web, PC and Mac is free too.
“HYPE is a creative coding framework built on top of ActionScript 3. A major goal of HYPE is to allow newcomers to Flash and ActionScript to creatively play and express themselves while they are learning how to program.”
I haven’t tried this out yet but it looks really interesting.
