"Macromedia Flash MX/MX 2004 Game Programming" takes the reader on a journey through the evolving art of Flash game programming. It is designed for everyone from the absolute beginner to the salty veteran. The book begins with a full introduction to the Flash MX authoring environment. Unlike nearly all web game programming books, this book doesn?t suffer from a lack of depth and shy away from the more advanced concepts that occur in game development. The author builds several games throughout the book, some of which focus heavily on artificial intelligence while another set of games will concentrate on physics. These games will get into mass, velocity, acceleration; etc. Great care is taken to present the foundational information fully and clearly to ensure readers are fully prepared for the challenges to come. Flash often suffers from performance issues due to its heavy chip dependence. The last chapters of this book focus heavily on performance and optimization issues.

If you?ve been searching for a tool that would allow you to create game-like applications with Web programming, you?re not alone. Finally, that tool is available! Flash MX 2004 offers a complete programming solution that can be used to do much more than simply create cool Web sites. "Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Programming" will show you how you can take full advantage of this amazing programming tool. It offers an abundance of tips and techniques for programmers of all levels who want to learn how Flash technology can be used to create games. Each chapter discusses a key element of game programming, using Flash to create a variety of games. All the major areas of game development are covered? from physics and artificial intelligence to collision detection and resolution.

Good introduction to game programming with Flash
This book presents all the concepts needed to get started on your own games in Flash. It covers the basics for game programming and even provides a little on advanced topics. This was my first book on game programming (any type not just in flash) and I can definitely recommend it as a good introduction.

The first two chapters start with brief introductions to Flash and ActionScript. With these chapters, existing knowledge of Flash is not technically needed. But, anyone using this book should probably already understand Flash, including some ActionScript. In lesson 3 we code our first game - a simple mouse chaser. Every lesson after that progressed at a nice pace with each adding a little more material and eventually leading to advanced topics. In lesson 10 we use a recursive function to program an AI for a tic-tac-toe game. Even simple game physics was introduced, including the code needed for object collisions and reflections. Some of the math required includes the trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, tangent), the Pythagorean Theorem and vectors. The last chapter wraps up with a few game and general Flash concepts such as a preloader, loading data dynamically and JavaScript calls. Although no game is introduced here, a simple high score board is demonstrated with CGI as the server side language. All the code for each game or chapter is broken down into small fragments with each explained with plenty of detail. The CD includes project files with all the complete game code as well as without code for those who want to type it out.

Like many programming books there were a few mistakes and problems in this one as well. A few of the project files had library symbols with incorrect identifiers in the linkage properties window. Sometimes small code fragments or even functions, which did appear in the final code listing, were missing along with the usual related discussion. Also, the actual placement of code occasionally needed to be clearer. However, the completed games on CD worked perfectly and the code listing at the end of each chapter helped to correct any errors or confusion. Ultimately, a support website with an errata sheet could have helped. One final note is that this book does not go too much into object oriented programming (OOP). Only a single chapter is dedicated to the topic and no example game. Anyone interested in OOP based games will need to look for another book.

Very well paced
I was a bit hesitant to purchase the book because I have had a bad experience with other books in the series. However, Craig Murray does an excellent job of pacing the information so that you never feel like you are learning too little or trying to cram too much. Very well done and lots of good information.

Great place to start
I always wanted to make games, but making games with languages
like c++, java, visual basic is not an easy job. Thanks to
Macromedia it in now much easier to make games with Flash than it was ever before. Therefore Macromedia Flash mx 2004 Game Programming is a great place to start. Why? Well this book is
simple, fun and easy to follow. You dont need to have a computer science degree. Even if you ever have programmed games
with other languages, this book will open your eyes on capabilities of Flash. The book starts with an introduction to
Flash enviroment and scripting. These two chapters could’ve
been removed. Any one having no knowledge of Flash can never
attempt to programme games. It is obvious that one must have
some minor(or in some cases major) understanding of the tool.
This book also does not cover any thing about sound. I think
sound is a great way to convey your message. If the authors have replaced the first two chapters with a sound chapter,
this book could have been a great book. But even without any sound it is still a great book to read.

Good for stated purpose but still need reference book
This is a pretty decent book in an easy-to follow format which does a great job of providing information for it’s stated purpose (Flash MX game programming).

As an experienced programmer who just started toying with Flash, I would say this book certainly opened my eyes to the capabilities of Flash and Actionscript. After reading Chapter 6, it took about an hour to modify the "Space Invaders" type game into a "Math Blaster" game to help my son learn his multiplication tables.

It also does an admirable job of being useful for beginners and experienced programmers. For those already familiar with Javascript, there will be a lot of repeated material but the book’s format makes this easy to skim through.

Now for the problems. First off, the index is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I typically scan through an entire book to see what kind of information is available then use the index when I need to look up the specifics. This book might as well not have one. I finally started writing my own additions in the margins of the index pages.

The second problem probably isn’t fair to mention but, because of the useless index, you will definitely still need a good Actionscript reference (is there one out there?). Again, to be fair, the book never claims to be a reference.

If you plan to program Flash games or just want to learn what Flash is capable of doing, read this book. If you’re looking for a reference guide, move on (and please let me know when you find one).