Play, Live, Work, Enjoy.

Not much to say at this point… but wow… given the opportunity… play this game. 5th Cell rocks out once again… and this time with distribution by the WB no less.

Here's a little help… if you get stuck or are trying for something unique… visit the ScribbleNauts Fan / Guide Site for hints, tips, and object lists!

Here's a description from their site…

The game centers around Maxwell and his quest to obtain Starites. However, to claim them he needs to overcome certain puzzles and these can be solved by summoning items. For example, if a Starite is out of reach, Maxwell can write ladder on his notebook and it will appear, so he can climb it. This is only a very simple example though, as there could be many other ways to obtain the same Starite.

There are approximately 220 levels in the game, and players will be able to summon animals, weapons, forces of nature, famous people (both fictional and real), vehicles, household objects, and even internet memes as they attempt to obtain all of the Starites.

If you read the title of this blog post and thought… "Wow! Now that's a combination I could really get into!" Then you're right there with us. If not, read on, and at least you'll get where we're coming from. We were more than psyched when Roadrunner Records came calling looking for a metal twist on the casual game.

I pride myself on listening to all kinds of music, and although my earliest memories were of The Beatles and Bob Dylan; the first records I got on my own included Holy Diver, by Dio and Mellissa, by Mercyful Fate (an early Roadrunner Records act). Incidentally, one of Roadrunner's artists, Killswitch Engage does a killer cover of the (Holy Diver) title track…. magical rock lives on!

Anyhow, the news is that we're working on a series of casual games for the Roadrunner Records website. The first game recently launched and we're happy to see that the site's users are already begging for more. Photo Moshup is basically an online adaptation of the barcade classic Photo Hunt where users have to identify differences between two images. All of the games we're making for Roadrunner feature dynamically generated content and quality music clips of the bands featured in the game.

Keep an eye on the Our Work and Games sections of our website for links to more games as they launch. Works in progress include a tile swapping game with an arachnid twist to it and a Legend of Zelda style adventure in support of Madina Lake's upcoming release Attics to Eden.

Play PHOTO MOSHUP on RoadrunnerRecords.com

Wishing all of you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year from all of us here at JRVisuals LLC.

As has been our tradition since the founding of our company we have released a holiday game as a gift to our clients, friends, and family.

Ease back into your work-flow by taking a little break and playing this unique and original Penguin Panic Flash game… and thing about the environmental impact of our society while you're at it.

Help the penguin stave off the effects of global warming by pushing magical ice cubes into the water. Catch fish to keep your penguin healthy. Try to avoid getting hit in the head by falling cubes. Don't let too many pile up or you will sink.

Play Penguin Panic IV : Penguin Pusher

One of my favorite memories as a child growing up in New York City was taking the one train downtown with my grandmother and walking down Fifth Avenue and around Herald Square to see the holiday window decorations. They were always amazing and that is one thing that has not changed.

Our friend, and client, photographer Richard Cadan (RichardCadan.com) has started a tradition of his own. For the last three years… the moment these windows are unveiled he braves the weather and the crowds of shoppers in order to capture the holiday spirit… and some amazing images along with it. To celebrate this imagery and wish his clients a happy holiday season Cadan has commissioned us to create a Flash slide show of these images in time with the Nutcracker Suite and some programmatic snow.

If you have a chance to visit NYC this time of year… make sure you make it downtown for this spectacle… if not… you can get a glimpse right here… View Richard Cadan's Holiday Window Images.

What can I say… FlashPitt was awesome! I had a great time with some great people and saw some interesting Flash and non-Flash presentations.

This was a one day show… and a long day it was. The key note by Lee Brimelow of Adobe was very cool. A lot of what we had already seen here and there with some new bits. The fact that the new drawing API allows for 3D triangles just seems to open the doors for all sorts of 3D enhancements. One of the samples Lee showed was a super slick first-person-shooter style interface. Julian Dolce's physical computing presentation inspired me to work on my "Soma Room" project. Stacey Mulcahy did not fail to impress… she speaks the truth and has some wicked funny slides to back it up. Golan Levin had some amazing non-Flash tech to show… very inspiring as well.

My presentation on Flash Games in AS3 went pretty well. I've posted the source code for the Space Invaders game I used as a case study here: http://www.jrvisuals.com/content/flashpitt08/ and plan to pretty up the page a bit as soon as I get some time. I'll also be posting my slides and updating the SI source code soon.
As always the conference wrapped with a dinner and drinks… many drinks. The next day, after a few cups of coffee, Val, Julian, Stacey, and PaperVision guru John Lindquist and I got to hit the local Apple Store and a cool art museum called the Mattress Factory.

I love the buzz of these industry conferences… meeting new people… hearing what's new and coming up directly from Adobe staff… comparing notes with other Flashers… not to mention partying with all these folks. Good times. These "smaller" one or two day conferences are nice too since they are much more affordable and don't require so much time away from home. Kudos to the FlashPitt organizers… I hope to be invited to speak at next years show!

Flashpitt happens on October 10th, 2008 at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh, PA. I'll be there as a speaker, friend of the organizers, and attendee. I'm really looking forward to it. As much as I love the larger conferences and festivals like Flash in the Can and FlashForwars there's something to be said for smaller more dynamic festivals such as this one.

Flashpitt is a one-day conference for multimedia designers, developers, and artists. It's Pittsburgh’s first major Flash-centric conference. National and international industry leaders will be present to inspire, educate, and challenge the region’s Flash community. The speaker line up will share inside tips, new technologies and behind the scenes looks to Flashpitt’s attendees.

Just a quick link out… you've got to take a look at what these lunatics have done. Go to the link below and click on NoxTools on the upper-right tab. Basically a whole set of synthesizers, sequencers, and effects pedals — built in Flash!!

Fun stuff — now if you could only export an MP3!
http://www.hobnox.com

I recently had the pleasure of teaching an intro to ActionScript 3 class at Campuslinc here in Buffalo. The students were mostly college level instructors and support staff at regional institutions like the University at Buffalo and Canisius College. We had some great conversations over lunch in regards to how best to teach Flash and how to generate a solid curriculum that would provide job-ready candidates to the talent-starved new media industry. The training location was great, the equipment was very good, the chairs were comfy (which is very important for a 7 hour session) and the fact that there was coffee on hand throughout the day was awesome.

Overall it was a great experience. We covered a variety of topics from the basics ("Variables, Functions, Classes") to more advanced techniques ("Sound, External Loading, XML, E4X").

The one negative note I feel compelled to mention was the book and companion CD-Rom that we were given as courseware. The course outline was solid… and that was about it. The book was riddled with errors, typos both in the English language and the ActionScript language it was meant to cover. It seemed that this was a first draft. The code samples were no better. They were inconsistent with the written portion and in many cases published out with errors. Maybe I'm setting my bar a little higher than most, being a game developer but the "finished game" that was supposed to be the payoff of the learning experience was poor at best. I expected much more from the folks at Fig Leaf.

In the end, based on a student's suggestion we stopped using the books examples and I went through the final 4 units on the fly. This worked out, as we ended up with an extra hour at the end of the day during which I walked the class through creating a simple slide-show using all of the aspects of AS3 we had covered over the three days. I will be posting a ZIP with all of the source files from this class soon.

Looks like SWF Object 2.0 is finally out of beta. Looks like a bit has changed… merging the existing SWF Object and UFO / SWFFix methodologies — including methods of embedding that are strictly markup based and the more traditional JavaScript based method.
Take a look at the updated documentation for more information or the article on A List Apart, "Flash Embedding Cage Match", for more detailed information on the art of the Flash embed.

A pretty cool addition on the project site is the ability to download an Adobe AIR SWF Object Generator — this nifty little desktop app takes your specific needs and spits out all the code necessary to drop your SWF on a page in style. There is also an HTML version of the code generator online.

Once again you can find the project's home here on Google Code.