It’s not easy to create the UI side of your game with FlashPunk, as it doesn’t include any UI components like buttons or text fields by default. This isn’t a restriction, though; it just means you’re completely free to create the UI exactly as you like. But you need to know how to do it first! This tutorial will teach you how to build some custom UI components, and show you the different ways you can customize them to exactly fit the style of your game.
(Continue)
In this tutorial we’ll make a reusable countdown timer with a dynamic target date that can be set via XML. We’ll animate the numbers flipping down in the style of an old airport or train station status board. We’ll cover code, graphics creation and animation.
(Continue)
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a menu like Apple’s Dock using AS3 classes. We will create a single AS file that will perform all the magic, extending it to add new features.
(Continue)
Stop using static menus! Most players immediately base their initial impression of a Flash game on the menu that they see when they load it. Stand out from the crowd with an active menu!
This tutorial was first posted in December 2011, but has since been updated with extra steps that explain how to make the code more flexible!
(Continue)
When a user first opens up a Flash game, their initial impression is based upon the menu that they see. Unfortunately, many games’ menus are dull, plain and static. This is terrible news! A lot of players will just close the game before even playing it, and move on to another. Don’t let this happen to you!
(Continue)
In the first part of this series, I introduced a class to handle single mouse stroke detection: MGesture. This tutorial takes it a step further, by detecting a sequence of strokes.
(Continue)
I recently bought my first Bamboo, a Wacom tablet that recognises letters from shapes drawn with the stylus. It tickled memories of my first experience with gesture-controlled application: using mouse gestures, web browsers such as Maxthon (and later Opera) allowed users to quickly move back and forth through webpages in the history, switch between different tabs, and so on. I was facinated by its neat user interface, as it takes away traditional mouse clicks. Of course, sophisticated gesture-controlled devices such as the Kinect, iPad and iPhone are now available – but it all started with the good old PC. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to develop a photo gallery that recognises singular mouse gestures.
(Continue)
Designers vs. developers – it is an argument as old as computers. The truth is, though, neither can live without the other. A brilliant UI design is as worthless without functionality as is the best piece of code with an ugly, unusable frontend. In this first post on UI Basics for developers, I am going to try and lay out some simple ground rules that devs can follow to make sure their apps, templates and prototypes are as beautiful as the code itself – and usable to boot.
(Continue)
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Activetuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
Follow Activetuts+ and Tuts+ on Twitter