Mariam Dholkawala's Blog: November 2007

Mobile Facts - A New Segment

Sometimes I read or come across interesting market facts or news which I would like to share with the rest of the mobile community. For this, I have created a small space on the right hand panel of my blog for a segment called Mobile Facts.

I will try updating this as often as possible but to start with today - It is great to know that the big mobile game bubble is still floating well, with research done by Disney shows that the average time spent by an individual on a mobile game has increased from 11 minutes to 18 minutes...

Very encouraging for mobile game developers.

Labels: General

Help the Environment by playing a game

Clickgamer has started a campaign this holiday season to give back the best it can to the planet. Starting today through mid January, Clickgamer is giving away free downloads of its game - Snowed in 6, Deep Freeze.

If the number of free downloads reaches 1 million, Chillingo, the company behind Clickgamer, will donate $ 10,000 to a non-profit climate change organization. The game runs on all popular smartphone platforms.

This is what Chris Byatte, Managing Director of Chillingo has to say -

"Every Christmas, we have given away a new version of Snowed In to all our customers and site visitors as a thank you and goodwill gesture for their support. This year, in keeping with tradition, we are releasing Snowed In 6 - Deep Freeze but with a difference - we will donate $10,000 to a non-profit climate change organization when the download counter hits 1 million. The mobile content market has seen dramatic change over the last 6 years that we have been operating. As an independent mobile commerce business, we provide the mobile market with an alternative source for high quality content irrespective of mobile operators. Last but not least, I hope everyone enjoys this year's rendition of Snowed In - and 'play' a small part in stopping climate change!"

Labels: General

CSV in Flash Lite

Recently I'd been working on an application that required Flash Lite to import data from a CSV file format.

CSV stands for "Comma Separated Value". It is a standard means of exchanging data, and virtually all spreadsheets and databases can import data presented in this fashion. This is what a CSV spreadsheet will look like when opened in Excel.

For Flash Lite to import data from a CSV file format, you can make use of a middle language - PHP. Written below is a basic code showing interaction between Flash Lite and PHP for reading CSV files.

PHP File


$file = $_POST['link'];
$row = 1;
$handle = fopen($file, "r");
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
   $num = count($data);
   $row++;
   for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {              
      echo "&data$row$c".$data[$c];
   }
}
fclose($handle);

The code above is accepting the CSV file URL from the 'link' variable sent from Flash, and tossing it into the 'fopen' command. It is then parsing the result using 'fgetcsv', and echoing the returned data value back into Flash.

Flash File


varSender = new LoadVars();
varReceiver = new LoadVars();
varSender.link = "http://myurl.com/test.csv";
varSender.sendAndLoad(url, varReceiver, "POST");
varReceiver.onLoad = function(){
   trace(varReceiver.data10);
};
stop();

The Flash file is sending the 'link' variable to the PHP file and receiving the 'echoed' values from PHP in the 'varReceiver' Object. The received values can then be used within the application.

Flash Lite interaction with CSV can be very useful in reading data for several games and applications. You can use this code and explore the possibilities of adding much more interaction to your content.

Labels: Flash Lite, Flash Lite Tutorial

Spotlight - Flash Lite Game Development

Last week I had the opportunity to talk to Marco Lapi, admin of GotoAndPlay.it, about Flash Lite and mobile gaming. For those who may not know, GoToAndPlay.it has a huge resource of tutorials, sample files, and game files for web and mobile game developers.

Our conversation of last week has been compiled into an article and published on their website. To read it you can follow the link - http://www.gotoandplay.it/spotLight/mobileDevelopment/

Labels: Flash Lite