Mobile and Devices Boot Camp at MAX Chicago

Adobe MAX 2007 is about a week away. This year in addition to the Flash Lite and Mobile sessions, there will be a special session : The Mobile and Devices Boot Camp, on Wednesday 9AM-12:30PM.

The managers of the seven Adobe Mobile and Devices User Groups have put together the event with some great content and presenters. The idea behind the "MaD Boot Camp" is to allow anyone interested in Mobile and Flash Lite to ask questions and share their ideas. The format of this session will be pretty informal with presentations, discussions and Q/A. We think that its going to be great and we invite anyone to join us and bring your Flash Lite content to show others.

Here is the tentative agenda -

1. Mobile and Devices Boot Camp Introduction
2. Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group Introductions
3. Content Showcases
4. Tools and Integration
5. Adobe MAX Awards Mobiles and Devices finalists
6. Flash Lite content aggregators
7. OEM: Nokia and Chumby
8. Adobe Mobile and Devices Team
9. Open Discussion Forum
10. Q/A

Hope to see you there!

Mobile Sessions at MAX 2007 NA

With only 16 days left for the Adobe MAX conference, its necessary that our session planning leaves us with space to attend as many good presentations as we can. There are 9 great mobile sessions happening at MAX along with a 3 hour Boot Camp for all the Flash and mobile developers/designers out there. Make sure you attend them because they are planned across the 3 days in a manner that one can attend all.

Session Name - XD: Designing Engaging Mobile Experiences
Level - Beginner
Description - This session will cover the guiding principles for designing engaging mobile experiences, an entirely new class of mobile services. Engaging mobile experiences put the user experience first. As a result, these experiences prioritize usability, offer new services, and deliver content instantaneously. More importantly, they build a powerful affinity with the user. They provide experiences that are expressive, memorable, and more desirable. Come learn the fundamental aspects of such experiences.

Session Name - Flash Lite 3 Development
Level - Beginner
Description - The newest version of Flash Lite introduces support for FLV and many other exciting new features. Learn how to create compelling content for multiple devices, from smart phones to consumer electronics devices. Be the first to see Flash Lite 3 demos on the latest and greatest handsets.

Session Name - Flash Lite Success Story
Level - Beginner
Description - Design Assembly, one of the top Flash Lite studios in Europe, has published several high-quality Flash Lite games enjoyed by consumers worldwide. Find out how this small company with a passion for Flash created a growing business on Flash Lite, and discover the many go-to-market opportunities available to Flash Lite developers.

Session Name - From Desktop to Mobile: New Revenue Opportunities
Level - Beginner
Description - Learn how you can make money by selling your Flash Lite content through various mobile content aggregators worldwide. If you already know Flash, then you have the potential to create Flash Lite content and generate recurring revenue for your creativity and ideas. In this session, we'll explore the entire workflow for mobile content creation, from concept development and design to determining addressable devices, selling your content, and getting paid on a recurring basis.

Session Name - Mobile Workflows with Creative Suite 3 Web Premium
Level - Beginner
Description - Discover how to create and reuse web content such as video and images for mobile devices using Adobe Device Central CS3, the all-new mobile authoring and device intelligence tool that’s integrated across Creative Suite 3. We'll touch on Flash CS3 Professional, Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, and more. Learn tips and tricks to design, preview, and test engaging mobile content across various handsets.


Session Name - 20 Tricks to Improve Flash Lite Development
Level - Intermediate
Description - Boost your efficiency and speed time to market with these 20 tips and tricks for improving Flash Lite development. Flash Lite experts will teach you how to optimize content, streamline workflows, and take full advantage of Adobe Device Central CS3, the new mobile authoring and device intelligence tool integrated across Adobe Creative Suite 3.

Session Name - Introduction to Flash Lite 2
Level - Intermediate
Description - This session is a deep-diving workshop on developing Flash Lite content and applications. We'll begin with a general Flash Lite tutorial and then move on to more detailed information on how to develop content for mobile operators, including Verizon Wireless.

Session Name - Creating Flash Lite Multiplayer Games
Level - Intermediate
Description - The market for multiplayer games is growing. Learn how you can take your existing desktop Flash skills and leverage them to create multiplayer Flash Lite games using Flash Lite 2.1. You’ll learn the process involved in developing, testing, and deploying your multiplayer games to consumers worldwide.

Session Name - Creating Flash Cast Channels for Verizon Wireless
Level - Intermediate
Description - Be among the first to build and monetize Flash Cast channels for Verizon Wireless. Use Flash CS3 Professional to deliver compelling content to North America’s second largest mobile operator. Learn the process for creating and testing Flash Cast channels and how Verizon Wireless plans to enable a Flash Cast ecosystem in North America.

Session Name - Boot Camp for Mobile and Devices
Level - All
Description - Boot Camp provides a mixture of short presentations, workshops, and free-form coding. The Mobile and Devices User Group managers are planning an exciting and interesting three-hour collaborative session. Make sure to bring your laptop, your best questions, your most desired features, your coolest projects to share, and be ready to learn something new.

Old Misleading Google Alerts

What is it with Google Alerts and and really old news being sent out even today?

This afternoon I received a Google Alert talking about a tie up between Macromedia and Calsoft Labs. Reading the news got me smiling because it spoke about embedding Flash Lite on handsets in India and the other countries. And then it got me thinking...why Macromedia and not Adobe doing the Flash Lite deals.... Reality struck when I read the date of the news, which was sometime in October-November 2005.

This is not the first time that Google Alerts has sent an old news, its happened in the past as well. I really wish they could give the latest blog entries as it appears in their results.

Miniclip CEO talks to Gamasutra on their Social and Advergaming approach...Flash Lite and Wii

As a regular player of Flash games on the Miniclip Gaming Site, I was always facinated by the creativity with which they developed and managed a mammoth database of games (260 games so far). At the same time was curious to know how they managed to sustain in times of hardcore downloadable PC games in the likes of those available on MSN, Shockwave, or Yahoo.

So when the Gamasutra News Portal interviewed Robert Small, Ceo of Miniclip Games, I read through the complete page in utmost reverence.

The interview begins with a history of Miniclip followed by their strategies to stand out amongst the rest and their future plans....all related to Flash gaming. For those who have played their games, will know that a majority of their games stand unique in concept and game-play thus leading to millions of game-clicks. It is also important to observe their evolution of developing games with Flash 4 through Flash 9 and AS 3.0

A note to be made during the interview is their expansion plan, i.e. taking their online games beyond the web to the Nintendo Wii and mobiles with Flash Lite.

This story is a great read for anybody interested in Flash gaming...because it only reads success for those who don't treat it as a profession but a passion they want to realize.

You can catch the complete interview here

Flash Lite article - Packing Lite: A mobile media interface design primer

Launched recently on the Adobe Developer Center is a new article called Packing Lite: A mobile media interface design primer, written by David Carroll, professor of media design at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City.

The article has an indepth explaination of testing and tranferring Flash Lite content on Nokia S60 handsets. It is extensively written to cover content testing in Flash 8 and Flash CS3 for management on both the Mac and the Windows platform.

The article also explains best methods for adapting your content to the 4 way directional pad on mobiles with a quick 4-way menu example.

You can read the article here.

Creating a Flash Lite Game : A detailed tutorial for game developers

Giving new Flash Lite developers a headstart in creating games, Riyadh Al Balushi has written an indepth tutorial on creating a simple game using Flash Lite 1.1.

The tutorial is very informative and talks of various steps involved in Flash Lite gaming.

Flash Lite Gaming Tutorial : Continuous KeyPress for Moving Characters in Side-Scrollers

Action or adventure based games may require characters to move around the screen. We use the Key Object for interacting with the game characters. While keypresses and keyreleases respond quickly when the swf file runs on the desktop, these events work differently for swfs running on a mobile. A valid reason is that mobiles have lesser processing speeds thus making it slower for them to recognize keypresses or keyreleases before implementing them.

Thus, when you try to move a character with a keypress, you will observe a slight pause before the character starts moving. A solution that I mostly use is, making the keypress event interact with a loaded Movieclip.

The Key Events

var keyList:Object = new Object();
var dir:Number = 0;
var keyDownState:Boolean = false;

We begin by declaring 3 variables –
keyList of Object type to receive the KeyDown and KeyUp notifications,
dir of type Number to store the direction of the character based on the keys pressed
keyDownState of type Boolean to check whether the key is pressed down or up.

keyList.onKeyDown = function(){
  if(not keyDownState){
    var keyCode = Key.getCode();
    if(keyCode == 37){
      dir = -1;
    }else if(keyCode == 39){
      dir = 1;
    }
    keyMover.gotoAndPlay(2);
    char.gotoAndPlay(2);
    char._xscale = 100*dir;
    keyDownState = true;
  }
}

keyList.onKeyUp = function(){
  dir = 0;
  keyDownState = false;
  char.gotoAndStop(1);
  keyMover.gotoAndPlay(1);
}

The code above declares 2 events – The KeyDown event and the KeyUp event.

A KeyDown event is executed when a key is pressed. This event runs a block of code as long as the key remains pressed. Our code on the other hand, runs the statements only once and not continuously because the condition (if not keyDownState) fails to be recognized as false after its first run. The reason why we have set this condition is, because we don’t want to loop through the same code multiple times for the same key pressed.

var keyCode = Key.getCode();

The getCode() method return the key code value of the last key pressed. Based on the value returned, the direction of the character is set. This code checks for only 2 keys – the Left key and the Right key. Any other key pressed is ignored.
keyMover.gotoAndPlay(2);
char.gotoAndPlay(2);
char._xscale = 100*dir;

If you look at the script above, in the first line keyMover refers to a loaded MovieClip on the stage that contains the script to move the character.

The second line refers to the character MovieClip. This MC initially has the character in a standing posture on frame 1. When a key is pressed the character moves to the next frame which has it animating.

Lastly, we need to flip the character based on the key pressed. So we use the _xscale property to flip the character based on the key pressed.

A KeyUp event is called when a key is released. In our code, all the variables are reset to their original value and Movieclips proceed to halt on the first frame of their timeline at the time of a KeyUp event.

KeyMover Movie Clip

The KeyMover MovieClip consists of 3 frames

Frame 1
var mc:MovieClip = _root.char;
var dir:Number = 0;
var speed:Number = 3;
stop();

The first frame sets the necessary variables and also sets a reference to the character MovieClip on stage.

Frame 2
dir = _root.dir;
if(mc._x < mc._width/2 and dir < 0){
  dir = 0;
}else if(mc._x > (Stage.width – mc._width/2) and dir > 0){
  dir = 0;
}
mc._x += speed*dir;


The second frame sets a condition to check to see if the character is moving outside the screen area. If the condition is met to true then the direction is set to 0

Finally the character moves at a value which is direction X velocity

Frame 3
gotoAndPlay(2);

The third frame loops the Movieclip between frame 2 and 3.

The Final Run

Now when you play this in the emulator or the device the character will respond immediately to the keypressed without any pause.

The source file has been uploaded for your reference here

Time to MAX in Chicago with Adobe

That time of the year has come when I will be spending more time creating presentation files than game files. Yes, the Adobe MAX Conference is another 3 months away and I’m really excited to be going there this year too. Preparations are already underway and I want to make sure that I am able to do a great if not a good presentation :D

This is my third stint at a MAX conference as a speaker and it always keeps getting better. My topic for this year is “Creating Flash Lite Multiplayer Games” with Flash Lite 2.1. Although this area is not well explored in Flash Lite for various hiccups that a developer and user may face during execution and playing, it is relatively better researched and implemented with other technologies. Through this presentation I hope to discuss various points relating to the development of multiplayer games along with a live game demo and maybe even a demo which is cross-platform-cross-technology ….interesting….just writing this got me a little more pepped up!

I would also be a part of the MaD Boot Camp which will be lead by all our Mobile and Devices UG Managers. It will be an unstructured and open session for anyone to ask questions or make comments, share coding problems, discuss workflow issues, share demos, and more. The community experts will provide guidance, tips, tricks, mobile industry knowledge, and anything else to help those who are new and those who are already developing applications and content for mobile devices.

I will also be helping out James Talbot for his pre-event training session with Flash Lite 2….and attending many sessions during the conference when I am not taking them.

The five days in Chicago are going to be simply great and I’m looking forward to being there. Hope to catch you there too!

Inauguration of the Flash Lite player on the Nokia N95..with what else but a game

Following all the talk on blogs and websites about a recently touted multimedia computer phone, I finally gifted myself a Nokia N95 last weekend... and was I the envy of all around me!

My first expression after getting a grip of the phone was - "What can I do to inaugurate the phone?", and the answer was very simple....to do what I am good at, ie. develop a game in Flash Lite and play it on the phone!

So thats what I have been working on for the past 2 days, a simple game called Bust the Blocks developed in Flash Lite version 2.x. The game concept is very simple where the user has to bust 3 similar colored blocks by moving them around the grid.

I wouldn't consider this one of my best games, because most of them involves a team effort, but this one is good enough to be downloaded and played. I have provided the link below to download and play it on the phone for entertainment purpose only.

Link to Bust the Blocks
Distribution of this game/other developer's game on any website without the author's permission is illegal and should be reported immediately.

Some pointers for the game -

1. Developed in a resolution of 240X320 (will upload a version in resolution of 176X208)
   
2. Works on phones supporting FL 2.x
3. Features are yet to be added...suggestions are welcome (will upload new file in a few days)
   
4. Designers are welcome to help make the game more visually appealing :)

Flash Lite on Handango – A Reality Check

I have been following the Flash Lite content spill on Handango and have observed a number of points which I hope will get noticed for the benefit of the community and the technology –

1. Pricing of content needs immediate attention.
While browsing through the content I noticed that while there are some games priced at a range of $5-10, there are some also priced at $0.50. The pricing of wallpapers is even more shocking with some of them being priced at $4.99!!

With uneven pricing of content, I wonder if users are really paying to download content, or rather even having faith in the content?

According to me, a good price for games on Handango (which are not even a Single A Titles) should be approximately between $1-3 and wallpapers around $0.25-0.50, which can be maintained across the content.

2. No monitoring on content quality
There is no monitoring on the quality of content going up on Handango. Developers are coming up with varied content and pushing it on the portal with the intension of getting great downloads. Serious quality content developers are then getting lost amongst the populaters.

3. High downloads for free content and humble downloads for paid content
Free content on Handango is seeing more acceptance and testing, than content that is paid. Could this also stem from the fact that the content quality and pricing are not monitored?


I feel that if developers are serious about the technology and want it to be accepted positively on a wider scale, they should try forming a community and coming to a consensus about their sale strategy, instead of just building Flash Lite content and putting it up at Handango at a price convenient to them! Infact the team at Handango can help developers build such community on their portal itself.

It would be great if I could get some feedback on this topic because I have been thinking about it since a long time.

Survival of the fittest – Flash Lite, Silverlight Embedded or JavaFX Mobile?

There seems to be a splurge of new technologies being introduced in the recent months by the biggies. Just when serious debates had actually begun making rounds comparing Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to Adobe’s Flash technology, yesterday there was yet another announcement made by Sun Microsystems at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco.

Sun introduced the JavaFX platform focused exclusively for rich application development (RIA), placing it on the same platform as Adobe’s Flash/Flex and Microsoft’s Silverlight development environment.

According to the announcement made, the first product which would be introduced of the JavaFX family would be the JavaFX Mobile. Sun plans to sell the JavaFX Mobile directly to the handset manufacturers and at the same time also give away its open-source JavaFX Script for developers to use to create applications for the 5 billion devices that already run Java.

Read this article for more news

As a developer I’d only like to comment by saying that there is absolutely no doubt that Java ME has always ruled on mobiles. Although it has had a successful round of 6 years, and is now considered to be graying, launching of the JavaFX Mobile may be a great move by Sun to inject a new life into it. A move to also prevent developer conversion and divert the media attention from Flash Lite. They might also be hoping to attract developers to get back to developing better and richer mobile content with a technology they are most familiar with.

Silverlight Embedded still has a long way to go in proving itself, but Flash Lite which is currently in news will have to penetrate much more across regions for consumers to gain faith in it. Apart from US and Japan, Flash Lite is yet to see a carrier and consumer adoption on a large scale like Java on mobiles.

In Conversation with Ian Livingstone

I had the opportunity to meet and hear one of the biggest author and entrepreneur in the field of gaming - Ian Livingstone.

Ian was in Mumbai celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the world famous icon - Lara Croft, a character he and his team have been associated with since a long time. The videos of the Tomb Raider Anniversary looked really awesome!

His presentation titled "Life is a Game" spoke in depth about his life, starting right from the time he and his friends who were right out of college created fliers about games they played, to the opening of his store - Games Workshop, and then his role as an author for books like Fighting Fantasy and the extremely popular Deathtrap Dungeon.

Today he is a Creative Director at Eidos in UK and is completely involved in promoting one of their biggest IPs - Lara Croft. There were a number of points he made during his presentation about game development which he felt has made him very successful -

1. Always be original and never copy ideas. A character like Lara Croft was concieved when the gaming space was completely dominated by male character based games. The innovation lied in creating a tough, confident yet sexy character for a game that would appeal to all genders.
2. Gameplay is the most important aspect of any game. A lot of game developers give a weightage to graphics but experience has shown that if a gameplay is weak even the best looking game will fail.
3. Market analysis was not considered very important a couple of years back, but today it is a very important aspect of game development. Every game you create should go through some focus test to know its viability in the market and amongst the masses.
4. Its always best to create your own successful IP (Intellectual Property) than licence one. Lara Croft is a good example of a simple game character getting successful. There are Lara Croft games created on a variey of consoles, she represents brands in advertisements, she has made it across to the movies, she has branded merchandise....and she has made billions for her creators.
5. Sticking to conventions. Lara Croft was known to be a character who lives at exotic locales and tradional tombs, so getting her to the modern streets of Paris failed with the audiences.
6. Quality is more important than Quantity. You would never hear a person saying that the movie was bad but atleast it 10 hours long!
7. A game or any software the most important thing. Nobody will purchase a hardware or console if there is no great software.

When Ian was asked the question of who would he select from Bollywood (The Indian Film Industry) for the role of Lara Croft, his prompt reply was Shilpa Shetty because she was the only actress he knew from the Big Brother controversy in UK.

Overall it was a great experience, and I am glad I got to be a part of it.

Mariam

BlueskyNorth recounts its success story with The Journal

In this short story covered by the icNewCastle, Paul Lamonby of BlueskyNorth (a leading Flash Lite content development company) talks about the growth of his company, his team and their plans for game releases with operators across Europe.

One of their expected launches is a game called Fickle Blocks on the Orange Mobile Phone networks.

Airtel - India's largest telecom service provider launches Flash Lite

Airtel which is India's largest telecom service provider today launched Flash Lite content via their WAP portal - Airtel Live!

They have a upto 4 pages of Flash Lite games listed which are priced at the Indian Currency of Rupees 50, - a good enough rate for single A titles. Currently the games are supported on S60 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition phones. For those users holding older devices, instructions are provided to visit the Adobe website to download the player before playing the games.

The launch may see its set of teething problems but atleast it reflects the Indian community's acceptance of Flash Lite content for their Flash enabled handsets.

Flash Lite Article - Introducing Adobe Device Central CS3

With the launch of CS3, Adobe has a new article up on their Dev Centre Introducing the Adobe Device Central CS3 authored by Winston Wang, Senior Product Manager for Mobile Authoring at Adobe.

The article lists the features of the Device Central and also gives interesting points on the challenges and promises of working with mobiles.

Device Central CS3 will help simplify mobile content creation

The Creative Suite 3 will be one of the better launches by Adobe this year, especially for mobile content creators like us.

Many developers currently using the Flash Lite emulator might have thought if the code they're writing will run with the same consistency and speed on the device as it would on the PC. And 90% of the times this proved to be true.

But with the Device Central, developers will be able to preview their work and test mobile content instantly within their authoring environments. They would also be able to interact with the content in the same way as they would on a real phone.

According to an article on MacWorld, Device Central will feature a built-in library of more than 200 mobile device profiles from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, among others and operators such as Verizon, so users can view at-a-glance details on the capabilities, constraints and features of individual devices. The profiles will be continuously updated by Adobe as new phones come out.

Says Anup Murarka, Adobe’s Director for Technical Marketing, Mobile and Devices about the CS3 launch, “In many ways it’s an extension of what we are doing in the rest of the company. How do people reach their customers in print, Web and increasingly on mobile phones. It extends everything Adobe has done on other media to mobile."

Apple iPhones being sold on eBay although shipping is scheduled for June 2007

I read this crazy news today which stated that E-bay had the exclusive Apple iPhones up for sale on their website, and nearly 23 people fell for the scam by agreeing to purchase the phones for large sums. The highest bidder of this transaction agreed to pay $1125 for 1 of the 6 phones that had been put up for sale.

This is probably one of the best examples of the frenzy that the iPhone has got the people into. I can equate this sitaution to a Harry Potter book where people are willing to pay huge amounts just to get hold of the initial unedited copy....

Can't imagine what the actual phone launch will do in June!

Sony Ericsson anounces new Walkman phones at CTIA

Via biskero, Sony Ericsson announced new Walkman phone W580 at CTIA which are Flash Lite enabled - W580i and W888c.

The slim music phones are said to deliver a full walkman experience along with gaming, imaging and fitness applications.

Says Najmi Jarwala, president, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (USA) Inc. "The W580, the latest in our extensive line of Walkman phones, is exceptionally cool looking. But most importantly it was designed first and foremost for the needs of North American consumers who want to listen to their favorite music on the go with the one device they always carry with them -- their mobile phone."

Amp'd reinvents Motorola Q with a Flash Lite UI

According to the news on GearLog

"Youth-oriented mobile carrier Amp'd got their first smartphone today in the Motorola Q - but this isn't quite the Q you know from Verizon and Sprint. Amp'd has completely redone the user interface in Adobe's Flash Lite, into an animated carnival of ... well, it looks a lot like Amp'd's animated Amp'd Live interface on their other phones. The Q also plays Amp'd TV and all of Amp'd's content - a real breath of fresh air compared to other carriers who don't have versions of their popular entertainment apps for smartphones. And it's still a Q, which means that you can send e-mail, sync with your PC, and maybe even get some work done."

The magic word is Flash Lite which makes up the phone's UI. I remember Amp'd hiring Flash Lite UI designers sometime last year...and I guess we now know why.

The phone would go on sale sometime in April for $199 on the Amp'd website.

Flash Lite games launch in APAC

Sometime back I had posted an entry talking about Iguana Mobiles launching Flash Lite content in Singapore. Well, they are finally out with the games on their website and this time the games can be puchased online in countries like Brunei Darussalam, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.

The games are downloaded through GPRS over WAP on the users phone. It feels good to see the Flash Lite Ecosystem operating in full swing in APAC.

Link to the Iguana Mobile Flash page for Indiagames
Link to the Iguana Mobile Flash page for CELL

You can also check the list of other publishers who have a catalogue of Flash and Java games.