Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with something I hadn’t touched in ages – Flash games! Specifically, I got the idea to try and make a simple volleyball game. I remember playing those silly Flash games back in the day, and figured, “How hard could it be?” (Famous last words, right?).
Getting Started
First thing I did was try to find a version of Flash to use. After some digging around different websites, I managed to get one working.
Then came the real fun – trying to remember how any of this Flash stuff actually worked. I spent a good chunk of time just poking around the interface, clicking buttons, and basically re-familiarizing myself with the timeline, symbols, and all that jazz. I felt like an archaeologist dusting off ancient artifacts.
Building the Basics
I started super simple. I drew a rectangle for the court, a circle for the ball, and some stick figures for the players. No fancy graphics here, just the bare minimum to get something moving on the screen.
- The Court: Just a plain old rectangle. I filled it with a light color to make it look vaguely like sand.
- The Ball: A circle with a gradient fill. Trying to make it look at least slightly 3D.
- The Players: Literally stick figures. I drew a circle for the head, lines for the body and limbs. I grouped them so I could move them around easily.
Making it Move
This is where things got a bit trickier. I wanted the players to move left and right, and to be able to jump. I used the arrow keys for movement. Left and right were simple enough – just changing the x-coordinate of the player symbol.
Jumping was a bit more involved. I had to create a simple animation where the player’s y-coordinate decreased (going up) and then increased (coming back down). I messed around with the frame rate to get the jump to feel somewhat natural – not too floaty, not too abrupt.
The ball was the biggest challenge. I wanted it to have some basic physics – bouncing off the court and the players. I ended up using a combination of frame-by-frame animation and some simple scripting to handle the ball’s movement and collisions. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked!
I had a lot of trial and error with getting the ball to bounce right. Sometimes it would go through the floor, sometimes it would stick to the players…it was a mess. But hey, that’s part of the fun, right?
Adding Some “Gameplay”
To make it an actual game, I added a very basic scoring system. If the ball hit the ground on one side of the court, the other player got a point. I displayed the score using a dynamic text field. Nothing fancy, just a number that went up.
The Result
Honestly, the final product was pretty janky. The graphics were terrible, the physics were wonky, and the gameplay was super basic. But you know what? It worked. I had a ball that bounced, players that moved, and a score that updated. It was a Flash volleyball game, in all its low-budget glory!
It was a fun trip down memory lane, and a good reminder of how much work goes into even the simplest of games. Would I recommend trying to build a Flash game in this day and age? I just did it for old times sake, and I have to say, it’s good to be back.
