[Andrew Field]

A quick January 2012 update for ContentGenerator.net. We are still developing the Hole in One game - as always we only release a game & generator program when it is ready for general use. It has taken a very long time but we are hopeful of a beta release Spring this year. Should you wish to get further updates do follow ContentGenerator.net on Twitter @contentgen, or my own personal account @andyfield

The Hole in One game in development:


The main menu system is nearly ready:

Main title screen with game options


'Intro' screen, showing your actual course - dynamically changes each game

The game screens are functional and developing - but I want them to be far sharper and smarter for the release:


There is more work to be done in terms of the question handling and the appropriate balance between the game and the questions:

Questions screen


Correct answer


Incorrect answer

I have been really pleased with the impact of On Target? which took ContentGenerator.net games to a new level of professionalism. This is what we are targeting with Hole in One as well. In addition, we have our 'Fire the Teacher' game in planning after Hole in One.



There is also the industry shift away from Flash games. Currently there are no HTML5-powered games which offer the functionality and usability of Flash. This post (from photonstorm.com) sums the situation up extremely well: - basically in the longer term, html5 does look to be the future but the industry is in a state of flux at the moment. We will continue to monitor and develop what we hope is best practice. It is a real shame that Flash doesn't work natively on iPads and iPhones as this really would be the ideal solution. However, with Adobe removing support for mobile Flash this will now never happen.

All the very best for 2012.

[sharnon007]

Unfortunately, I am unable to view the pics... (I keep getting an error about permissions- lol). I'm glad to see the end of development drawing near on this one.
Keep us posted!

;0)

[Andrew Field]

Oh - that's not good. I'll investigate. Without the pictures the post is much less interesting!

[Understanding Faith]

Hi Andrew,

We're current customers of your suite and are hoping iPad users can view our content (with your content embedded) someday soon.

You state:

Andrew Field, on 15 January 2012 - 12:26 AM, said:

Currently there are no HTML5-powered games which offer the functionality and usability of Flash.

Do you mean there are no HTML5 games functionality as good as Flash, or that there are no development platforms for HTML5 with functionality and usability of Flash? Because those are two different things.

Do you use FlashBuilder to develop your games? If so, there's some hint/hope/rumor that it will output to HTML5/JS (in addition to SWF) someday soon...

[Support request]

The answer is actually both! Currently no HTML5 powered games offer the complexity of Flash games. There are a number of excellent examples that do get close, but nothing yet. I build the current ContentGenerator.net games using Adobe Flash Professional. This tool is getting some HTML5 output support in its latest release (CS6) but there is no technology that allows direct output in either .swf or HTML5. Images and some limited animations can be exported, but none of the complex ActionScript is exported to HTML5.

What I aim to do in the future is produce alternative versions of the current games in HTML5, allowing their use on devices that do not support Flash. However, this requires a complete re-write of everything and an utterly new development platform. Either that or develop apps that will allow use of existing techniques.

As I stated earlier on, we will continue to monitor and develop what we hope is best practice.