Flash is an interactive platform that has a powerful design and animation tool along with a dynamic scripting engine, bitmap rendering, as well as advanced video and audio playback. There are three main aspects: the player, the file format, and the authoring tool/IDE. Flash games can be developed for websites, interactive TV, as well as handheld devices. There is no need to adopt multiple programming languages to build games.

It is the universal tool that permits the development of multimedia driven complex games. Games means fast, furious, efficient with rich graphics.

Flash enables developers to build the most popular games for online gamers. It just needs to support:

•Rich engaging graphics.
•Smooth download of files from the net.
•A playback device that can interpret downloads.

There are three main areas: design, development, and hosting.

The first step is creation of graphics. One must use Fireworks as well as Freehand for this aspect. The tools are compatible and fireworks allows the addition of Java script to images.

The game development will be done in Flash by importing graphics created in Freehand and Fireworks. The graphics are then placed in Director the parent tool of Flash.

The next part, hosting, uses a Web server. Dreamweaver MX is the tool that will create Web pages to host the game.

And, finally Action Script is used to provide enhanced functionality.

Advantages:

•Integrates almost all features needed for developing a game. It is a great interactive tool.
•Can be used anywhere does not need additional software or plug ins.
•It is Mac friendly.
•Permits conversion from a full game to web version and vice versa.
•Low cost and free to distribute. Licenses for decoders MP3 and Sorensen Spark are included.
•Artists that can use flash easily are in plenty.
•Flash delivers broadcast quality images over the Internet.
•Permits embedding of game in power point for use in presentations.
•Plenty of information as well as guidelines can be accessed as well as understood by all –tutorials, articles, as well as blogs.
•The size of the game file remains small as the vector graphics and sound files are compressed.
•Learning Flash language is easy.
•Permits copy-paste to test components

There are traps one must be wary of and a few cons. Know the system well to maximize its use. There are plenty of tutorials inline that can be used as guides. Flash interface is ideally suited to both designer as well as developer, you can have fun while creating the game.

Flash is simple to use and a game can be developed in a few hours in a packaged form that can run on a PC, Mac, or Linux. One can make use of a browser or run the game as a stand alone.