February Newsletter
FGL FlashGamingSummit and GDC news
FGS and GDC are fast approaching and we’d like to let you know of some things you should check out if you are planning on going.
Chris will be speaking on one of the panels at FGS: “Money in Flash: Next Gen Monetization of Flash Games”. This panel will be at 10am in the Robertson Auditorium.
FGL will be having a get together on Wednesday (the 10th) afternoon at 4:30pm. Location: Buca Di Beppo, 855 Howard Street, San Francisco. Anyone wishing to go, please email Chris to RSVP. First round of drinks (possibly more!) and food are on us!
UPDATE: ALL FGS and GDC tickets that we had are now gone!
Announcing FGL Developer Competitions #5 and #6: Saturday, March 13th
It’s time for more competitions! This time we’re doing things a little differently. Normally we present you with a theme and then give you a certain amount of time to make a game. This time, we’re presenting you with a bundle of art assets and seeing what you can do with them! When the contest begins, we’ll provide a number of assets, and your task is to make a game from them. You can use your own graphics, too, of course, but like the theme competitions, your rating will depend on how well you use the graphics we provide. Competition #5 will be a 24-hour contest; Competition #6 is a one-month contest that begins at the same time as #5. (So theoretically you could participate in #5, and then keep improving your game for contest #6.)
These contests are tons of fun and the competitive nature is a great way to get motivated. Our previous contests have helped inspire the creation of dozens of great games that went on to find sponsors. Since we’re providing free art assets this time, hopefully it will be easier than ever to turn your contest entry into a financially successful product! Get all the details here.
New Preview-Player Accounts are Here!
The only way to make your game great is to get feedback, improve the game, and repeat. So we’ve created another way to help you get even more feedback. Preview Players are non-developers who are interested in playing and giving feedback. Players who join must:
- Be invited by someone else on FGL (like you!)
- Agree to an NDA, swearing them to secrecy about the things they see
- Be 18 or over (so that the NDA is applicable to them). If they are under 18 they need to get a parent or guardian to sign up for them.
So, what does this mean for you? We’d like to ask you to do two things today.
- If you are comfortable letting preview players play and give feedback on your games, please go to your game settings and let them in! (It is under the “Preview Settings” button when you are viewing your game.)
- If you would like to help us test the program, and know someone who can give good feedback, click here and invite them!
If you have other questions please ask away! The system is very simple right now; we’ll expand it as we see what works, what’s useful, and what isn’t.
GameTracker v1.1 Launched!
What is GameTracker? It’s a very simple API you add to your game. When the game is uploaded to FGL, the API activates and records details about every play session that happens on FGL. You can then view each play session in detail to see how far people got, what they did, etc.
GameTracker also works on First Impressions users. This makes First Impressions an incredible mine full of information! You can see exactly what level players reach in the first few minutes, where they die, what they don’t understand… and then fix it!
The GameTracker API is now officially in beta! This is a bug-fix update for the AS3 version. An AS2 version of GameTracker will be available soon (watch for it in the next newsletter). Get started with GameTracker right away!
Rate The Feedback You Get!
While you are viewing your feedback from fellow developers or preview players, you can now mark their posts as Great, Amazing, or Perfect. This earns them additional community points and helps everyone see what good feedback looks like! Please don’t misuse or abuse this system; we are counting on our developers’ professionality to allow the system to stay simple and easy-to-use. As a guideline, you should not give out more than one Perfect Post on a single game.
Zynga Job Opportunity
Zynga, the web gaming juggernauts behind Farmville, are looking for Flash/ActionScript 3 game developers who can demonstrate the following skills:
- Principles of vectors and collision detection
- Flash to server communication
- A working knowledge of the Flash display list
Zynga adds: “We have our own building in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco that has a high-energy buzz and yummy amenities (we provide lunch and dinner every day!). Find more information at our website, or follow us on Twitter.”
GamerSafe Updates
As always, we’ve been busy adding new and exciting features to GamerSafe, making GamerSafe even better for both developers and your players. This month has seen significant improvements to both the API and the website. Our biggest achievements are detailed below, but we don’t have the space to write about all of the great things we’ve been working on! Improvements include new features for the powerful LevelVault data storage API, the ability to fetch information about how a player performed in your other GamerSafe games, and many other improvements to the player interface and website. The Bridge API has now been fully rolled out and is live on every website, and we have many more features in the pipeline!
If you have any feature suggestions or feedback for GamerSafe, we’d love to hear from you! (You can just reply to this email with your thoughts or concerns.)
LevelVault Goes social!
LevelVault is the powerful feature of GamerSafe that lets you support user-generated content with no stress, no bandwidth costs, no hassle. And now LevelVault supports customized level-sharing links for your data. Your players can publish a share link to Facebook or Twitter with the click of a button. The share links will send players directly to your game; our API then allows you to handle the request in any way that you like. This new feature can be used for sharing levels, creating “Challenge” links, “Add friend” links, or viewing replays! Whatever you’re using LevelVault for, making your game go viral on Facebook and Twitter is now easier than ever!
Thanks again for using FGL, and we hope you’re having a great February! Wait, February is over already? That’s unpossible… oh, a “short month”? Uh… sorry for the late newsletter!
-The FGL Team
