Newbie questions

[nameless]

Hello,

I was thinking of getting the Flash extension, but have several questions that I hope someone here can help me with.

Does the extension allow for saving game files? If so, how does it manage it, by cookies?

I am just wondering if it even allows saved files, if they may be temporary saves that could get overwritten by the system, not the user. I would like to convert one of my old adventure games that I wrote in MMF 1.5 to mobile, but one pretty major requirement is the ability to save games. I can't recall which method I used for saved games ... I think it was an ini or array object.

I am also curious if the upcoming html5 exporter will allow save game files, and if there is any idea when it may be released (sorry if this is the wrong forum to ask that). I'm just trying to figure out which exporter would be best for me. Thanks in advance.

[MJK]

You can use e.g. the INI object to save data (values and strings) in a flash game. The ini file is saved to the user's computer in some temp folder. For Arrays I might be wrong but those can be saved/loaded as well? In both of those methods saved data will be lost if the user empties browsing/flash cache. One alternative option for saving is to save to your own server, e.g. in MySQL database using the Get object and some php scripts.

[nameless]

You can use e.g. the INI object to save data (values and strings) in a flash game. The ini file is saved to the user's computer in some temp folder. For Arrays I might be wrong but those can be saved/loaded as well? In both of those methods saved data will be lost if the user empties browsing/flash cache. One alternative option for saving is to save to your own server, e.g. in MySQL database using the Get object and some php scripts.

What I was hoping to do is use Flash for Blackberry 10 development.

RIM has Webworks, Air, and PhoneGap support, so flash should be usable in one of those (I'd hope). I know regular flash can be converted to BB10, so expect a flash file created with MMF 2 could be usable too.

So the data could be saved to the user's tablet/phone too, I hope?

The fact that the user can erase all of their saved games by clearing their browser cache sounds very problematic though. Who wants to play a game, and find out their work was all erased by accident due to emptying their browser cache (which I expect the user would have no idea could be related in any way).

[MJK]

I've released one flash game for the Blackberry Playbook, so yes MMF2 generated swf files can be used like that. However I haven't tried saving/loading from INI/array on Playbook.

If you need to make sure that saves won't be erased; make a system that saves both locally and online and can load from both sources. If the user has (accidently) deleted the game data on his machine, he's able to retrieve the same information from the server.

[nameless]

I've released one flash game for the Blackberry Playbook, so yes MMF2 generated swf files can be used like that. However I haven't tried saving/loading from INI/array on Playbook.

If you need to make sure that saves won't be erased; make a system that saves both locally and online and can load from both sources. If the user has (accidently) deleted the game data on his machine, he's able to retrieve the same information from the server.

Good to hear that flash can work with the playbook.

What did you use, webworks or air?

The server idea may work if it was an application (meaning a non-game). But to expect people to save/load games online just so their data won't get erased seems a bit odd to me for a blackberry game. I probably would be better off simply stating in the game docs that saves could be overwritten if the browser cache was cleared, however odd that may seem.

Another alternative is to wait for the android or html5 exporter and use one of those instead. RIM has an android converter and html5 should work too, but I don't know how they handle game saves either. Also not entirely sure when they are planned for release.