How to Make a Music Flash Game
One of the main reasons Flash movies are used so commonly is that they enable you to combine different media to achieve stimulating effects. Using music within Flash is usually a straightforward process and can create an enjoyable, memorable experience for your users. Many Flash games use audio in some form, including both music and sound effects. The main tasks involved in making a music-based Flash game are preparing the audio files, importing these into Flash, and making your game interface.
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Instructions
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Prepare your audio files. Gather the music files you plan on using in Flash and optimize them for your game. This may involve converting them to a compatible format, such as MP3. You may also want to edit the sound files if you plan on only using part of them and should try to get the file sizes as low as possible, particularly if your game is going to be played on the Web. Place all of your audio files in the same directory.
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Create your Flash file and prepare it for your game functionality. Create and save a new file in Flash, setting the document properties to suit your needs. Use the drawing tools and optional Components to create any visual elements you wish to display within the game. Design the visual layout of your game and sketch the interactive elements you plan on using such as Graphic, Movie Clip and Button Symbols.
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Decide how you want to include the audio in your game. You can import audio in broadly two ways. If you import it within the development environment, the audio files will be included within your Library and ultimately within your exported SWF file. If you choose not to include it within the Flash file, you can import it over the Internet when the game is being played. Importing dynamically in this way makes the Flash file smaller and therefore faster to load, however, it also means that the audio will take time to load after the game itself has loaded.
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Import your audio. To import your audio files for inclusion in the final SWF, choose "File," "Import," "Import to Library," and choose each audio file you need. Give your audio items Linkage names so that you can refer to them in your code, by right-clicking or selecting them in the Library panel, choosing "Linkage" from the panel menu, checking "Export for ActionScript" and choosing a name such as "game_snd" to use in your ActionScript. To import your audio while the Flash file is executing using ActionScript 3.0, you can use the following syntax:
var sound_request:URLRequest=new URLRequest("soundfile.mp3");
var game_snd:Sound=new Sound();
game_snd.load(sound_request);
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Attach your audio items to Objects within your game. Depending on the logic of your game, you will need to control the audio playback according to user interaction. For example, if you want a sound to play when the user clicks on a Movie Clip Object named "play_mc" you can do so as follows:
function playPressed(eventObject:MouseEvent)
{ game_snd.play(); }
play_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playPressed);
Work out what you want the logic of your game to be, and include ActionScript code to implement it.
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Tips & Warnings
If you are importing sounds dynamically, remember that some people may have slow Internet connections, so the sounds will take time to load. In such cases you can include loader animations or stream the sound so that it plays as it progressively downloads.
Be wary of filling your Flash files with too many media resources such as audio and images, as this will inevitably make your games slower to load.
References
Resources
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