Flash tools for firefox

I found some great little tools for managing flash games and files on the net.  The list was wrote and put together by Quezako.  Check some of these tools out.

Its about that time!
I finally released another game.  Wonder Rocket is hitting hard and on front pages all over the web.  It is front paged with rating of ~4.0 on newgrounds.  Also got a lot of nice feedback from people on kongretate.  The game got over a million views in the first 2.5 days of its release.

Site statistics for my blog and game arcade have rose back up.  I look forward to getting this number a lot larger with the release of new games this year.

(the red text above doesn’t reflect the release date, but the initial release punch)

I can see from the valleys that i have gained some US traffic income.  Those large spikes are mostly China and Russia which bleeds in from the Gum Drop Hop Series.  Which still does anywhere from 100k – 200k plays a day.

Lets evaluate the trends and theories out there.

The weak sponsor theory.

The weak sponsor theory is based off the sponsor’s ROI (return on investment) associated with the ability to distribute.  Shown above, in green, is the sponsorship value of a game.  The yellow represents the amount of profit the game could yield based on the sponsor’s distribution networks and channels.  As shown with sponsor B, the lack of distribution channels causes a lower ROI.  As reflected in this forecast for 2012, the expansion of the distribution channel has not increased so the sponsorship value shrinks.  Sponsor ‘A’ however has a sound distribution channel and reaps the benefits of a lowered or stagnated market.

  The saturated market theory.

Graphs and data from FGL.com

Market saturation was one of the first popular explanations for current flash game values.  The idea is that new developers that spend months and months on their game, have no idea the value thus underbidding themselves.  This causes a drop in all other game values and establishes a new market price for specific games.

  The mobile market theory.

Probably one of the most widely believed theories amoung game developers and game developer ‘groupies’ or one time game developers.  The idea implies that the popularization of the mobile game industry has led to the playing of phone games instead of flash or online games.

The closed door theory.

The closed door theory is a widely understood idea in the sponsor world but unknown to most developers.  The closed door theory describes how big name sponsors wont add your game to their site because they just don’t need the game.  This prevents smaller sponsors who buy awesome games from making money off the leak potential derived from the game being on another sponsors site.

  The No need for growth theory.

The no need for growth theory refers to a point in which a sponsor’s site grows too a size which is acceptable or manageable.  When a site starts making money the sponsor keeps the money instead of reinvesting it into more games.

So, I know which idea i subscribe too.  Lets here what you have to say.  Please vote in the poll below.  Leave a comment if you have any in depth ideas or critiques.

Oh and don’t forget to poop on my blog.

There are many sites out there with lists of tools to use for game development and design.  There are few sites however, listing the little tools that can shave minutes of off each day.  These tools don’t get much attention but are very important in time optimization.  I call these tools, Indie Secret Weapons!

# 1 : Rainbow Colortools (firefox plugin) : LINK

Rainbow Color tools is a great plugin that lets you grab any color in your web browser.  You can quickly click the icon then click anywhere in your browser and it copies the color code directly to your clipboard.

 # 2 : Awesome Screen Shot (plugin) : Firefox , Chrome

A great screen capture tool for your web browser.  You can quickly copy and save almost any visual item in your browser.  You can also quickly share a snapshot with people on the web.  The only downfall is its lack of flash visual capture.

# 3 : Mesaure It (plugin) : Firefox , Chrome

Great tool for making web elements or grabbing measurements of anything in the web browser.  This is great for any misc thing that you might not be able to judge the size by eye.  The only downfall is it layers behind flash in firefox.

# 4 : BFXR (chip sound generator) : LINK

Very light adobe air application that allows you to generate sound fx for retro style games and other fun projects. Bfxr is an elaboration of the Sfxr program created by Dr Peter.

# 5 :Crimson Editor (code friend) : LINK

Great open source program for editing code and misc text files. It includes syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, C/C++, Perl, Java, Matlab, LaTeX and many others.  Being an indie game developer means having a online presents, which sometimes, requires fancy little bits of code to shine up your website.

# 6 : Audacity (sound editor) : LINK

Very great open source program for editing multi-layer sounds fx and music.  I recommend it for anyone interesting in making multimedia projects.  This isn’t a secret weapon since it is so widely used now but i will just leave it here.

OTHER MISC TOOLS AND THINGS:

http://www.doomsday.no/esn/2012/05/my-tools-of-choice/ (suggested by Trent Sterling)

  Please Bookmark an Share This!

Don’t forget to poop on my blog!

Indie Giving is a fun event that I am lucky to participate in each year.  Its about that time of year again, Indie Giving is quickly approaching.  Hope to see all those fun characters out there this year.  Looking forward to being in SF.  The weather is getting very nice out.  Hurray for spring!  I have a couple more games to put up on FGL before the big party hits the city.

Flash Game Summit (FGS) is a one day conference with lectures and seminars on industry news and evolution.  I recommend any developer  that really wants to be apart of this industry to indulge themselves in this activity.  The conference is alright but the mingling is more beneficial.  It is very valuable to make good connections and discuss about future projects.

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is quite different than FGS.  There are more big brand companies and code peons.  If you are a flash developer or an indie you might get some laughter when you inform someone you develop online games.  Don’t worry they will be back in their cubical as soon as its all over.  They are a peripheral of a company and as technology goes, things get replaced all the time.

Here is a little track of the progression over the past few weeks.

2 / 9 / 2013 – PR 4 – Alexa 735,750

Complete redesign of the site. Arcade and sitelocks added with top banner and seamless word press to arcade navigation.

5 / 8 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa: 650,712

Added more games and put in a welcome message and client cloud.

2 / 12 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa: 650,712

Added sitemap to arcade today.
Removed all outbound links.

Added widgets for catagories and stuff.

2/ 17/ 2013 – PR 4 – alexa: 569,385

Added portfolio.

2 / 24 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 561,707

Implimented ‘thankyou.php’ game arcade forward.

2 / 27 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 519,842

Posted this post.

Implemented ‘nofollow’ on all external blog posts including Wikipedia.

3 / 3 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 511,831

Added pooping feature to blog.

3 / 4 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 511,250

Poop feature is a hit!

3 / 5 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 502,622

Pooping reduces alexa more.  About to drop under a half million.  Also included terms in blog such as FGS and GDC.  Hitting pop topics.

3 / 7 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 483,849

Pooping reduces alexa more.

3 / 8 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 487,042

Added post about ‘indie secret weapons’.  Before crawler hit.  Then alexa dropped?

Added nofollow to tshirt link.

3 / 13 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 464,243

Alexa drops more.

3 / 14 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 453,700

Going to work on sitemap today to remove links and misc things that may be effecting alexa.

3 / 15 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 450,464

Guessing sitemap link removal dropped alexa a little, unsure really if that was it.
Also added 6 new games yesterday.  This could have had an effect.

4 / 13 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 426,991

Wrote some articles about game dev hidden tools and some ideas about the theory ‘flash is dieing’

4 / 24 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 378,263

Wonder Rocket is released, traffic soars!

4 / 28 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 349,733

Wonder Rocket drives more traffic.

4 / 28 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 326,654

Wonder Rocket & Lost Fluid drive more traffic.

5 / 9 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 312,972

Link exchanges and further campaign traffic.

5 / 13 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 288,104

Link exchanges and further campaign traffic.

5 / 13 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 274,495

Link exchanges and further campaign traffic.

5 / 13 / 2013 – PR 4 – alexa 281,790

Link exchanges cause alexa to drop.  Changed seo extension to html, interested in seeing results.

If you got a minute you should defiantly have a play.  Its a quick 3 day game to build my UI portfolio.

PLAY NOW

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/574730

I noticed that even though i love my job and have fun everyday, i haven’t done any real hobby projects latley. I am starting a quest to do some little fun animations to get my brain working and see what i could possibly wana make.

Just released my very casual golf game.  JayisGames did a review of the game.