4 ms·

One of the things I see almost no one addressing in all of these flash arguments is how there is an inherent problem with flash games on a device like the iPad,

One of the things I see almost no one addressing in all of these flash arguments is how there is an inherent problem with flash games on a device like the iPad, iPhone, or any other phone on the market with a virtual keyboard. Most analysis when questioning games, this one included, point to the app store and claim it is due to the existence of the App Store and Apple's desire to control game content on their devices. But they seem almost always to gloss over the fact that the controls would be a huge stumbling block. First, most Flash games use the keyboard for the user input. How would this work on something like a Nexus One? If the controls for the games use the arrow keys to navigate and the virtual keyboard has no arrow keys, how does the user control the game? Likewise, many follow the mouse movement. However, on touch screen devices, there is no graceful way to track the mouse movement because there is no mouse. Swipes are generally used to indicate scrolling and touches selection. (like a mouse click) So even if they allowed Flash on these devices, many users would be screaming about how Game X doesn't work and Game Y doesn't work only because the interface doesn't translate gracefully. I am just constantly surprised that I haven't read any blog posts that address this (seemingly) obvious issue.

fatjonny 17y ago
My guess is that not very many people are talking about it because with Flash 10.1 Adobe added support for multi-touch. Once Flash becomes available on a lot of devices that support multi-touch, you will probably see developers adding proper support to their games. If a mouse is present, use it. If multi-touch is supported, use it. And so on. Granted, the current support has problems in some browsers and on some operating systems, but that will (most likely) only get better as long as the multi-touch input information is available through the browser. Some more information on multi-touch support: http://theflashblog.com/?p=1678 http://theflashblog.com/?p=1678
- vaporstun 17y ago
  Point taken, but that doesn't touch on the large majority of flash games and web applications that use the keyboard as the main source of input. This helps for Flash on these devices IF the developers build in support for them, but that defeats the original purpose which is to give users the ability to interact with the current content on the web the way it currently exists. Adding support for mulitouch in Flash does not solve the issue of keyboard input having prevalence in Flash-based games and web applications. Nor does it touch the issue of the many that currently track mouse movements. Sure, developers could all rewrite their games and applications to support this feature in the future, but that is hardly a solution to the present issue.
  - moe 17y ago
    I think you're missing the point a bit here. Upgrading an existing flash-game to multi-touch is much less work than re-implementing the entire game again in ObjC. We want Flash on all devices (including apple stuff) not because we like Flash so much, but rather because it is the only platform that enables 'build once, run everywhere'. The situation we will have very soon is that developers are forced to maintain one version for apple devices and a flash version for all others. That already is an improvement over the current reality of needing a native port for each individual platform; but naturally it'd be best to have one and only one target. Just put yourself into the shoes of a mobile developer. With a flash impl of your $game you will reach 90% of the audience. A second impl will be needed to reach the remaining 10%. Would you bother with that second impl?

fatjonny 17y ago

My guess is that not very many people are talking about it because with Flash 10.1 Adobe added support for multi-touch. Once Flash becomes available on a lot of devices that support multi-touch, you will probably see developers adding proper support to their games. If a mouse is present, use it. If multi-touch is supported, use it. And so on. Granted, the current support has problems in some browsers and on some operating systems, but that will (most likely) only get better as long as the multi-touch input information is available through the browser. Some more information on multi-touch support: http://theflashblog.com/?p=1678 http://theflashblog.com/?p=1678

vaporstun 17y ago
Point taken, but that doesn't touch on the large majority of flash games and web applications that use the keyboard as the main source of input. This helps for Flash on these devices IF the developers build in support for them, but that defeats the original purpose which is to give users the ability to interact with the current content on the web the way it currently exists. Adding support for mulitouch in Flash does not solve the issue of keyboard input having prevalence in Flash-based games and web applications. Nor does it touch the issue of the many that currently track mouse movements. Sure, developers could all rewrite their games and applications to support this feature in the future, but that is hardly a solution to the present issue.
- moe 17y ago
  I think you're missing the point a bit here. Upgrading an existing flash-game to multi-touch is much less work than re-implementing the entire game again in ObjC. We want Flash on all devices (including apple stuff) not because we like Flash so much, but rather because it is the only platform that enables 'build once, run everywhere'. The situation we will have very soon is that developers are forced to maintain one version for apple devices and a flash version for all others. That already is an improvement over the current reality of needing a native port for each individual platform; but naturally it'd be best to have one and only one target. Just put yourself into the shoes of a mobile developer. With a flash impl of your $game you will reach 90% of the audience. A second impl will be needed to reach the remaining 10%. Would you bother with that second impl?