Flash Book Reviews for Nerds

Welcome to my book review page. Maybe it would be better to call it the: 'Killersites.com top 10 nerd picks' page. But that wouldn't be exactly correct since there will be more than ten books listed here.

Whatever you want to call it, it is a list of books that I think are worth reading and books that I have on my own bookshelves.

Flash Book Reviews

Flash MX 2004 - Learning from the source

This is a 'hands on' book chalked full on small tutorials that are easy to complete making it easy to learn Flash.

This book is targeted towards the beginner; lessons and tutorials start with the very basics of Flash and slowly move the reader forward from there. You’ll start by learning the Flash interface and then move on to using the graphic creation tools built into Flash. The book combines theory with hands on tutorials that guide you through the process and makes learning fun.

What I like about the book is that the lessons you learn with are applicable to real-world use of Flash; your time is not wasted on things that you will probably never use.

Flash users today can be broadly divided into two groups: the application developers and the designers. Application developers use Flash to build web applications, games and other highly interactive Flash projects that require lots of programming and (many times) integration with web servers and databases. Whereas the designers, who’s main concern is to create great looking Flash web sites for branding purposes, typically only use some of Flash’s programming capabilities.

This book does not cater to any group in particular; you will learn about the designer friendly features and some of the programming related aspects of Flash. If you want to get into pure Flash programming you have two choices:

Flash MX - Actionscript training from the source

Flash MX Professional - Application development from the source

Overall a very good book

Flash MX 2004 Action Script- Learning from the source

All the 'Learning from the source' books are a mix of theory packed full of exercises. These are books you want if you need to get your hands dirty to learn ... and most people do!

This book is targeted at the total beginner at programming but still familiar with Flash authoring in general. You should know you way around Flash and be able to navigate the interface, this book does not teach this. If you have never looked at Flash you need to pick up ‘Flash MX 2004 - Learning from the source’.

Like all the ‘Learning from the source’ books, the material is taught via a series of short theory sections coupled with hands on tutorials. Always well presented, the tutorials gently expose you to the new Actionscript 2.0 in a concise and clear manner. Since the goal of the book is to teach Actionscript, you are provided with all the visual elements on the accompanying CD-ROM so you don’t have to waist time drawing or setting up the movies.

Flash MX 2004 Game Programming

If you want to create games in Flash this is the book for you. Actually, this book covers the fundamentals of video game design so well that I would argue that whether or not you want to actually build your games in Flash, this book is an excellent buy.

Besides covering all the core game principles and techniques like collision detection, game physics and even AI, this book also gives you a detailed review of the game types out there (multi-player, action, adventure etc.).

Besides all the nitty-gritty details (complete with code and working games) the author also discusses where Flash is strong and where it is weak in terms of game creation.

Not a beginner’s book, you will need to be comfortable with Flash and Flash programming, but nonetheless an essential book for anyone interested in making video games.

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