How to Make a Rhythm Game in AS2 – Part 2
Part 2: Create the Required Symbols/Art
Well, we aren’t going into the programming yet until the next step, so you have got to be patient. Anyway, in this step, we’re going to draw the symbols and art that are needed for the game creation. Let’s get the list that we made the last step.
List of MovieClips
- Left Arrow
- Up Arrow
- Right Arrow
- Down Arrow
- Receptors
- Health Bar
- Combo Counter
- Score
- Accuracy Meter
Let’s start with making the arrows. They seem to be the easiest. First we’re going to make the background black, just because I like black backgrounds. We’re going to make most of the art white, just to keep it simple. Here are the arrows that I drew. They are 60×60 pixels.
When you turn your shapes into arrows, make sure that you check “Export for ActionScript” and to name them arrowSide (ex: arrowLeft or arrowRight).
Now we’re going to create the receptor. You have to be careful in spacing each of the arrows a certain amount of pixels apart. Mine are 10 pixels apart.
If you want to make yours more decorative, nobody’s stopping you.
Now, we have to make all of the statistical symbols. Actually, we don’t really need a symbol for the combo counter, health bar, or the accuracy meter. They can all be dynamic text fields. But, we definitely will need to make the health bar a symbol.
Our health bar symbol will be very simple, just one layer of a green rectangle. It’s going to be 550×15 pixels.
You don’t need to add any layers of frames to this, we will change its width later with ActionScript.
Well, those are all of the symbols that we need. Now, the next simple step is to get a basic placement of them on stage. My set-up is shown below.
Now that we’re finally done with the brainstorming and art creating, we can finally continue on to program the game. That is what we’re going to do in the next part.