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Lessons learned creating a Tetris clone...

Action Script 3.0 is easy to prototype with. There's instant feedback because it's so easy to build and iterate. I'm planning to create on a picture match game next. I want to create 2 more games over the next two months. This weekend I set about creating a Tetris clone called Gemtris (view code) to showcase my talents and possibly catch the eye of a local game development studio.

My usual game coding process involves drafting a rough functional spec and sketching the look of the game on paper. This time I started coding the matrices and working out the iterator to render the model on screen. This weekend I focused on iterating through my code design, refactoring along the way, and squashing bugs as soon as they creep up. This weekend I was feeling the flow and completed Gemtris on time because I kept at it and forced myself to persist. Here's the process I went through to create Gemtris over the weekend:

Woke up at 6am on Saturday
Set kitchen timer for 1 hour
Heard the alarm and worked through it
Forced myself to code until I got hungry
Came up with a breakthrough game mechanic while I made lunch
Coded the game mechanic while I ate lunch
Ran the program and it didn't work
Paced
Sketched
Traced through the game mechanic
Found mixed up multidimensional array indexes
Fixed the indexes
Witnessed, as as Alex Pajitnov the creator of Tetris puts it, the "first time the pieces breath."
Coded function after function to add new capabilities
Went to sleep at 10am to wake up at 6am on Sunday
Coded more functions to add more capabilities
Refactored the code
Had my girlfriend play test the game
Refactored the code again
Uploaded Gemtris to my server and released it to the public

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Comment by Scott Murphy on June 8, 2010 at 8:36am: Nice! If you're into AS3, I recommend http://wonderfl.net/ which was started by a Japanese company and for some reason hasn't seen too much attention in the US. They allow you to compile your AS3 code online and you can fork off of other people's code. It's a really cool way to flex your AS3 skills.

Lessons learned creating a Tetris clone...

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