While I am void of any good screenshots for the text based-adventure I’m working on, I can take this time to talk about the programs I use for Flash game development at the office and home.  

Adobe Flash CS3/Flash CS4 has been the powerhouse for the past few years for my Flash production.  It’s expensive at $700, but it is by far the best tool out there. There are other programs out there that are free but most I have worked with don’t quite seem to do what I want.  It’s both drawing program, Actionscript coding environment, and test platform for your Flash projects.  They have a 30-day trial on the website so it’s worth checking out even if you want to see if Flash is a viable option.

Adobe Photoshop Cs3/CS4 have also been incredibly helpful as a graphics tool.  I primarily use Photoshop for manipulating photos as seen in Dark Cut 3, TBA2, etc.  The power of image editing becomes important when working with large backgrounds and bitmaps that Flash can’t handle too hot.  It’s also really good at sizing down screenshots and working with static images for the web, there tends to be a lot of different size images and screenshots for different websites.  It’s also $700, so once again check out the demo if you want to see it on your own computer.

Audacity is a free program I have been using for sound editing.  I typically don’t make my own sound effects but I have to edit my music and sounds somewhere.  This program isn’t terribly powerful but that’s exactly what I need.  Any bulging program would not play nice with Photoshop and Flash being open at the same time.

And with these three I’m pretty much set to take on a Flash game.

One other thing to note is that most Adobe products are only $200 with a student ID.  So if you’re jet-set on making a Flash game past the 30 day trial think about getting a student version of the program.