What does a user need to have installed to play an AS3 game?

[Guest]

Hi,

I made an AS3 game in Flash, then distributed it to friends, with the a note that they'll need the flash player installed to play it.

Turns out only the people who had Flash installed (the whole program) could play it.

I later tried to run it on a pc which had the flash player and the shockwave player installed, but that didn't work either.

What am I missing? BTW, this was all done with CS3.

Thanks for your help.

[Michael Borbor]

Most likely you only need a minimum flash player version e.g. FP 9.0 or higers, is this game somewhere on-line?

[Guest]

That's what I thought, but no, I tried it on my daughter's pc with just the flash player & it would not work.

No, it's not online. I actually would like to put it on my website, but first I have to have a clear understanding of what it needs to run.

Thanks for your advice.

[Michael Borbor]

Weird, are you using file dependencies, external assets, fonts? Are you

publishing your project as a .swf, .html, .exe?

[Guest]

Micheal, It actually uses 2 swfs, one .as, & 3 .mp3 files.

Thanks for your feedback.

[Muzak]

swf is not a recognized file type by the OS, unless you have Flash CS3/CS4 installed.

To make the game available to "anyone" make it into a projector file (standalone exe).

You can do so from the File -> Publish Settings (in the Flash IDE).

Another option is to make an AIR application instead of a a Flash swf.

[Guest]

Muzak, interesting, I'll give that a try, but shouldn't having a flash player installed enable the OS to recognize it?

Thank you for your feedback.

[Muzak · Accepted solution]

Muzak, interesting, I'll give that a try, but shouldn't having a flash player installed enable the OS to recognize it?

Nope, because the Flash Player is a browser plugin, so if they'd throw the swf in a browser window, it would display.

So you could pass along an html file with the swf, but that's just cumbersome. swf's are not really meant for distribution and/or for use on the desktop, that's what standalon projectors (exe) and now AIR are for.

[Guest]

Well, that would explain it. I wish I had known that 6 months ago (it was a Christmas game that I sent out).

I haven't had a chance to try this out yet, but it sounds logical & you sound like you know what you're talking about so I'm gonna mark this answered. If I have any problems I'll post again.

Thanks for your help Muzak. BTW, what is this "AIR".

[Muzak]

AIR allows you to create Flash/Flex/AJAX desktop applications.

You can learn more about it here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

A good example is the Adobe Media Player:

http://www.adobe.com/products/mediaplayer/

Or the Tour de Flex application:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex/

If you have CS4 you may already have the Adobe Media Player installed and the Extension Manager that comes with CS4 is also an AIR application.

[Guest]

Thanks for the info. I appreciate you taking the time.

[calvintennant]

This might sound silly, but did you publish as a .swf? Or are you trying to run the .fla?

[Guest]

calvintennant, yes, I published as a swf (with the other files mentioned above).

Thank you for your feedback.