Beta Testers - by Veesh

Hi Everyone!

For my two examples in flash design I chose two video game companies. I'm an avid gamer myself so in the picking, I have one thats a well established design studio with mutli-blockbusters out(Blizzard Entertainment), and the other is a fresh new face in the gaming community with a design entirely in flash (Artix Entertainment) and a very promising future. The game DragonFable (Artix) is currently past open beta and while its still currently free to play, you do have to create a login to check it out. For my presentation I'll log in to my account :) and give a short demo of actual game play!! The game itself is amazing, as far as what they were able to accomplish with a browser as the game platform. Aside from the artwork and smooth flash design there is a lot going on in the background, as far as scripting and databasing, but all well connected and well working with the flash in the foreground. Below is a flash movie made by the game creator as a promotional and a very good look in to the actual game design. The art work, movies and sound is similar to game play. DragonFable



My second studio study is the Blizzard Entertainment group. Having designed StarCraft and World of Warcraft(alone with 9 million+ members) they are definitely the leader of multi-player online games. First off, I just want to show one image - that has been "flashed" by the designers of "Blizz". This website is a perfect example of what a professional team is capable of in flash. If you don't happen to have flash the image loads like a normal picture. However, if you're flash enabled, you'll see an almost invisible flash loading bar above the picture and then ! the picture comes alive. I think this is amazing flash work and reminds me of the "moving picture frames" where there is a light behind a painting.
The above example is just one image. To fully understand what Blizzard is capable of; I recommend that you visit this website If you click on the link for the mini flash site it takes you into a world of its own! This website was created for the promotion of the first expansion for the World of Warcraft game. It was made to give potential customers a peek at the new addition to the game as well as a ton of information for it. For my presentation I will also give a small demo of this site. Stunning artwork, solid flash design, and seamless mini games built into the site; 9 million people paying $10 a month for just one of your games: this is what I would expect from a company like that!