Tools: Learning Flash

I think Flash is a really good option for the journalist who is interested in making newsgames, but isn’t a trained programmer. It’s very visual and the user can see the results of their project on the fly. The initial learning curve can be a bit steep, but I’ve found some educational options that smooth out the process.

Lynda.com offers video tutorials on Flash as well as a wide range of other creativity software. These are the videos I used when first learning. I had tried books and written tutorials I had grabbed online, but it was very slow going. It may depend on your learning style, but I learn so much faster when I can watch someone and listen to their thoughts as they show how something works. The thing I like about Lynda’s teachers is that they feel like they actually have experience teaching. They communicate well and tend to do a good job of predicting newbie questions.

I recently discovered CartoonSmart.com and I’m really excited about these tutorials as they focus primarily on animating and creating games in Flash. The Lynda tutorials operate at a very button down, professional level, while the CartoonSmart tutorials focus on the fun things you’d like to do with the program. Behind CartoonSmart is a kid named Justin that I’ve grown to like a lot through the tutorials I’ve sampled. He operates at a very authentic level. He’ll test and make corrections on the fly and the learner gets a lot of insight on how to freestyle in Flash when you aren’t following a perfectly scripted plan. His tutorials are also super affordable, which is nice.

In the end, I would say that Lynda.com’s videos are ideal for the complete newbie, especially one who isn’t the most tech savvy. CartoonSmart’s videos work well for the learner who’s been inducted into Flash, but is restless to start making something fun with it (the end goal for the newsgame developer).