Tetris.TXT

Five weeks into the semester, I thought it would be cool to show my Flash ActionScript students how much can be done using only what we had learn up to then (variables, Arrays, if...else and for loops) and a Text Field. So I built this bare bone tetris game, where all the graphics are drawn by populating a text field with String characters. This may just be the most efficient way to to overwhelm a group of design students, but I still figured there are some geeks out there who appreciate a Flash tetris game that doesn't use any MovieClips.

- Left, right and down arrow keys move the shape
- Z and X rotate the shape

Download source file

Vines

Last year I assigned the students in my Flash class a project, to create a parametric animation. They had to base it on parameters such as mouse movement, random numbers or the current time. In the process of coming up with this assignment, I slipped into the rabbit hole of time waisting through experimentation and made this little gadget. Just click and drag the mouse anywhere within the window and let your mind drifts to a vine-covered garden of a charming house somewhere in the Italian countryside.




But wait.... The story continues. Fast forward 3 weeks. January 7th -- exactly one year ago actually. An extremely foolish episode takes place, whereby I leave my bag - with my laptop inside - in a car.
Night time. Brooklyn. Barely a soul in the streets. A car is broken into. A laptop is stolen, and with it, a considerable amount of unbacked-up work. Including (you guessed it) this small fruit of my labors. All that survived of it is this SWF file, having been put on a server. The sources are all gone, and with them the ability to make changes to this animation. Like for example, making the "canvas" area bigger. Well actually... there are ways, but who has the time?

So our story ends with a moral: watch where you leave your stuff, and backup your work often. Actually, never mind. Morals suck. They just make you feel worse when your stuff gets stolen. Unfortunately sometimes that's the only way to learn a lesson.