Who made CND?
CND was created by Lysle Shaw-McMinn, aka Wormy. Every game and page was created from scratch (mostly with PHP & Actionscript), including the discussion board.
Why did you name it after chip n dales?
The name and logo of the game comes from a flash video by mercury storm, the video shows a trailer of the game chip n dales mmorpg, and compares it to other online games of today. I've spoken to mercury storm about putting the video into the game more but he did not have the source file for it, and I lost interest. The video was my inspiration for making the game, and at first the game only featured Dale as a playable character. View the 'trailer'.
Can I help with the site?
If you are an artist, I could really use some help with background and object art. If you are an actionscript programmer, I might be able to use your help, but probably not, as my code is very messy and hard to understand.
If you would like to contribute but cannot program or draw, please help advertise the site by telling your friends about it or posting a legitimate link to it on your favourite forums. Hanging out on the CND discussion boards and being friendly and mature to other visitors is also a great way to encourage more people to continue playing. Although spending time on the discussion board is really appreciated, I am not interested in giving you or anyone moderator status.
Donating any extra cash you have is incredibly kind and I'd really appreciate it. All the money I make from the advertisements you see on the left side of this page go right back into advertising for CND, and any money you send in will definitely be put towards making the game better, more so than you could imagine. Please send paypal donations to wormywyrm@yahoo.com
Also you can help expand the in game world using the world developement tools in game. Contact me for a password which will allow you to save changes you make to the world so that other players can enjoy your puzzles and combat areas.
How do you make multiplayer games?
The key to making multiplayer games lies mostly in creating single player games. If you can code a dynamic single playered game using Flash's Actionscript then you will find most of your answers in Flash's XMLSocket class. If you are new to coding in flash, keep following tutorials. A great place to start is a google search for 'actionscript tutorial variables 101' and 'actionscript tutorial making movie clips'.
I am always happy to answer your coding questions. Also I suggest using SearchIRC.com to find some appropriate IRC channels where you can ask for help, IRC channels are a great place to find assistance. Never ask a question through the internet unless you are trying to make small talk or you have already searched for the answer for at least 20 minutes and experimented with solutions for 10.
My philosophy in making games is to start out small and try not to focus too much on the distant future. That way I can put all my attention into short term goals, and when those goals are accomplished I feel not only relieved and satisfied with my work, but I have a opportune stopping point if I decide to discontinue that project. I find that planning out game mechanics that would take more than 10 hours of work to implement leaves me bored, discouraged, and restless to start on something else. For this reason, any one who has it in their mind that they 'want to create a mmo' with a budget under 10 thousand dollars needs to seriously downgrade their goals to something they can actually accomplish in the time they will be putting into programming their game (the actual time they will be putting in, not the make-believe 'I could' time). Its important to have the correct mind set going into a project; you need to understand the limitations imposed on you from other responsibilities such as work or school, and also the limitations of your mind (ie your motivation and knowledge of programming).
Can I see your games source code to help me learn?
I've created only a few games that I'm willing to display the source code of to the public:
~ a basic platformer, created for multiclient usability & future expansion (09/2007)
~ a multiclient space shooter ('Star Sky') (7/2007)
~ a multiclient pong game (12/2006)
If you have any questions about these .flas I would be happy to answer them.
How does multiplayer work without downloading files?
CND utilizes an often overlooked aspect of Flash, which is socket server connections. A Socket server connection allows clients to be connected directly to a server, sending packets to the server whenever needed, and more importantly, allowing the server to send packets to the client. If you understand how to set up a webserver and how to code in PHP and Actionscript, then you can learn more about using socketservers here. Theres lots of other resources you can find as well using a search engine.
Where is the server hosted?
This gameserver as well as this website is hosted with HostMonster. Hostmonster offers free SSH access, which is great for small game servers. I think the physical server is somewhere in Texas.
I found a glitch, what should I do?
If the glitch could be exploited, please tell me and do not post the exploit on the discussion boards. If the glitch is gamebreaking, I would like to know about it, but if it is a minor unobtrusive glitch I probably already know about it and just havent fixed it because it isnt hurting anything anyways and I hate fixing glitches.
I appreciate hearing about glitches, but often I will not fix them immediately or at all depending on the situation and how I feel at that particular moment :-)
Who is Wormy?
I'm the creator of CND, Lysle Shaw-McMinn, aka 'Wormy'. Hi. I'm a undergraduate student at the University of California Riverside, where I am studying Biochemistry and Philosophy. I first started making websites around 4th grade, and it has been a hobby of mine ever since. You can learn more about me at my personal webpage, lysle.net.
