Free Stock Vector Skull | Sideways

So this is the first post on the blog that is offering a free give away, and there is no catch apart from acknowledging where you found the artwork and perhaps sending a link back to this page.

This post | Free Stock Vector Skull | is what it says on the tin. A selection of free skulls that you can use in you is work be it commercial or not. There is no catch!

It is a simple case of copy and paste the jpgs – and they are all yours!

Free Stock Vector Skull
Free Stock Of Skull – Created in Adobe illustrator
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Free Skull Stock Graphic

This skull has been created in Adobe Illustrator. This is in preparation for some Artwork that will be available to purchase soon on websites in which you can use it for your project, game, business or anything that is relevant to your purpose.

This stock image is completely free – use as you wish but please refer back to this page saying where you got hold of the artwork.

Graphic Vector Badge
Link with this! thanks! \
Or | https://blog.jimmsdesign.co.uk/free-stock-vector-skull-sideways/

I took my time to create these visuals for you.

Enjoy

Free Stock Graphic skull profile

Side view of screaming skull with mouth open – SCREAMING!

Free Stock Vector Skull
Skull on Purple Grey

These are Free to USE!

Skull on red
Free Stock Vector Skull
Skull on black

FREE Skull Graphic – PNG – Isolated

Free Stock Vector Skull
Skull PNG

Free Stock Graphics – Vector Skull Profile – Free

There is very little to say, apart from ‘thanking’ you for either looking at or reading through this post. If the Free Skull Stock Graphic comes in handy for what you need then great! I am happy in the knowledge that this is serving some purpose out there on the world wide web!

Watch this space to see if there are any other handy projects, tips or FREE stuff. You never know if you come back and look.

Other useful links

How to create vector art like this on your computer

Create a photoshop brush

How to get the black you want in photoshop

External link to services

Freelance Vector illustration

Design

5 game engines you can use for free

Wondering what programs can you use to create your own games for free?

These 5 game engines you can use for Free are more than capable of creating a polished game whether you are a hobbyist or a small studio.

Below is a list of items (most tried and tested) which you can use to create your game whether it is a personal project or something you want to monetise at a later date.

free game engines

The 5 Game Engines

What programs can you use to create your own games for free? (in the beginning)

Adobe Animate

Adobe Animate is part of the Creative Cloud package. Although this application is only free as part of the demo version you can still try and test out your game.

If you like the program you can purchase the product at a lower cost if you are a student or a teacher.

Adobe Animate is great for making 2D games and animations which can either be played from your browser or downloaded as a stand-alone application (Adobe Air)

Adobe Animate Free Demo Engine

It should be noted, that if you do decide to use Adobe Animate you should avoid publishing your game as a Flash object (.SWF) as this format is becoming more and more defunct with many browsers no longer running it by default. Best avoid this SWF format.

Those are the facts about Adobe Animate. I will now give some opinions on the program.

Yes, Adobe Animate is a free game maker as Demo and you can create some great 2D games and animations. If you want to get serious with the application, you will have to buy it.

Adobe Animate is great for making 2D games and animations which can either be played from your browser or downloaded as a stand-alone application (Adobe Air)

Adobe Animate
Header from a post on how to create a game in Animate

But, the program doesn’t get as much love as it used to. In the heyday of Adobe Animate (which was known as flash then), there were 1000’s of games being created and published to the internet using this software.

I majored in part of studying using the application to create an E-learning and STEM game. I also used it on various commissions to promote or create games.

As the years have gone by newer and *completely free engines have come to the table where anyone can play and test their games straight after downloading their game. And you don’t even have to know how to code with some of them.

Adobe Animate is a great program and the Demo is free but I would consider some of the awesome modern and powerful options out there before investing your time in this software.

I will always have respect for Animate but I have started to find my love with newer game engines that offer great solutions.

Stencyl

Stencyl is also a free game engine to download.

And, if you don’t like coding or writing – you will probably like this application more to create a game.

Stencyl Code Block Example
Code block looks like this | 5 game engines you can use for free

Stencyl behaves a lot like building blocks when you assemble code and behaviours. The one major frustration I found with using this application to create a game is that it does seem to have it’s technical limitations once you try to get off the starter steps.

Some of the simpler challenges such as creating a cursor in Stencyl (as shown) can be done but I struggled to get it to work with any degree of sophistication. That is not to say that you can’t or won’t – there are developers out there that have created games and monetised what they have made by using Stencyl.

Examples

I think one of my favourite things about Stencyl (aside from being free to download) is that it’s great learning how to make games away without hard coding it together.

If coding scares you, then Stencyl could be a way to go.

Unity Software

I could write a whole lengthy article as to why Unity is a great and free gaming engine (I have an article already for that actually) and why you should consider it on its merits alone.

But, this article needs to give a level playing field as to which game engines are great to use and are free.

Unity Free Game Sofware

Unity is a very able program which can create 3D games, 2D, 2.5 D games, platformers – you name it, quite a lot in other words.

The downside is, you will struggle if you cannot code or don’t have a mindset for coding. To get truly great results, you will need to code Unity in C Sharp to make something great.

The one big thing that bridges that knowledge gap (if coding isn’t your thing), is the asset store. It should be noted though that the asset store isn’t a silver bullet.

You can purchase many ‘assets’ and templates to do a lot of the heavy lifting for your game which makes Unity very appealing. There are even some free assets in store which you can use in your can ranging from 3D models to a range of furniture.

Example of Unity Software
Unity in Action | 5 game engines you can use for free

If at some stage you start to earn a substantial amount from your game, then you will need to pay the professional fees for the license to use Unity.

Why not take a look for yourself! Download Unity Software

Winter Mute Engine

Winter Mute Engine is a fair and free open-source engine that makes full 2D or 2.5 adventure games. It is a good engine if you want to create some classic adventures and point and click game as it comes with many of the tools needed to have a ready to deploy game

You can see examples of what can be created in Wintermute by following this link to the Dead Code website.

In the past, Winter mute had a very active forum with its active users willing to help you out as when needed.

In my opinion, the main limitation to using the Winter Mute engine is that is predominately geared towards Windows PCs and general activity around it – isn’t as powerful as some of the others out there.

It should also be noted that if you intend to use Winter Mute you will need to code the game to work.

You can find out whether Winter mute is the Engine for you. As you can see by some of the examples you can see at can produce some excellent results with the know-how and talent.

Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine, like the other game engines mentioned in this post, is also free to download and can create both 2D and 3D games that look like AAA standards.

The great thing with Unreal Engine – setting aside that it is also free to download the program is that it can create some spectacular 3D visuals which are on par with epic games that see released on the Play Station or Xbox.

If you are intending on creating games with some punchy looking graphics and excellent lighting effects then Unreal could be the way forward for you.

On a personal level, I can only vouch for how good Unreal is visually and the quality of the games you can produce using this engine. You see an example of what can be created in Unreal here.

I have personally never developed anything in Unreal – I have just stood on the sideline and admire what can be created.

5 game engines you can use for free | Summary

I hope that is this post has offered some insight into what game engines and programs you can use to start creating your game for free today.

Some of the game engines are better at certain actions than others and I hope that this post has cleared up some of the patches of what you can and can’t do – mostly based on personal experience with using the engines.

Thank you for reading this post about what 5 game engines you can use for free. If you felt that this post was helpful and other game devs would benefit from reading it then do share.

Other handy resources to do with games

Adobe Animate Games

Stencyl

How to make a cursor in Stencyl

Unity Design + Development

Why Unity is great for your game

(external website) Unity experiments and game from the Dev Lab

How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)

Creating an interactive story, or game can be tricky! This post has been written to show how to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate) – described using simple (less non-tectie) methods.

Make an interactive story or, in my case – an interactive museum!

How to make an interactive story game in Adobe Animate
How I created an interactive museum

If you are completely new to creating games or making interactive gaming experiences, then I would advise looking posts such as this: creating a STEM game that was also made in flash. This is from another project I worked on in the past.

Flash, if you are unaware is the old name for Adobe Animate. All methodologies and approaches in the post are still relevant today and I am sure will help you in your journey creating a cool story type game!

How to make an interactive story game divider image

The short answer: How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)

Artwork | You will need a graphics creation program such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, I have written a detailed post on the graphics programs which you can read here – creating digital artwork.

Build it | In order to build, or develop your game, you will need to use an engine or a platform such as Unity or Adobe Animate (flash) which is what this post and project as all about!

Publish it | Is that all? Sort of, if you want to make a compelling story game you will need to put a lot of time into making some striking visuals and compelling narrative to carry the player through to the end.

If you are just embarking on making games or interactive experiences, I would also consider using a powerful game creation program such as Unity. Unity is powerful, you can create a range of games types with many off the shelf solutions.

Although, Unity does come with a steep learning curve, so be warned!

The interactive museum in this post was built for a client using Adobe Animate and Photoshop. The steps below outline some of the methods and approaches to creating an interactive project.

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Using Adobe Animate to build a game (or museum)

My core training was based around using Adobe Animate to make 2D games, animations, and rich media experiences – it was my major!

Now, I don’t wish to go into the opinions of why or why not to use Animate in this day and age. I will assume for whichever purpose, you either need or want to use the application to build an awesome experience and that is okay! None should judge.

You should know this when you publish with Adobe Animate.

When you publish a game in Animate, it can be created in the following formats and platforms:

  • .SWF (flash player browser) ( I would avoid this format now due to lack of technical support and accessibility issues – read more reasons on avoiding flash player on this blog ) .
  • HTML5 – can run straight from your browser.
  • Projector files for both Mac and PC – similar to making regular program or .exe file.
  • As an app for Android and Apple.
  • As an enclosed Adobe Air app that can be downloaded straight to the computer.
Publishing formats for Adobe Flash
FL5 – this is a legacy shot. There are more options today!

My interactive project as shown further down in this article was made by publishing as an Adobe Air application and as a browser-based *SWF format. Old yes, irrelevant? Not at all.

The .SWF format or flash player for browsers to be specific is an old format and I would now avoid using it.

If you are undecided which is best if you are intending on making a game solely for a browser – use HTML5, WEB GL, or if you download your game, use Adobe Air.

Publishing to Adobe Air applications isn’t the only way to create an enclosed stand-alone program or application. You can use .exe or a mac projector also.

Flash Publishing Plus

You can also download applications that extend the publishing capabilities of flash.

For example, ZINC will make a neat package for your application although it has now taken its servers offline you can still use the legacy format. MDM Zinc

Edit / note : many of the formats Animate can now output is very much capable enough of fulfilling the duties of these programs listed here. eg. Zinc.

You can also create a DMG on an iMac and pack your items inside it for professional distribution. You can also have a lot of creative license for logos and interface artwork.

On a personal note, I would be inclined to stick with *ADOBE AIR ( no longer owned by Adobe ). Adobe air comes with more than enough capabilities for packaging distribution for your game – even to implementing your or desktop icons.

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Using Adobe Flash (animate) to publish your interactive story game to a browser

The image above is from a slightly older version of Adobe Flash (now Animate) but it shows that it is mostly a case of ticking the publishing formats you wish to use.

If you are skim reading this, I would advise paying close attention to the next paragraph, especially if you want to put your game on the web.

Using The SWF format and flash player for your game?

The .SWF format is no longer as widely supported as it used to be, especially if you publish it to the web as a flash player. I would advise against using this format.

You may notice on certain websites a notification box appears on the body of a page asking for you to “run flash player”? That is what now happens if you publish to flash player / SWF. As shown below. Or, it should be a case that now Flash Player has gone altogether.

SWF Flash player object display example
Example of the flash player being blocked by default in Firefox

The image here illustrates the flash player being put on hold until it is enabled by the user.

By publishing to the flash player with your .SWF object – Instead of your movie, you will get a hollow grey box and notification.

Using the .SWF object makes for terrible user experience in 2020 and has done for some time now. Many people are more likely to hit the back button or just ignore the interactive content as it needs to be enabled or ‘allowed’ by the user.

And how heartbreaking is that feeling after spending all of your time creating a game or animation? Flash player is now stopped by default by many browsers.

With this in mind, I would say it is best to avoid a SWF / flash player for the browser. And, don’t forget how this will also behave on a Smartphone now too. ( This website, should I publish to Flash Player)

Should you both with flash player in 2020 for browsers? I wont.
Should you both with flash player in 2020 for browsers? I won’t.

Use an alternative format if you want to display your content or show an animation – such as HTML5 if it is a game. This is all opinion based on what I have seen, learned and what is now professionally advised. You may ignore all this if you wish.

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You will need to know ActionScript 3.0 to make your game work in Adobe Animate (sorry!)

Did I mention code? I’m afraid so. If you are not a coder you may hit some hurdles here or need to do some homework – or hire and Action Script Developer! ActionScript is the lifeblood for Flash games.

There are not many ways around not using ActionScript.

Adobe Flash, which was renamed to Adobe Animate a few years back, uses a coding language called Action Script 3 (AS3) to add interaction to games and applications.

Without being able to code or at least being able to bash some ActionScript together, you will not be able to create a somewhat sophisticated interactive project in Adobe Animate, unless you are making an HTML5 game.

Making a game or an interactive experience will require getting into some script, even just to make a level change, a speech bubble appears or simple player interaction.

Interaction in Adobe will require you to program. It is not the hardest language but if coding really isn’t your thing… perhaps consider an alternative means or more visual-based engine?

Or why not just jump in with both feet and find out if you can code?

You can start to learn Action Script 3 here or by purchasing a cookbook and getting your teeth sunk into it.

Action Script 3.0 Book
If you want to write Action Script 3 this is a good start

You can find these types of books on eBay at a relatively low cost.

It should be noted that if you do decide to buy one of the ActionScript books from eBay I may get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

And yes, I do own one of these books personally. Purchase Essential Action Script 3 book on eBay.

Failing this, if you do not wish to read how to use Action Script you may find tutorials to watch instead or ask for help on forums.

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How to make an interactive story game in Adobe Animate – The Nitty Gritty

Now you have an idea of what may be involved with creating your own game application or immersive experience in Adobe Animate. You may be ready to delve a little deeper … or run for the hills

To summarise what has been written so far you will need to do the following for your game :

– Rough / plan out your game or story – although be prepared to edit as you create the actual game

Write in Action Script for interaction so it reacts to the player, eg: button clicks, movement, transitions to levels for your story.

– Publish it, and get your game out there.

That is a simplified way of summing up what has been covered so far. In essence that is a rough guide of what you need to do in layperson.

– Plan

– Roughout artwork

– Build

– Test / Publish

Whether you are intending on making a 2D gaming application, a story or an interactive museum as shown in this post, come at your project prepared.

Morale boost: As a warning, those milestones can seem a long way from time to time. One foot in front of the other! You will get across those desert coding plains.

Coding or not coding your story game

If coding really isn’t your thing and you are more or a designer than a developer – you should consider using an application such as Stencyl to take some smaller steps into game development.

Stencyl works like lego building blocks in which you can click together the functions and behaviours of your game. The image below is an example.

Stencyl Code Block Example
Example of coding game in Stencyl

You can also read an example tutorial here on how to make a Cursor in Stencyl. Which was written by me when I used Stencyl a little bit more often.

Unity software is another option but it is a more advanced option if you are new to creating games and applications.

If you would like to know a bit more about Unity Software you can view why it could be an option for your game project or even have a browse of my micro portfolio that showcases other projects I have created using Unity Software.

Making an interactive game in Unity Example
Example | building game in Unity

Unity Portfolio Website

The next section of the post covers how I created an interactive museum for the client.

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The Client Brief | Promote the museum (interactive experience)

After setting up a meeting and discussing the budget and the requirements, I set about what could be done to create an experience that would promote a local museum in Cornwall.

The website part of the project was built to inform and educate potential visitors. The interactive part of the website was built to ‘excite’ visitors and offer an e-learning experience.

The e-Learning part of the website is what I have focused on in the article – “How to make an interactive story game in flash”, or in this instance.

How to make an interactive story game in flash
Caption from the interactive Museum

How to make an interactive museum experience that can be played from a web browser.

How I created an Interactive Museum in Flash | The Steps

Being a fan of all things to do with history and using my new found technical knowledge as a graduate, I jumped feet first into this project. This project allowed me to use my imagination and critical thinking to offer an experience that would entertain, entice and educate!

I was thrilled!

It was a challenge, but a great one to embark on so early on in my professional career.

Designing the interactive museum | pre-development stages

Before opening up flash or writing a line of code, I sketched down my ideas of what I was intending to do and proposed it to the client.

After getting approval for the initial design, I started to conjure ways to make this project come to life both visually and technically.

The interactive museum, which would work similar to a point and click style game or a graphic adventure would be launched at the same time as the website, which I also created.

The interactive museum was 2 stages – levels – where you could stand at two opposite ends of a large courtroom. This was the main stage of the hall, both in real life and in an interactive experience.

In early concepts, I toyed with the idea of creating other rooms but with time constraints and budget limitations, the 2 levels were more than enough and difficult enough in all honesty at an early stage in my career.

Interactive Museum in Action!
Interactive Museum in Action!

It is worth noting here if you are also thinking of designing and developing an app or game, add some wiggle room on the timeline.

You don’t want to be crushed by the deadline, worse still if you get stuck!

Under a supervised out of season and out of hours visit to the museum, I collected together as much knowledge as I could about my topic and environment. I wanted to create an authentic piece of work that would immerse the players.

I took pictures of the environment which would later become the interactive parts of my flash project. With the interaction in mind, I took plenty of interesting close-ups of Cannonballs, skulls, puppets, etc which would later be cut out and used.

Taking Photos of the Environment

The purpose of these PNGs allows for a transparent background on the objects. When the player ‘hovered’ over the PNG’s with their cursor in the interactive museum, a green outline would appear around the objects to show that it was ‘live’.

This small visual representation is a good way of showing to the player that the item was selectable or interactive in some way. Player or user experience was paramount to the project as it should always be when creating an experience.

After all of the content was collected together, edited and prepared it was imported into the project library in Flash and coded to life!

Yes, almost like a mad scientist.

Interactive Museum | The building & development stages

Heads up, consider ‘white boxing’ your game

White boxing? What am I talking about!

By this point, I had taken my photos and created the bits and pieces as I needed to – based on my artistic and creative vision.

All the artwork was finished cut out etc.

As a more modern method, I would actually advise against making your app this way.

Don’t worry about all the nice polished artwork first. Focus on the function of the game.

Why?

It’s not an art project for starters even though that is how I treated it. It’s a learning experience for “others” to use. It’s for the client to promote the museum. Not for me to show my skills, that comes second to the brief.

Also, if you are new to a program, and you have no outside help, you can throw away a lot of time focussing on aesthetics that you may not be able to use due to technical issues and programming hurdles which you cannot overcome.

And guess what happened to those piece’s artwork or assets because of that technical issue?

Or things I couldn’t overcome – despite the fact I had created the final artwork?

They were canned.

I didn’t get to use it. All that time photographing, trimming, prepping, etc and I couldn’t use them because whilst I was overconfident I could code it into existence – I did meet with time and technical hurdles.

Save time!

I would advise using a method called “white boxing” and this carries across many gaming or interaction projects.

Okay, what is “White boxing!?”

White boxing is a stage in which you are testing and designing how your game or interactive museum may work.

It’s a case of designing the function before the form and seeing what constitutes as an actual viable gaming experience.

In other words it a bit like mocking your game up first, or loosely sketching out what goes where and seeing how it works and behaves.

If you are curious and just want to find out a bit more on where I learned the term “White Boxing” read the book ‘Unity in Action’ – good book in my opinion!

You can find out a bit more about it here on eBay. It should be noted that if you do decide to purchase the book through eBay, I may get a commission at no additional cost to you.

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The code for the museum

In order to make this interactive museum work, I developed it in a language called ActionScript 2. Action script 2 is now a very defunct language and I would advise against learning that version of Actionscript now.

Unless you otherwise enjoy reading obsolete languages or need to edit the code in a very old project! And if you are editing the code in an old project it in AS2 – it needs to pulled out of the dark ages ( I can talk)

For which ever reason, stick with AS3 (Action Script 3) by default when working in Animate

And, for the sake of keeping my shared knowledge more relevant, I will share with you a piece of Action Script 3.0 instead which was the closest match to my AS2 script.

How to make a flash game code snippet.

Now, if you are completely new to using Adobe Animate, I would advise downloading a demo from Creative Cloud and getting stuck in from there. The Demo is free!

Note: Remember that is a general overview of how I created an interactive museum. To go into greater depth I would advise looking for step by step tutorials on using Action Script 3. You would need a lot more than this post to discuss how all aspects of the code makes the museum work.

After I imported my artwork to the library it was essentially broken down into core elements – the background and the interactive elements – the clickable bits!

In order to make my content interactive, I needed to make things happen when they were pressed. A Scene change, a speech bubble or all trigger by Action Script 3.0

For example, this snippet of code is what makes a button take a player to the next scene when it is clicked.

How to go to a next scene in action Script 3
How to go to a next scene in Action Script 3.0

After I imported my artwork to the library it was essentially broken down into core elements – the background and the interactive elements – the clickable bits!

when this button is clicked, go to the next scene, the next scene would represent the next level.

For your own knowledge, and for my personal reference – I will call this a simple click and go to the next scene.

And it just that, when the “arrowBTN” was pressed in the scene, it would take the player to the next stage or level – or Scene 2. There is nothing stopping you from adding multiple scenes to your game and having multiple click arrows!

Illustrations showing how to make a level change in principle

How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)
How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)

Click a button, go to Scene2.

How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate) illustration

Interactive story game / Museum | Hide and Unhide

The essence of this hide and unhide would be along these lines in Action Script

When I ‘hid’ or ‘unhid’ objects in a Scene, I used Action Script to do so – Object Orientated Programming.

This is the principle of what I used with Action Script 3.0

MovieClipname.visible = false;

That little snippet of code (ActionScript 3) was employed a lot when creating a project.

That single short line of code is telling Adobe Animate (flash) to hide the object when it comes to runtime ( when you publish your app).

When It’s visibility is ‘false’. It will not be seen by the player. At some stage, you will need to make it’s visibility true!

Now, in order to make the movie clip become visible – it would have been attached to a button like so. And this would have been written.

MovieClipname.visible = true;

Object Orientated Programming Inside Adobe Animate

ActionScript 3.0 really honed in on something called Object Orientated Programming or OOP – now being a bashful designer.

At heart, a part of me didn’t want to discuss what Object Oriented Programming is – the notion of having me describe it here brings me out in schoolboy sweat

Object Orientated Programming is something I make use of lot these days whether it is piece of script in C Sharp or something to be created in Animate. OOP works with elements and animations inside your game, level or scene. It is dedicated to working more fluidly with objects and classes.

Here is the Adobe definition for OOP.

“Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a way of organizing the code in a program by grouping it into objects. The term object in this sense means an individual element that includes information (data values) and functionality.”

– Source : Adobe

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I hope my simplified approach helps with some principles of How to make an interactive story game in flash (Adobe Animate). Although this was used on the older museum project, the method still carries today.

That is a principle and condensed overview of steps I used to build this interactive museum.

There was more involved in my version such as point scoring but I won’t share that in this post, as this post talks about the project as a whole and why it was created and what it wanted to achieve – not the development stages.

Designing an interactive museum | The final Product

Up to this point, I have covered some of the technical steps I used to create the application along with discussing the core principles in both the artwork and the main behaviours in the code.

To the all-important stage, the final product.

Looking back | What was this for and did it stay on track?

This browser game was created to educate, entertain and draw attention to the real museum located in the town.

Did I feel that I stayed on track and met the brief as one of my early projects as a postgraduate and a freelancer? Mostly, but there are things I would do very differently now. In particular on the website and the UI to capture the core look at feel.

The is museum was created in conjunction with the new brochure website which set up to educate and talks to readers about the local trust of whom were my clients for this project.

If I was to be honest, the one thing I would say is that parts of the website was OTT for the client’s objectives and budgets.

This browser game was created to educate, entertain and draw attention to the real museum located in the town.

The interactive museum itself offers a great addition to the project as a whole… that is where the project was arguably unbalanced from a web entrepreneurs perspective. The interactive museum was an addition but that is where most of the money and time were invested instead of the website which should have been the ultimate focus in my opinion.

The museum dominated too much.

To come at this again, I would invest much more into getting some enquires and activity from the brochure website. That would at least balance it from a business perspective.

All experience in hindsight from 11 years past! A lot happens in a design career in that time.

And it also contributes to what I am writing today. How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)

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What I would also do differently on my museum | personal note

The project on a personal note gave me a tremendous amount of experience in interaction design and creating applications in Flash. This was a follow on from creating games in flash, for example like the STEM / E-learning game I created which you can read more about.

From memory, the museum project was a challenge – mostly coming from how long it took to animate all the little elements and bug test it.

In the end, I felt it gave a result that I was proud to be part of and that was making an E-learning experience which was educational and fun.

There are a few things I would do differently from an art director’s perspective. As it was a project of limited financial resources, there is only so far you can g, sadly.

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If this post has inspired you to create a game in Adobe Animate and how to make an interactive story game (not strictly in flash) then please refer back to this post, or feel free to ask any questions.

Below are some other additional links which cover topics such as; how to create and E-learning game, tip for website design and even some insights into alternative game engines!

How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate) – other resources

Games & Applications

How I created a STEM game in Flash.

Why Unity is Awesome

How to make a Cursor in Stencyl (2D)

Physical Games Tutorials

How to make a successful retail-ready game

How to sell a game to retail

Website Design Projects & Applications

Idesign Application Application Design

Website UI’s

Design Bytes External Websites –

Unity Show Case – you can play games

Other Sources for information on Action script and Flash

Is Action Script 2.0 Dead? Link

Don’t use the .SWF (Flash Player) format for web | Link

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* Flash is now Adobe Animate. Animate is still, in essence, the same program.

* ActionScript 2.0 is now defunct language. ActionScript 3 is now the more modern Object Orientated language used in Adobe Animate.

* .SWF format for web is an essentially old and almost redundant format to publish to. I would advise against publishing for the flash player for web – especially in 2020.

How to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate) – Useful Resources

Action Script 3 book on eBay

Thank you for reading how to make an interactive story game in Flash (Adobe Animate)!

Project post | Freelance Vector Artist & UI Designer

It has been a very busy month! I felt that it was time to post what I have been working on, and here it is – me as the freelance vector artist & UI designer!

I have added a lot of new content and skills pages to by brochure website, mostly focusing on my digital design skills and anything web!

Visual Information and vector art
Info Graphic

But, I have added much more than just that. There are all the vector drawings, information about blog design and other projects, etc which have been added.

This is a speedy overview; Firstly I will cover the information about vector illustration.

Freelance Vector Artist

A freelance vector artist or designer is a good way for me to summarise that I can draw in Adobe illustrator.

freelance vector artist & UI designer
Vector Illustration : Test Tubes

Using Adobe Illustrator to create Vector art or illustration has been something I have been familiar with over the years, whether it has been to create a character, create an icon and draft visuals, or create pre-rendered artwork. Vector work is a staple part of my design diet.

Vector art can be scaled and used across a whole range of channels and mediums. It is versatile, clean and stylistically lends itself well to flat design.

Flat design is a an in-vogue trend we see in website design and generally throughout advertising. (good riddance web 2.0 has gone) . If you are yet to explore vector illustration, I would consider adding it to your list.

freelance vector artist & Ui designer | floppy disk
Floppy Disks

Here is a small list of ideas on what you can use vector illustration with:

– Create artwork for marketing campaigns

– Illustration for books, games, and general-purpose crisp art & design

– To produce characters that can be used in animations, videos, and games!

– And the last point; you can use Adobe Illustrator (Vector art) to create website content such as information graphics for blogs. As seen at the top of the blog post.

These are just some ideas of what you can do with Adobe Illustrator and vector graphics. The scope of this list offers a mere handful of ideas that barely scratches the surface.

In a few words, Adobe Illustrator is a very potent program.

My vector illustration services

If you would like to read a bit more about my services please visit my page here: freelance vector designer – It will discuss in more detail what I have used Adobe Illustrator for in the past, present and how I intend to use it in the future. The link takes you to my portfolio website.

Vector illustration for games

Vector illustration for games – that is correct. Combining both my budding knowledge of Unity and Adobe flash (sorry Animate) I can create project ready vector artwork for games – and that could be mean your game.

Previously, I have been involved in creating 2D games to promote products, educate and entertain. You can see one example which was an e-learning project or read more here on the merits of Unity.

Vector Character Illustration
Character Illustration | Sprite Sheet

UI Designer

The biggest theme of this post is of my skills as a freelance vector artist & UI designer. I have added subsidiaries of my digital / web work. Below is a glance at my UI skills.

I have recently been much more involved in using WordPress after a couple of years gap. I will always have love bespoke HTML and CSS but WordPress offers many possibilities straight off the shelf. If you have not heard of WordPress, and you are looking at getting a blog or website, I would consider WP as a good open-source platform, to begin with.

freelance vector artist & UI designer
UI skills
UI design | landing page
UI Design for a landing page

If you would like to read more about my UI and WordPress design you can do so here. I’m happy to work both contracts and on a freelance basis. The link takes you to my portfolio website.

Blog Designer

Having a blog that stands out is very important if you are intending on making money or using it for general marketing purposes.

The one big downside with blogging is this – it is crowded. The Internet offers a very deep well of information to those who prepared to type in a search term (so pretty much everyone) . And if they click on the page and it doesn’t captivate – they hit the back button.

So what can you do?

– Offer value and relevance

– Create better information

– Create striking visuals to get them to stick to your page

Blog Design - UI design
Blog Design – stand out from a crowd

To illustrate aspects of your content this is something, I can certainly help with.

You can read more on freelance blog design services on my new pages!

“Jimm has a great eye for design and understands perfectly the needs of today’s online audiences. He’s able to magic-up a wide range of impressive visuals that are all bang on brief and is a delight to work with. Highly recommended.”

Last but not least – Creative Direction & Strategy

In conjunction with my skills as a freelance vector artist & UI designer, I have been involved in creative direction – a part of my job that I love and will continue to be involved with for the foreseeable future.

But what does that really mean? Involved in what with “creative direction”? To summarise very quickly. Creating, visualising and drafting up ideas that are geared toward a goal, demographic or specific purpose.

This can cover website design, graphics, digital design, apps, games, and many others, just to name a few. And that is the short answer.

The long answer can be found here on this page of my brochure website.

Creative direction diagram & UI design
Creative Direction can be applied to UI design too!

Past experience in creative direction

I have been involved in telling brand stories, creating visuals for marketing purposes and adapting my skills to create compelling brand narratives. (integrated stories for business)

Design direction for web: It is simply not enough just to create a piece of design work that is aesthetically pleasing. You need to consider how the visuals tie-in with the form and function or your website – even down to the UI.

Summary | UI Design & Freelance Vector Illustrator

I hope that this post has offered some insight into what I have been up to for the past month. Times have been very busy and I have been beavering away working on client work and adding tons of new content – not to mention that I have also been working on other ventures too!

This post has focused on me as a freelance vector artist & UI designer but I have plenty of other skills not mentioned in this post. You can see what else I have been working on by visiting my home page or visiting my brochure website.

Summary freelance vector artist & UI designer handy links

This is a list of other helpful articles on this blog:

External Websites

Jimmsdesign :

WordPress and UI design

Vector Illustrator & Designer

Blog & Content Designer

Board & Card game design

Unity Dev Lab

Posts to help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop

Help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop – here we come! This post has consolidated some of my more popular and useful posts to help you with your design creations, games & Photoshop. There are many other posts but I can link everything single thing here.

A bit of handy chatter!

help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop
help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop

Creating something new or trying to find inspiration can be a bit tricky – I know, I have been there and I can imagine that this will be something that will continue to come about in life as a creative Designer & Developer.

When I try to create a post, I try to write something that will both be helpful, relevant and useful to the reader, this blog, after all, is more than just a diary – its a resource for sharing my experience and offer help.

So here goes, useful links to help you with design, games, and photoshop

Photoshop & Drawing

This is something that I intend to expand upon in the future. As of this date here are some of my links for drawing and Photoshop.

The posts above cover tried and tested methods for speedy shortcuts and how to draw with a Wacom Tablet for your computer and digital drawing.

Board Games Tips / Design

These posts cover some very useful tips and ideas for a board game or party game. If you are toiling over some decisions of what to do and how to go about selling your game, hopefully, these will offer some insights.

Apps & Games

In these links below cover some handy tips for creating video games, Apps, unity and STEM/e-learning games. It should also be noted that these are portfolio pieces that have been created by me in the past.

there is little else I can say for this apart from unity is great and free

this post covers all the details and information I used to create STEM game

And, although this is away from this blog – a Sandpit website for testing Unity games and applications. Feel free to have a look if you have a moment, you can actually play some of these games from your browser.

Thank you for reading this little repository of useful posts to help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop. If you feel it could be of use to you or wish to share on social media then please feel free to do so.

Useful posts to help with Graphic Design, Games & Photoshop

See you later!