Why did Flash legend Ferry Halim decide to learn Corona?

Posted by Hetal

Ferry Halim is no stranger to game development. His web site Orisinal boasts an award-winning portfolio of  web games that he’s created with Flash over the past decade.

Recently, Ferry started looking to make games for the mobile platform… And to do that, he chose Corona! Ferry has already created Flight of Fire and the newly-launched Winterbells games for iPhone, both using Corona.

Below, we talk to Ferry about his journey to the mobile platform, and why Corona stood out to him as the “perfect SDK for a Flash Developer.”

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Background-wise, I noticed you’re primarily a Flash developer. Do you work with any additional programming languages or platforms?

Currently I only work with Flash and Corona. And before Corona, I only made web games in Flash.

What made you decide to throw your hat into the mobile arena with Flight of Fire?

Flight of Fire is my first mobile game. After developing Flash games for years, I wanted to try developing games on the mobile platform. But since I have to work on client projects, I barely have the chance to learn a new language.

So, what made you decide to “start from scratch” with Corona and learn Lua?

I was excited when I found out about Corona. I was looking for the most efficient way to make mobile games, and Corona seems to be the best tool for it. So, I decided to spend some time learning Lua and make Flight of Fire.

Explain why Corona is the “perfect SDK for a Flash developer,” as you told us earlier via e-mail.

I read the Corona API reference before I decided to completely jump in. As a Flash developer, I can see the similarities of how things work between AS3 and Corona, which really helped the switch from AS3 to Corona.

Couldn’t you have just developed Flight of Fire for other, Flash-friendlier platforms without having to learn an entirely new programming language?

I could, but I also like the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch devices and I wanted to make native games for them too.

In all, how long of a turn-around time did Flight of Fire have? Any idea how long of a game it was, code-wise?

Flight of Fire took around one and a half month to make. I’m not sure how many lines of code though.

Even though Apple now allows Flash-converted apps on the iOS, will you still be using Corona on your future creations?

Yes, because games made with Corona run faster than Flash-converted ones, and I need that speed because most of my games are action/arcade games. Also, being able to build for Android at the same time is a major plus.

Thanks a lot, Falim!