Beginning Flowlab

Flowlab.io is a wonderful place to begin making games. It was founded by a person named Grazer, real name Rilen, for his son so that he could learn coding. However, it soon expanded into a plethora of indie games, ranging from rudimentary shooters to epic storyline games. To start a new project, hit the "New Game" button. This will begin your journey.

The tutorial will cover the basics, but is often confusing. Here is the summary of what it is teaching you:


 * 1) To make a new object, press a space with no objects and hit "Create". To make duplicate items, click an already made item and select "Clone."
 * 2) To give the object a different look, press "Edit" then "Edit Sprite." From there, you can use the built-in pixel art creator, or upload from your device's source.
 * 3) To edit the object's behaviours, or coding, press "Edit" on the object then "Behaviours" on the top right.
 * 4) All objects start out as stagnant blocks. To change their physical properties, press "Edit," then press "Physics."
 * 5) To edit the background color, press "Game Levels," then press the white square to change the background color for your desired level.

The behaviour blocks can be connected by dragging them together.Blocks in the behaviours all do certain tasks. Inputs are what activate the block code, and output are what activate other block codes.

Let's practice how to do block coding. Create three objects. Name one of them Ground, and give it an appropriate texture in the sprite editor. If you are not in the mood for pixel art, click "Browse" then "Tutorial." Choose one from there. The second object should be named "Player." Go to its physics and turn on "Movable." Give this object it's own texture as well. Go into its behaviours. On the bottom left, there should be a bar titled "Behaviour Packs." Select "Run and Jump." This lets you control the player with the arrow keys. Press "OK" and go to the third object. Name it "Sword" and turn on "Movable", then turn off "Affected by Gravity." This allows for the sword to move without falling down when you swing it. Give it an appropriate texture and return to the player. Add in a Keyboard button from the "Inputs" bar. Click the Keyboard Block that appeared and click "Select Key." Then press Spacebar. This will activate whatever behaviour block its connected to when Spacebar is pressed. Now get an Emitter block from the "Components" bar. Select it and press "Choose Type." Now select the sword. Finally, attach the Keyboard button to the Emitter button by dragging the white circle from the Down output from the keyboard to the Emit input from the Emitter. This will emit the sword whenever you press spacebar. The last step is to select the ground block and clone it until you have adequate ground to move around on. Now press "OK" and tap escape. This brings you into playtesting mode. Try moving around and using your sword! This is the first step to making an epic platformer, along with understanding the logic behind coding in general.