I became aware of the error when I uploaded a modified version to MindJolt. On rare occasions the game would not show the congratulations screen after clearing the pack ad on the menu screen MouseClick events would not register (though MouseOver would?). After a little investigation I realised it was happening after interaction with Mochi, i.e. displaying leaderboard or achievements, submitting highscores, or awarding an achievement. All the Mochi interactions worked as required but afterwards the game was broken. Annoyingly I could not recreate the problem on the desktop so had to keep uploading the game in order to test any fixes.

I decided to test if the problem happened in a different browser, and thankfully I tried Safari. This wonderful browser gave me the priceless gift of an error dialogue. Finally I had a culprit…

“SecurityError: Error #2121: Security sandbox violation: BitmapData.draw:http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/elevens/Elevens.swf/[[DYNAMIC]]/1cannot accesshttp://www.mochiads.com/static/lib/services/services.swf?mochiad%5Foptions=undefined&api%5Fversion=3%2E9%2E4%20as3&listenLC=%5F%5Fms%5F1329352736739%5F79046.This may be worked around by calling Security.allowDomain”

It was occurring while attempting to draw the contents of a MovieClip to a BitmapDataobject.

So I started googling Security Sandbox Violation, the first batch of websites I visited were full of people saying they were not a problem??? Clearly it is!!! The second batch concerned accessing remote assets, as far as I was concerned I was only drawing the contents of a MovieClip already presentin the display tree! Anyway I tried following their suggestions calling allowDomain() adding policy files with no success. To be honest it all seemed a little excessive for the sake of copying a MovieClip.

A cup of tea later I had my eureka moment. Clearly Mochi’s service.swf was impacting the display tree even though I had set Mochi up on a different branch to the main game. Therefore, I decided to remove the DisplayObject containing the Mochi API before performing the draw operation, and add the DisplayObject back after it had completed. Voila! Worked a treat, Mochi interactions executed without causing the game to hang. I don’t particularly like the solution, it doesn’t feel elegant, but it has the desire effect and I’ll accept that… for now.

Elevens is a simple card game I used to play many moons ago. While it is a very simple game the challenge was to create a card game engine that could be reused quick and easy for creating more card games. At this stage is utilises a simple click interaction mechanism, the next title will add the ability to drag cards around the stage.

The aim of elevens is to clear the pack in the quickest time possible!
Select 2 cards that equal 11 or jack, queen, king group. Bonus time is awarded for making quick matches in succession.

Cards are cleared in one of two ways:
1. select two cards with a sum total of 11 (aces equal 1)
2. select a complete set of king, queen, and jack

Cards do not have to match suite, though it may help you unlock achievements. Make matches in quick succession to gain a time bonus at the end of the game.

Put your skill to the test completing each difficulty then set your sights on topping the leaderboard!”

Following the release of Blitz 13 there was two months to Christmas, so we decided to challenge ourselves by developing a Christmas themed game in just a month.

Evil clone santa and his insidious hordes of clone reindeer and snowmen have come to steal all
the good childrens christmas presents. the ‘Robo 5000′ is one present that isn’t going to take this lying down.

Help Robo fend off wave after wave of bad guys and fully upgrade him at evil santas shop.

Start slow and easy on ‘normal’ mode or jump straight into the thick of the action on ‘extreme’.

Use cursor keys or A and D to move and use the space bar to fire. Mouse (and space bar) can be used to navigate menus.

After a bit of a hiatus we got back into the swing of things with Blitz 13.

Blitz 13 is a solitaire tile puzzle game. The objective of the game is to clear the screen of tiles before the player runs out of tiles in
their deck and wild cards.

Tiles are numbered from 1 to 13, the current tile will be displayed on the deck, and must be cleared by selecting the next tile in sequence with a value of one greater or less. If the current tile has a value of 13 the player can select a tile with value of 1 and vice-versa. Try to string runs together to gain bonus multipliers and extra wild card. Beware long runs require forethought and strategy.

Tackle each level one at a time and get the best score possible in each or try the endless mode to see how long you can last.

Start the game by selecting a difficulty setting followed by the level you wish to play or select the endless mode.

Play the game using the mouse to select tiles. At the beginning of each level either select the wild card or click the deck carousel (or press space) in the lower left corner to get a starting tile. Look at the value of the current tile and select tiles on the game board with a value one greater or lower than the current tile. Current tiles with a value of 13 can play tiles with a value of 1 and vice-versa. If there are no more tiles available to play either select a wild card, if available, or click the deck carousel (or press space) again. After selecting a wild card you can select any tile on the board.

The game continues until the board is cleared of tiles, time runs out, or there are no more remaining tiles in the deck and no wild cards available.

Jump Jim Jump! was our third game and a departure from the genre of the first two games. This was quite a big project to take on so soon and required a lot of testing to make sure we captured all the bugs. While all that testing was good, and indeed necessary, it had a downside. We became very good at the game skewing our perception of how difficult the game actually is.

Platform game – Guide Jim to the top of an enormous tower and deliver the spanner to Bossman Bill. Avoid enemies and obstacles, get their as fast you can and unlock all the achievements.

Left and right arrow keys (or O & P) to move left and right.
Up arrow key (or Q) to perform a small jump.
Down arrow key (or A) to duck.
Press SPACE to perform a jump – the longer you hold it the bigger the jump.

This was our second game, expanding on the mechanics of the first to provide more gameplay and better flow.

Christmas match 3 game with cool new features and ways to play. Swap, twist, crossover and explode tiles to fill Santa’s sack before he gets down the chimney. Avoid the Grinch, thaw frozen tiles, detonate bombs, and let Santa guide you to a High Score. 25 levels in the normal game, and unlock endless play at level 10.

Use the left mouse button to select and swap tiles. Click and drag to use rotate and crossover (from level 2+ and endless). The spacebar cycles through movement modes.

Haunted Threes was Team Atomic’s first ever game!

A spooky match 3 puzzle game! Complete the goals for each round before the spider reaches his web. See if you can reach the highest monster rank!

Use the mouse to swap adjacent tiles and find matches of 3 or more. Use the shuffle (if available) on the left if you can’t find any matches.

TAG is a small indie team borne out of our love of games and the desire to create our own. It has taken a few years for momentum to build, due to external commitments, but now with the right tools, practises, and process in place we can now begin to realise the flood of ideas spilling from our heads.

We have created this website to keep our fans (hi mom & dad) up to date with the latest developments and advertise our services to those who need help bringing their ideas to life. We’ll also be updating the blog with regular posts covering news and information about games development. Hopefully sharing our experiences may help you in yours and feel free to leave comments that we all can benefit from.

We’ll leave it there for now, this website isn’t going to build itself. We look forward to hearing from you in the future and promise to always try to deliver awesome new content and ever improving games. If you would like to get involved and help shape our future games get over to the Beta Test section and signup to be informed next time we are trialling our latest titles.

Jim