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Persistent data: Saving user preferences and game scores


Mariam Dholkawala

Mariam Dholkawala

IGameStudio

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. What are Flash Lite shared objects?
  3. Data-saving methods
  4. High score interaction
  5. Saving user preferences
  6. Points to remember while using shared objects
Created:
31 July 2006
User Level:
Intermediate

When Flash Lite was launched as a new platform to the mobile community, the main question developers had on their minds was how would they make their applications store and retrieve data. This thinking was predominant within the game development community because persistent data allowed them to add a competitive edge to the game and also allowed saving of game states for continuity purposes.

With Flash Lite 1.1, developers looked for alternative methods such as interaction with Symbian applications or saving data over the network. However, none of these could be compared to the persistent data facility offered by the desktop version of Flash Player.

Launching in February 2006, Flash Lite 2 vanquished its predecessor by supporting a whole new set of features—including Flash Lite shared objects, which gave developers the ability to store and retrieve data locally on mobile phones.

Requirements

To understand this tutorial, you will need to install the following software and files:

Flash Professional 8

Mobile Device Profile

Macromedia Flash Lite 2

Flash Lite 2 device

Sample files:

Prerequisite knowledge

This article is aimed at experienced Flash developers with some Flash Lite 2 experience.

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About the author

Mariam Dholkawala is heading the game development studio IGameStudio, where she caters to developing Flash content on various platforms with a focus on mobile phones. Mariam is also the manager of IndiMaD—The Indian Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group. With more than seven years' experience working with Flash and other Adobe products such as Director, she has been the project lead on numerous games and applications, including two award-winning games on the Flash Lite platform. When not working on Flash games, Mariam likes traveling to new countries and learning about new cultures and languages.