Multiple swf's or a single complicated fla?

[ImprisonedPride]

I'm sure the most common answer will be "it depends on the project" but I've been thinking of about playing around with some PGC and I really wanted to poll everyone what they thought about how to set up the project. I have so many different parts I thought it might be easier to run the game itself, which would just be a container, and then load different swf's into the container depending on what is going on. This would be similar to how they do it at Jayisgames? (How do they actually do it though?) The alternative would be a single fla that would have to house all the individual parts into a single file and would make micromanagement a hellish nightmare. What would you do?

[tonypa]

The main reason why most games use single container these days is because you normally want to spread it around into many portals. This basically means single swf is copied around the web,portals usually avoid all multi-swf files because they cant be bothered setting them all up correctly.

If you however want to host the game just on your own page, having multiple swfs is probably better idea.

[renderhjs]

imo. loading raw material like *.jpg, *.mp3 ,... is the way to go with bigger projects. SWF always binds you to the IDE so if you dont develop in that mainly its only a hassle- besides that often these days sprites and textures are directly edited and created trhough Photoshop not FLash - so it makes the workflow easier if you can already process spritesheets or at least single image files.

[_Ric_]

I'm sure the most common answer will be "it depends on the project"

Absolutely, it does. Firstly, as Tonypa has already stated, it depends if you are hosting it exclusively by yourself, or if it's for distribution. If it's for distribution, then it really needs to be self contained. Secondly, do the separate elements, which you would split into separate swf's, affect each other to any great extent? If they need to communicate with each other a lot, having them as part of the same fla is going to be a lot easier.

[MikeMD]

I'd go with multiple complicated files. More fun.

[Ray Beez]

The thing about 1-file to spread it around... you COULD in theoy make it all external but hard code the content URLs... spread the main container SWF around, and then the external stuff would all load off your own server. Could cost you a lot in bandwidth fees if its a popular game.

[ImprisonedPride]

I've decided to go with a single container and load all of the swf's into an array of invisible mcs. When I "switch screens" I just cycle through the 1/2 dozen or so screens and shut all of them off except the one I want to see. (It's slightly more complicated and uses tweens, but that's it in a nutshell.) As far as communication is concerned, all data is stored in the "wrapper" so each swf is literally loaded for visuals only. Anything added in after the fact would be performed by a function called "startup" in each swf or something that performs some actions to display itself right when I want to see it.

[tonypa]

The thing about 1-file to spread it around... you COULD in theoy make it all external but hard code the content URLs... spread the main container SWF around, and then the external stuff would all load off your own server. Could cost you a lot in bandwidth fees if its a popular game.

Some portals (for reasons I am not going to dig into) wont accept those because you can change the content later to something else without them knowing. They only accept files they are hosting and you are not allowed to load content from external urls.