I think that's a good statement of what's wanted.

I think most it is dooable in flash; maybe with some custom extensions (using FlashAssist PRO) to handle things like the controller input.

I certainly think that an inital prototype could include playback, fuzzy controller event matching, scoring, etc, all triggering flash assets.

I did some basic searching on client-server stuff in flash; that's well dealt with here :

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flashcom/articles/minesweeper02.html

standard sockets are also dealt with :

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mobile/articles/flashassist_05.html

So I'm not to worried with about the comms, or building something in C++ to deal with MIDI and other events and communicating with it. Dance mats and other peripherals (like the eyetoy) may be a little optimistic for a first prototype.

Not so sure about how Arkaos handles text assets, so unable to comment on that piece.

MR

Arkaos supports Flash movies with dynamic text fields (i.e. you can populate new strings into an animation at run-time from a dynamic source). Any Flash assets we use in the prototype, if created in the Arkaos friendly way, can be dual purpose. Which would be nice.

Bin the previous comment about flash assit pro. It only works on Pocket PCs.

MR

So the strings in the flash movies are just for display (ie, strings you see) or for more ?

This is probably more of an issue with authoring for the flash assets being controlled by the prototype rather than the prototype itself, I believe (correct me if wrong)

BTW, I like the idea of making a socket based C++ application that can talk to Flash, Arkaos and other things via other sockets, MIDI, and other methods. That way there is a central messaging system (for things like gamepad control as well as interfacing to other apps) right off the bat, rather than trying to shoehorn one in later.

Sounds good. It's also something that is ownable in the true sense and lightweight enough to adapt to how things evolve.

I'd be happy for now to define a standard control set based on the full PS2 gamepad and concentrate on a comfy set of four buttons/keys/whatever to play with.

I'm actually worried about doing a gamepad interface in flash. After some checking, the way I think it would have to work would be to have the gamepad interface in a standalone app, then use a socket to send messages to flash (where they are received by a socket).

The latencies involved in that process mean that it might not work well, but perhaps the thing is to try it and see what happens.

Flash studio pro adds some stuff to allow joystick access :

http://www.multidmedia.com/software/flashstudio/

From the Groover Flash prototype, we've learnt that the latency in Flash makes it unsuitable for any form of rhythm game.