Adventures with the Flickr API
Flickr just approved my application for a commercial API key, thank goodness! I have been having a lot of fun and challenge working with the Flickr API and I am glad to share my knowledge with others who want to know more. My Picture Game Platform (and the first game based on it, Taboo Snaps) can draw from any photo source, but I prefer to use Flickr. Flickr provide the bandwidth far better than I can; they provide photos in several sizes; and I am happy to link back to the Flickr photopages which promote the amazing photographers and models whose work I draw from for the game. I could host all the images on my own server, but it would be a lot more work and bandwidth.
I used the phpFlickr interface classes to build some PHP tools that allow me to easily browse Flickr for photos with “free-to-use” license tags by keyword. Then my tools store all the photos I find in a database, from which I generate XML files that my PGP reads. In Flash, I use the XML protocols to pull the photos into the game interface.
The PGP has become much, much more robust than I had planned– hence my wildly blown completion dates. But hey, it’s the first game I have made with Flash, the first time I have used PHP and MySQL, and the first time I have used the Flickr API– for that matter, any network API. So I am cutting myself a break. I have learned so much that I figure I have pretty much been in a self-taught college course for the last 2 years, and I am only graduating now. It has been a wonderful experience, but I am ready to get this puppy out the door…
Tags: actionscript, flash, flickr, picture-game-platform, recommendations, taboo-snaps
