Are there requirements in the game such as AS3 over AS2?
I would suggest learning Action Script 3 over Action Script 2 as it contains more features and will probably get you more prepared for later instalments of the language. It's not a requirement, however, to the best of my knowledge. The only requirements I know of is that it must be made in Flash and must be saved with the .fla file extension (which means that game submission excludes games made in Game Maker).
It takes several work days right?
As far as I'm aware, yes. I would suspect that they have to check the code for things like malicious (or potentially harmful code) and anything that advertises other websites, real word trading or anything to do with micro-transactions. Then they also test it to see if it works, and see if it's of high enough quality. If that is the case you must also consider that the process may be delayed if other games have been submitted too.
You're WRONG!! The final product is a .swf movie, the .fla is the original, which can only be opened in Flash, and .swf are played using Flash Player!
Ouch... I do hope that doesn't mean you write all your code on the timeline Right now, I have about 40 classes for the early stages of my game alone, let alone some 200 from external packages... Just one .fla isn't gonna cut it.
swf can be created using Flex SDK + some IDE like FlashDevelop, so you can create a flashgame using freeware tools only, am I wrong? Can such game be submitted to AG?
Doesn't matter if it's hard or not, if you can compile as3 code into .swf then you can make a flashgame and perhaps submit it to AG. And this is a very tempting alternative to 700$ Adobe Flash CS.
FlashDevelop doesn't have tools for drawing, but is superior in every other way (well, at least for me). And you can use other free software for drawing, like GIMP, Paint.NET or Inkscape.
It is very important for beginners to to be able to create something without having to pay 700$. I can't try {Flex SDK+ freeware IDE} combo right now, but I heard it works.
Manny there are game engines out there that, assuming you want an eight frame movie clip, take a 128x16 image and cut each 16x16 piece into a separate frame. So that's doable. I've tried both, and they're just different. If you use Flash Develop, I would recommend using a game engine like Flixel or FlashPunk.
