AS3 still uses frame commands like stop() and gotoAndStop/Play..

Uhh yeah, that's really weird I've got CS3 open right now, I followed your steps exactly and it works just fine. Try again in a new file? If it doesn't work then try restarting flash.

If those don't work, gonna have to wait until someone else posts to help, cause idk..

I have/also love Cs3.

var myArray:Array = ["First", "Second", "Third", "Fourth"];
var index:Number = 0;
this.backbutton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, checkBackBtn);
this.forwardbutton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, checkForwardBtn);
this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, Run);

function Run(e:Event):void
{
this.displayBox.text = myArray[index];
}
function checkBackBtn(e:MouseEvent):void
{
 if(index == 0)
{
 index = myArray.length-1;
}
else
{
index--;
}
}

function checkForwardBtn(e:MouseEvent):void
{
if(index == myArray.length-1)
{
index = 0;
}
else
{
index++;
}
}

That should work..

What?
You need to submit a flash game..

How long did it take you to make your first flash game, while learning the ins and outs of flash?

It didn't take long, there was always lots of experiments, I would try making a game, fail at it but then learn something from it and refine how I did things. To get my first flash out onto NG took a while (months and months) because I was just 13/14 so I couldn't really keep myself on the same project for long.
It sounds like you're a college student though, so you should have no problem with this, I would expect you to be able to concentrate and spend your time more wisely.

Ideally I would want the game to be something simple. Perhaps a single level, of a classic platformer or sidescroller. I'm also tossing around the idea of a tower defense game.

Assuming it's all from scratch:
A platformer can be very hard, depending on how smooth you want it because of the collision detection (if you go with a platformer, please don't make the jump a full animation, let the script move the player). A sidescroller would be much simpler. A tower defense is simple if you learn the concepts involved, like arrays and tile-based maps, stuff like that.

But you can get an average game of any of those types finished with just tutorials on the internet.

I mainly ask these questions because, I'm an art student and for my project i was asked to make a toy or a game. And for my final I can continue the toy or game. This means I have about 5 weeks until the deadline for the project. I'm not worried about the art aspect of the game, it's mainly the programming I am worried about.

Essentially, what could I make in this time period? Is a game too ambitious (when I have a 4 other classes to worry about as well?). And what more difficult to create (in terms of programming), a tower defense game or a platformer?

In 5 weeks time? It really all depends on how commited you are, if you've got some passion for learning this besides getting a good grade then you'll be totally fine in whichever you choose. It's all dependent on how much time you actually sit down with flash learning actionscript..

I would say a platformer is harder to make than a tower defense, but I would probably go with doing a platformer because it's much nicer than a tower defense and you can go as far as you want with it. There's SO many tutorials on making a platformer, just be logical and follow them and you'll have your platformer..

All comments and feedback are greatly appreciated! :D

Good luck with this, just commit to it.

At 4/4/09 05:28 AM, posticepurr wrote: hi, I'm making a small game, where a laser is fired, and is removed when it reaches the edge of the screen, it seems to work fine and i don't get any errors, but after firing it for a while the game starts lagging a lot when the laser is fired, but not when it leaves the screen, well it's difficult to explain. but i am pretty sure it is something with the my removeSelf() function that doesn't remove the laser entirely or something? anyway how can i solve this? any better way to remove the laser?

here is the code for the laser:

package {

import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.display.Stage;


public class laser extends MovieClip {

public function laser( x, y):void {

this.x = x;
this.y = y;

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, loop);
}
public function loop(e:Event):void {

x += 23;

if (x > 700) {
removeSelf();
}
}
public function removeSelf():void {
removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, loop);

if (stage.contains(this)) {
stage.removeChild(this);
}
}
}
}

thx

Replace

if (stage.contains(this)) {
: 				stage.removeChild(this);
: 			}

With

if(this.parent != null)
{
this.parent.removeChild(this);
}

Basically, no matter what the laser's parent is, it will delete it.. Not sure if this will help at all though.

I would DEFINATELY also put a trace inside the loop function saying something simple like "Laser is still running enterframe." Shoot one laser off, and see if you're correctly removing the ENTER_FRAME event.

Post if it works or not plz.

Yeah I need one too. I'll send a PM.

Bummer.

Magical-Zorse, you sound like a broken record lol, how is it no one shows thier past work..?

What is the payment split between you and the programmer?

What category should I post in looking for beta testers?

Thanks

Adobe ImageReady maybe?

You can get pretty fluent with just online tutorials.

Yeahhh, I bet there's a way to do it without lagging.
Like you could attach the movie, with an animation for it to like, drip down, and then it will fade away fast, maybe even make it smart enough to fade slower when there's less on screen, and fade faster when there's more so it never pulls the game's FPS down.
Besides, if you leave them all on there, you wouldn't be able to see the latest ones, I guess you could make them darker the older they are like they're getting dry. And the newer blood splatters would be a brighter red.

At 4/3/09 09:24 PM, hexas11 wrote: well i'm developing a platformer game and so far i'm doing alright. But i need to find out a way to have a inventory system and have weapons that you can equip. Also, i need a simple AI but as of now i really don't need one

Of course it's possible, an inventory system? Well, you could keep an array of objects, and an array of inventory cells. They would be all an inventoryCellMC or whatever you'd want to call it, and either
A. Each frame in thier timeline would be of a different item, and you would have an MC on an upper layer to signify if it's selected or not (if you want that of course, its extra).
or
B. They have one frame (or two if you want to show if its being clicked), and the frame would just have a single item MC on it that would have all the items in its timeline.

So you could be like:
for(var i:Number = 0;i<inventoryItems.length;i++)
{
if(inventoryItems[i] == undefined)
{
inventoryCells[i].item.gotoAndStop(1); //The blank frame.
}
else
{
inventoryCells[i].item.gotoAndStop(inven toryItems[i].numType);
}
}

That's to show the items.. I'm used to AS3 though, so some of these things might be a little off, and I'm pretty much assuming you'd use classes for your items, because that will end up making your life easier.

Don't follow what I'm saying exactly, just take what I'm saying and make it to form your opinion of what you should do, because I bet our programming styles are not the same at all.. Soo yeah.. Hope that helps somehow. Good luck.

Yeah I am

He's using CS3.

I get this error when I try opening certain .fla's, I'm using CS4, and I think he's saving the .fla as a cs4 file but I can't check that until later.

Has anybody ever seen this before/know the fix?

Thanks a lot to anybody that can give me a hand.

Where do you call duck_wait() ?

What's the point of having sick looking achievement icon if the game itself sucks? No offense, just theoretically...

Check the rotation of the gun, if its higher than w/e you want your max to be then set it to the max, if lower then set it to your min.

It sounds like just by submitting our fla + swf, we won't have it sponsored by you guys, right? If it's not sponsored by you, then why give the code just for the contest?

Very cool

Our source code? Why? Why not you just give us the logo and w/e and then we can happily put it in ourselves...
And only 250 for 1st place? That's not very much, and we will be giving you the source code, so basically you will be able to sponsor it for <= $250?

Eh, seems like a ripoff really...

At the end of your player's (or scope in this case? idk) onEnterFrame, set the depth to the highest.

scope.swapDepths(_root.getNextHighestDep th());

if(player is Player)
{
          //We know he is of type player
}

I think that's it..

You have no idea how hard it is to "backseat script", i.e. telling the artist exactly what code to put in and exactly where.

Yup, you can export flash into movie format, I don't think you can export it straight to wmv though, they have like Windows AVI and QuickTime, so you'd just have to convert it after you export it.

I like the look and feel of CS3 much better.
And there's that bone thing in CS4, but I havn't looked into it yet...

The O'Reilly one? Use this one from Bryan Heisey
http://bryanheisey.com/blog/?page_id=19

Ren, that's like saying the camera adds 10 lbs, bad image quality doesn't do that much