Question

Essentially I am trying to create a game, where the player has to dodge certain items, so far I have a piece of code that randomly adds 3 sharks to the stage.

The idea is that once the player has hit a shark he/she returns to the start location, I have an Action Script file that contains the speed,velocity etc of the shark, the every time the program is run the sharks will appear in a different location.

However, when I attempt to do a collision test of the sharks only one of the sharks respond, I cannot figure out how to make it that all 3 sharks effect the player (square_mc). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

//Pirate game, where you have to avoid particular object and get to the finish line to move onto the final level.

stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, moveMode ); 
function moveMode(e:KeyboardEvent):void {

//movements for the pirate ship, this will allow the ship to move up,down,left and right.

if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.RIGHT) {
    trace("right"); 
square_mc.x = square_mc.x + 25;
} 
else if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.LEFT) {
    trace("left"); 
square_mc.x = square_mc.x - 25;
} 
else if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.UP) {
    trace("up"); 
square_mc.y = square_mc.y - 25;
} 
else if (e.keyCode == Keyboard.DOWN) {
    trace("down");
square_mc.y = square_mc.y + 25;
}
}   

//for.fla
//this program uses a for loop to create my Sharks
//a second for loop displays the property values of the sharks

function DisplayShark():void{
for (var i:Number=0;i<3;i++)
{
    var shark:Shark = new Shark(500);
    addChild(shark);

    shark.name=("shark"+i);
    shark.x=450*Math.random();
    shark.y=350*Math.random();

}
}
DisplayShark();

for(var i=0; i<3;i++){
var currentShark:DisplayObject=getChildByName("shark"+i);

trace(currentShark.name+"has an x position of"+currentShark.x+"and a y position  of"+currentShark.y);
}



//here we will look for colliosion detection between the two move clips.

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, checkForCollision);
function checkForCollision(e:Event):void { 

if (square_mc.hitTestObject(currentShark))
{ 
trace("The Square has hit the circle");
    square_mc.x=50
    square_mc.y=50  //these lines of code return the square back to it's     original location
}

}

Answer 1

Just move your for loop into the ENTER_FRAME:

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, checkForCollision);
function checkForCollision(e:Event):void { 

    for(var i=0; i<3;i++){    
        var currentShark:DisplayObject=getChildByName("shark"+i);
        if (square_mc.hitTestObject(currentShark))
        { 
            trace("The Square has hit the circle");
            square_mc.x=50;
            square_mc.y=50;
        }
    }

}

You can’t just go through the for loop once and set the currentShark variable – you’ll just end up testing against one shark every time you perform the collision test. Rather, every time you want to check collisions you must loop through all the sharks and do the collision testing.