Question

Im making a transition from Java to Flash/Actionscript and Im having sort of a hard time figuring out where to write my code for my flash game loop(or engine) due to flash having “frames” unlike Java.

Am I able to put the loop inside the Document class even having like game menus in the game? I havent found a way to put it in there without it always running when the flash application begins.

Or should I just have the game loop called every frame? For instance, frame 4 will be level 1 and so the engine will be called out there. And frame 5 will be level 2 and ill call a different instance of the game engine there. Is that possible to do that?

Im just having a difficult time due to the “frames”. So where would be the best place to put the game loop?

Thank you!

Answer 1

You will quickly learn to avoid the pitfalls of frames if you’re a serious Java engineer. In your document class, you can create a main-game loop by listening for Event.ENTER_FRAME:

package
{
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;

    public class DocumentClass extends Sprite
    {

        public function DocumentClass():void
        {
            init();
        }

        private function init():void
        {
            addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, iterate);
        }

        private function iterate(event:Event):void
        {
            // loop here
        }

    }
}

You can stop the loop similarly be removing the event listener.

For more complex games, people commonly need to create more than one ENTER_FRAME listener. In this case, it is often more efficient to use a ‘ticker’ or some other device that minimises the number of event constructions by the player.

Hope this helps,
Alec