Comments on: AS3 Avoider Game Tutorial, Part 2: Multiple Enemies

By: Michael Williams

Michael Williams — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:27:01 +0000

Hey PlayHermit. I’m reading them, just a little behind on them — sorry!

Think about it this way: since the lowest value that Math.random() can be is 0, the lowest value that absoluteX can be using your code above is (0 * 370) = 0. But you need the lowest value to be, what, 15? 25? (I don’t know the width of your avatar.)

Hope that hint helps

By: PlayHermit

PlayHermit — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:04:01 +0000

I hope you’re still reading these comments MJW. I tried to get the little end activity and I figured out how to get the starting enemy to appear at random places, but I could never figure out how to keep them from only spawning within the box and not appear off the screen.

I thought just modifying the x value would do the trick but I guess theres more to it, right?

var randomX:Number = Math.random() * 370;
var newEnemy:Enemy = new Enemy( randomX, -15 );

As you can see, I attempted to fix the problem by lowering the the number in the first line from 400 to 370 but they’re still popping up a little off the screen. =(

PlayHermit´s last blog ..Gameplay – Pokemon Stadium 2- Defeating Bugsy

By: Michael Williams

Michael Williams — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:55:50 +0000

Let’s hope so

By: ayumilove

ayumilove — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:15:42 +0000

I did not receive his .fla and .as files So I think he has a way to manage that problem

By: Michael Williams

Michael Williams — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:48:23 +0000

@Callum: Not sure what you mean… did ayumilove’s comment about army.length help?

@Jake: That is weird :S Higher number should cause higher lag… maybe your curly braces are in the wrong place? If ayumilove’s generous offer of help doesn’t solve it, post again

By: ayumilove

ayumilove — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:51:50 +0000

Don’t know, send me your .fla to my email so I could check it out email : ayumiyoutube(at)gmail(d0t)com

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:22:24 +0000

@ayumilove When I put it at 0.1 or less, it lags a ton. The higher the number it is, the less the lag is, but the enemies per second is the same. Know what's up?

Thanks!

By: ayumilove

ayumilove — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:23:48 +0000

@Jake sorry, I don't understand what's your question about, so I can't really help you. Probability of enemy spawning is only from the range of zero to one. Not ten (10).

I don't see any errors in your code, should be fine.

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:59:02 +0000

Okay, I can get everything working until the end. Whenever I do

if ( Math.random() < 0.1 )

part I get tons of lag. If I bring it to say, 10, it doesn't at all. The time that they're going down doesn't change at all, it seems to basiclly only change lag or no lag. Here's my code...

package { import flash.display.MovieClip; import flash.utils.Timer; import flash.events.TimerEvent;

public class AvoiderGame extends MovieClip
{
    public var army:Array
    public var avatar:Avatar;
    public var gameTimer:Timer;
    public function AvoiderGame()
    {
        army = new Array();
        var newEnemy = new Enemy(100, -15);
        army.push( newEnemy );
        addChild( newEnemy );
        avatar = new Avatar();
        addChild( avatar );
        avatar.x = mouseX;
        avatar.y = mouseY;
        gameTimer = new Timer( 25 );
        gameTimer.addEventListener( TimerEvent.TIMER, onTick );
        gameTimer.start();
    }

public function onTick( timerEvent:TimerEvent ):void

{ if (Math.random() < 0.1 ) { var randomX:Number = Math.random() * 600; var newEnemy:Enemy = new Enemy( randomX, -15 ); army.push( newEnemy ); addChild( newEnemy ); for each ( var enemy:Enemy in army )

    {
    enemy.moveDownABit();
    if ( avatar.hitTestObject( enemy ) ) 
    { gameTimer.stop();

    }

}

avatar.x = mouseX;
avatar.y = mouseY
}


}

} }

any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Jake

By: ayumilove

ayumilove — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:56:05 +0000

You can set a constant value of 10 (as shown below) to limit the enemies that can be on screen.

if ( Math.random() < 0.1 && army.length < 10) { /* spawn enemy */ }

The previous method that you used, (changing the value of 0.1 in Math.random) simply increases/decreases the probability of the enemy spawn. The bigger the number (closing in to 1) has higher chance to spawn an enemy compare to the lower number (closing in to zero)