[AS3] Character Animation tied to Key Press

programming
1

I am trying to make a platform game, a new concept for me. So, I’m tackling this project one step at a time. I created a character with animated states that reacts to pressed buttons (e.g. walking, jumping).

I was able to get the character to react but it won’t animate. It only plays the first frame of the animation for the walk cycle when facing right. When facing left, the character stands still and the walk cycle won’t run. The idle animation also doesn’t play. I’ve been trying to solve my problem from a book I bought but no dice.


//stop();

var Block_mc:Hero = new Hero();
var dir:Number=1;
var faceLeft, leftArrow, rightArrow:Boolean=false;

addChild(Block_mc);
placeHero(144,216);

stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, keyDownCheck);
stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, keyUpCheck);

//FUNCTIONS
function placeHero(aNum:Number,bNum:Number) {
    Block_mc.x=aNum;
    Block_mc.y=bNum;

    Block_mc.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveHero);
}
function keyDownCheck(event:KeyboardEvent) {
    if (event.keyCode == 37) {
        leftArrow =true;
    } else if (event.keyCode == 39) {
        rightArrow = true;
    }
}
function keyUpCheck(event:KeyboardEvent) {
    if (event.keyCode == 37) {
        leftArrow = false;
    } else if (event.keyCode == 39) {
        rightArrow = false;
    }
}
function moveHero(event:Event) {
    if (leftArrow) {
        if (!faceLeft) {
            Block_mc.scaleX*=-1;
            faceLeft=true;
        }
        Block_mc.gotoAndPlay("walk");
    }
    if (!leftArrow) {
        Block_mc.gotoAndPlay("norm");
    }
    if (rightArrow) {
        if (faceLeft) {
            Block_mc.scaleX*=-1;
            faceLeft=false;
        }
        Block_mc.gotoAndPlay("walk");
    }
    if (!rightArrow) {
        Block_mc.gotoAndPlay("norm");
    }
}

The character has only two lines of code inside of it:


this.gotoAndPlay("norm");
this.gotoAndPlay("walk");

Appreciate help on this. I’ve done simple point-and-click games before but this is really giving me a headache.