Beginner looking for help making game

[project9designs]

I need some major guidance. I want to make a scratch game, and I've searched the forum and found an FLA file, but I cannot make head nor tails of the code. I don't understand how things are manipulated or controlled. I admit, I've never used this side of Flash.. I barely used Flash at all, but I want to do this. Does anyone have a good tutorial or book suggestion to help me jump into what all that code means?

For example, I'm working with Peter Joel's scratchnwin.fla file, and the small amount of code seems to do a lot, but I can't figure out how it controls the layers and movieclips without any reference to them (that I can see). It may be right there, plain as day, but I can't comprehend it.

Any help would be greatly, greatly, appreciated.

[Ricod]

Hello project9designs ! Welcome to the forums !

I recommend this tutorial : http://www.actionscript.org/tutorials/beginner/games_in_flash/index.shtml

Written by Billy T and very easy to understand. Of course, sometimes you just get stuck on some things. Just report back here when that happens. But try to read the whole tutorial first just to see what it covers and try to look up on the subjects some more if you have difficulties with them. Chances are, most of your general questions have already been asked and answered by others, so try to use the `search` option to browse through the forums for answers.

[project9designs]

Thanks for the reply. I poked through that tutorial before and it didn't really help what I'm trying to accomplish. I searched the forum and read the main 'scratch game' thread, that's where I found that Peter Joel scratch file. That helps me figure part of what I need; however, I need to figure out scoring now (among other things).

His flash file has 4 MCs running 5 or whatever frames, each one with a different icon. But if you get 3 or 4 of the same, like, jackpot symbol, it doesn't matter since there's no scoring function. I need to figure out what my best solution in picking a bunch of numbers and prizes and then calculating them. I suppose I could run the similar type of MC and have each frame be a number or prize, but how can I prevent two instances of the same number (unless that number = one of the winning numbers) and then calculate the winnings by adding points when said scenario exists? Is there a better way to generate numbers and then load a 'playfield' of symbols/mcs/graphics based on the number? (so if num1 = 6, load 6.jpg or Symbol 6 or whatever) I have a concept pic I put together of what I want it to look like if anyone who helps would want to see it.

I'm still struggling to figure out what ActionScript commands actually do or mean, but I've got a basic grasp of how I need to operate what I'm looking to do, but not the actual code to run it. Any help, again, would be awesome!

thx

[project9designs]

Anybody wanna help? =(

I'm use to Basic commands, but what would make something like this work:
total = 0
amt5 = 100
num = 5

if (something = something else) {
total += amt(num);
}

basically I'm trying to take a variable and pass it through, so I need it to process like 'amt5'. I know it's most likely simple, but I'm learning AC the hard way, by trying to hack my way through making a game. Thanks for the guidance.