How to make an elevator or lift in platform game?

[ADove]

I am creating a side scrolling platform game using the book "Flash Game University" by Gary Rosenzweig.

My current issue is trying to create a lift or elevator to carry the player up or down. The lift is not covered in the book. My thoughts were that the lift constantly moved up and down at a pace determined by a timer. I cannot get my lift to move. I have created a movie clip called "lift" and made it exported for action script. I can make it act similar to a floor movie clip so that I can stand on it, but I cannot get the lift to move on the y axis.

I tried creating a new function called lift() and using a for loop to count between 0 and 100 using a variable "i" and then make my lift move up 1 unit for each loop cycle. It didn't work.

lift.y -= lift.y - 1;

Does anyone have a better solution?

Thanks,
Alex

[smayer72]

Hey Alex
Honestly I would steer away from that book. He uses very little OOP programming and I found his coding method limiting. I would recommend you should look at Citrus Engine instead. It is an AS3 game engine incorporating multiple libraries like Starling, Away3d, Box2d, Nape and FeathersUI. It really makes life easier.
http://citrusengine.com/

[monsterkillu]

I am creating a side scrolling platform game using the book "Flash Game University" by Gary Rosenzweig.

I tried creating a new function called lift() and using a for loop to count between 0 and 100 using a variable "i" and then make my lift move up 1 unit for each loop cycle. It didn't work.
lift.y -= lift.y - 1;
Does anyone have a better solution?
Thanks,
Alex

The problem is lift.y = lift.y - 1;

One solution is to add the moving code to the EnterFrame Event listener function.

lift.y = lift.y - incrementValue; //lift starts from bottom
if(lift.y < topValue || lift.y>bottomValue)
{
incrementValue = -incrementValue; // To switch to opposite sides
}

Hope this might help you