Pausing

[Santuria]

gameplay = true;
if (gameplay) {
     // gameworks
     // all code in here
     // the infamous pause below
     if (Key.isDown(Key.SPACE)) {
          gameplay = false;
     }
}

[Squize]

It's much better using the one enterFrame mainloop approach rather than constantly checking a flag to see if a game is paused. It means [ Checking the flag way ] you're running a conditional check every frame which is only ever going to be needed 0.1% of the total time the game's running.

To stop the mc's animating, I usually have all active sprites stored away somewhere, so just run a loop through them telling them to stop. Stops the 256 error if there's just too much content whizzing around.

Squize.