Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

Chapter 13: Small games to keep them loading
using ‘loadVariables’ so the game is very easily adapted. The project file for this example can be
found at ‘Examples/Chapter13/crossword.fla’.
The ‘crossword.txt’ file contains variables of the form
rows: An integer giving the total number of rows.
rowx: Where x is an integer between 1 and ‘rows’. Each of these is a string
giving the letters for the row. To show a black square, enter a ‘0’
in the appropriate place in the string.
row1=variable00a0 would show as 8 blank squares, 2 black, a blank
and a black.
cluetotal: The total number of clues.
cluex: Where x is an integer between 1 and cluetotal. Each of these
indicates the square on which a clue starts.
cluesacross: A string in HTML format.
cluesdown: A string in HTML format.
loaded: Set to 1 to indicate that loading of the file is complete.
The number of columns, ‘cols’, is determined by getting the length of the first row string. Then
the on-screen clue display ‘cluetext’ is set to show the ‘cluesacross’ clues. The crossword is made
up of duplicated movie clips to keep the formatting flexible and to maintain a small file size. Each
square of the crossword contains a single movie clip that contains just two frames: the first frame
is a black square and the second frame includes an Input text box connected to the variable ‘letter’
and a dynamic text box connected to the variable ‘clueNum’. Using a little string parsing, the
appropriate frame is chosen. If the current row string contains a ‘0’ at the current column then the
black square, frame one, is shown, if not then frame two is shown.
1 count=0;
2 cols = length(row1);
3 cluetext = cluesacross;
4
5 orgX = 27;
6 orgY = 24;
7
8 var mc:MovieClip;
9
10 for(row=0; row