2D Side view shooter - Where can I find a good tutorial to get started?

[rdoroana]

I'm planning on doing a 2D side view shooter (metal slug style) in Flash but I honestly don't know where to start.
Does anyone know where I can get some good tutorials to start off?
Thanks in advance.

I have Flash MX 2004 Pro btw...

[InsaneMonk]

I can help! My AIM is freakazoid642! How good are you at AS? Do you want an example? Here:

[rdoroana]

Hmm, I don't have AIM...
Well, I'm kind of new to AS, I just know the basic stuff to create some flash cartoon movies but I learn fast, that's why I want a tutorial.
Thanks anyway.

[InsaneMonk]

Ok...
I'll probably whip up a (Flash) tutorial. In the meantime, I would check out www.flashkit.com for game tuts. (No offense kirupa ;))

[rdoroana]

I've been looking around and found some useful things.
I know how to make a character go left, right, up and down but how can I make a character change the image when I go left or right? To simplifie: When character is NOT moving then animation "standing.png" and when character is moving then this animation "waling.png". How can I do this?
Thanks in advance.

[InsaneMonk]

Your using "LoadMovie"? Dont. Use gotoAndStop with movie clips inside movie clips. Liek theres a mainchar movie clip, and on frame 1 theres stop(); and then on frame 2, theres the walkin anim and so on. then u cud say
if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)){
this._xscale = 100;
this.gotoAndStop(2);
}else {
this.gotoAndStop(1);
}

[rdoroana]

Got it to work, thanks!

[InsaneMonk]

Your welcome! :) Need any more help? Like shooting?

[rdoroana]

I'll need help on shooting but I'll leave that for later. If I need anything I'll post :)
Thanks again!

[rdoroana]

Hmm, I can't get the gun shooting animation (just the animation, no shooting anything yet, just sound) working correctly.
I have the gun bitmap as a movie clip with the following frames inside:
Frame 1 - Plain gun bitmap with stop action
Frame 2 - Gun with little yellow thing at the end (just to look like its firing) and shot sound streaming.
I can't seem to get the sound to play, and the gun just stays with the yellow thing, it doesn't return to the normal postion.
This is what I have in the movie clip actions:

onClipEvent (keyDown) {
if (Key.isDown(Key.SPACE)) {
this.gotoAndStop(2);
} else {
this.gotoAndStop(1);
}
}

Any help?

[InsaneMonk]

try putting the shooting "animation" into its own MC liek i xplained earlier.

[rdoroana]

Hmm, it works now, I changed the 'gotoAndStop' commands to 'gotoAndPlay'.
Now the only problem is holding the fire key, I can't get the fire to repeat at a certain point. Since it's a machine gun and the shoot sound is one bullet at a time, the sound must repeat about half way through the full sound for a correct rate of fire, I can't really explain it so if you don't understand there's no way I can explain better.
Btw, I don't understand the MC inside MC thing, could you explain better?
Thanks.

And another quick thing, how do I set the action for the left mouse button instead of space, left arrow key, etc.?

[InsaneMonk]

for mouse:

on(mouseDown) {
//shooting crap
}
onClipEvent(load) {
this.startDrag(true);
}

[InsaneMonk]

id appretiate your appretiation :)

[rdoroana]

Oh, yes, sorry!
Lol, thanks! :)