In another separate .fla I experimented with XML importing and parsing.

I decided to use this BBC weather feed as a source of information to be brought into my game.

I using the example we were given I eventually created this:

//Plymouth temperature finder
var xmlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var xmlData:XML = new XML();
xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, LoadXML);
xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/13/ObservationsRSS.xml"));
function LoadXML(e:Event):void {
xmlData = new XML(e.target.data);
parseXML(xmlData);
}
function parseXML(xmlInput:XML) :void{
var weather:String = xmlInput.channel.item.description;
temp = weather.substring(13,14);
}

The second to last line places the contents of the description tags within the item tags within the channel tags in the XML document. The last line finds the 14th and 15th character of it, which should be the temperature.

I added a function to calculate the frequency the bonus balls appear:

function bonusRate():void {
if(temp < 4){
intervalBONUS = (Math.random() * 20000) + 5000;
}else{
intervalBONUS = (Math.random() * 30000) + 5000;
}
interval1 = setInterval(ballGenBONUS,intervalBONUS);
}

So if the temperature in Plymouth falls below 4 degrees centigrade then the frequency is more likely to be greater.

This code was later moved to the first frame to allow it to load before the bonusRate() function runs.

When testing the game on my server I encountered another error. Flash does not allow referencing data from different domains then the one the .swf is hosted on.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14213.html

A suggested workaround was to use a simple PHP proxy by creating a .php file with:

$dataURL = "http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/13/ObservationsRSS.xml";
readfile($dataURL);
?>

and by changing the new URLRequest link to point at the .php file hosted on my server. This solves the problem. For the hand in the game must work independently so I have made the code more resilient by defaulting the temp variable to 10.

Also making use of the temp data I have:

var dotsNumGOOD = 40 + parseInt(temp);
var dotsNumBAD = 8 + Math.ceil(parseInt(temp)/4);

So the hotter the temperature the more balls that can spawn. I took care not to unbalance the game to greatly.

In the first frame I also played around with dates.

var currentDate:Date = new Date();
var Year = currentDate.getFullYear();
if(Year > 2012){
messageTxt.text = "Looks like we made it"
}

The biggest complaint I got back from people who play tested the game was that bad balls could spawn underneath the player which is unfair. So to prevent this I modified the ballGenBad function to include:

randomX = Math.random() * 800;
randomY = Math.random() * 600;
while((randomX > (ballP1.x - 100))&&((ballP1.x + 100) > randomX)){
randomX = Math.random() * 800;
}
while((randomY > (ballP1.y - 100))&&((ballP1.y + 100) > randomY)){
randomY = Math.random() * 600;
}

If the random number is in the immediate area around the player it will generate a new number until it isn’t.

In addition to this there were a number of other refinements such as seperating the hit tests for each ball type into seperate functions.

I first added sounds here but encountered a problem. Whenever a sound was played it would cause the player movement to freeze for a fraction of a second. This negatively impacted gameplay significantly. After attempting many different solutions I eventually found the problem. For some reason when a sound is first played the player must load something inorder to play sounds. Immediatly after finishing playing that sound it stops it. By running a continuous sound loop in the background this never stops, removing the freezing problem.