Need Help With Error #1009

I think you're making this way too complicated.

Give each of your buttons a base Class like this:

public class EventButton extends SimpleButton {      public function EventButton() {           super();           addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, dispatchCustomEvent);           buttonMode=true;      }      protected function dispatchCustomEvent(e:MouseEvent):void {           dispatchEvent(new Event(name, true));      } }

This will have the effect of allowing each button to dispatch an event that's the same as its name when it is clicked.

Now, you just have to listen to the main timeline for these named events and you don't need to care whether any particular button exists or not. So:

addEventListener('mainFloor_mc', goToReception);//you probably want to now rename that button, but you get the idea.

Note that by just defining your buttons as Buttons in the library/on stage, you can just draw in your over and down states rather than having to bother with all that code for your hover states, etc. I've assumed you're going to do this by using SimpleButton as the base Class above. If you like doing all that extra work, then by all means extend Sprite or MovieClip instead.

Thank you very much for responding! I re-organized my images so that each "room" is on a different layer so that they are all on frame 1, and I placed all of the code on frame 1 of the first layer as well. I decided not to go with Document Classes because I'm very new to AS3 so given the time restraints on my project I thought the other option would be easier.

I followed the code moccamaximum provided in order to set up the array but I received this error message:

ReferenceError: Error #1056: Cannot create property visible on String.

  at Project2_fla::MainTimeline/showRoom()

  at Project2_fla::MainTimeline/enterHospital()

I'm pretty sure I just didn't set it up correctly, but I labeled each layer either room1, room2, room3, etc. and set up the code like this:

var rooms:Array = ["room1","room2","room3","room4","room5","room6","room7","room8",

    "room9","room10","room11","room12"];

function showRoom(_index:int):void{

   for (var i:int = 0;i<rooms.length;i++){

       if(i==_index){

           rooms.visible = true;

         }

  else{

        rooms.visible = false; ------------------------> this is where the error is

          }

   }

}

// introduction message

var introMessage_mc:introMessage = new introMessage();

introMessage_mc.x = 900;

introMessage_mc.y = 822;

addChild(introMessage_mc);

introMessage_mc.visible = false;

// button on door to enter the hospital

mainEntrance_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, enterHospital);

mainEntrance_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, hover);

mainEntrance_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, hoverOff);

// button click that moves you to room 2

function enterHospital(e:MouseEvent):void{

  showRoom(1); ---------------------------------------------> Also where the error is

}

function hover(e:Event):void{

  mainEntrance_mc.buttonMode = true;

  introMessage_mc.visible = true;

}

function hoverOff(e:Event):void{

  introMessage_mc.visible = false;

}

What I'm trying to do here is move from room1 to room2, but I also have another concern. As you can see above each room has different buttons the player can click on, either to move to a different room, inspect an object, etc. I currently have these buttons sitting on the stage, but now that I will be navigating via layer visibility instead of frames how would I make it so the buttons in each room also appear/disappear with their respective rooms? I was thinking I could store each button in my library and call it to the stage like I am currently doing with my "messages", but I just wanted to see if there was an easy way to keep them on the stage in order to cut down on my code

Thanks again for all of your help, and if you have any tutorials in mind that would help me create this kind of point and click game that involves navigating through rooms that would also be super helpful!! I tried looking for some but I couldn't seem to find one that would suit my needs If you guys have ever played the game Deeper Sleep or something similar, that is the gameplay structure I am going for. Just being able to freely navigate through rooms while picking up or inspecting objects

It looks like you are using code on the frame.  This is a really bad practice (although you can do it) in AS3.0.

Essentially the problem here is that a variable is being requested and it is not available.  Most likely due to conflicting frames not sharing the variables.  When you switch a frame you are actually removing everything from the previous frame.

Good practice would be to write your code into the document class and other classes that are imported.  This is the object orientated programming practice and will serve you better in the long run.