Hello, your variable is working just fine, as plinkie said it doesn't reset, which is also a problem when you game over or quit the game since the variable doesn't reset to 3, causing instant game over or new game with less than 3 lives;
Here is a fix to your text displaying problem :
Also you need to reset manually the Numberchances variable each time you quit the current game or game over, for that you need an event associated to the buttons :
Also do you use the full version or demo version of C2?