Thanks that's good advice as my repertoire of skills is very limited. so limited in fact that My game is more of a short interactive movie. the game mechanics are nothing more than using the arrow keys to jump to various cutscenes at given times replicating a running game of sorts so that's why I've completed a game with hardly any knowhow.
I'm going to stick with this project because its for my daughter so thanks again for the advice I'll start by trying to get to grips with global variables again.