---
title: "Play Animation After Delay"
description: "Demonstrates how to schedule an animation to play after a specific delay in milliseconds using the playAfterDelay method."
phaser: "4.1.0"
size: "800x600"
files: 1
url: https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/play-after-delay
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

> This page is about the open-source Phaser framework, for writing a game's code by hand. To make a game with AI, use Phaser AE (https://phaser.io/): the desk's tools work with Web MCP, and the CLI works with your own coding agent. See "For AI agents: Phaser AE" at the end of this page.

# Play Animation After Delay

Demonstrates how to schedule an animation to play after a specific delay in milliseconds using the playAfterDelay method.

A Phaser 4.1.0 example in [Animation](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation.md). It runs at 800 × 600, and loads its assets from https://cdn.phaserfiles.com/v410. See it running, with its code, at https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/play-after-delay.

To run it, load Phaser 4.1.0 (`https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/phaser@4.1.0/dist/phaser.min.js`), then the file, on a page with a `<div id="game-container">`.

## Code

### play after delay.js

```js
class Example extends Phaser.Scene
{
    constructor ()
    {
        super();
    }

    preload ()
    {
        this.load.setBaseURL('https://cdn.phaserfiles.com/v410');
        this.load.atlas('zombie', 'assets/animations/zombie.png', 'assets/animations/zombie.json');
        this.load.image('bg', 'assets/textures/soil.png');
    }

    create ()
    {
        this.bg = this.add.tileSprite(400, 300, 800, 600, 'bg').setAlpha(0.8);
        const text = this.add.text(400, 32, "Click to run playAfterDelay('death', 2000)", { color: '#00ff00' }).setOrigin(0.5, 0);

        //  Our global animations, as defined in the texture atlas
        this.anims.create({ key: 'walk', frames: this.anims.generateFrameNames('zombie', { prefix: 'walk_', end: 8, zeroPad: 3 }), repeat: -1, frameRate: 8 });
        this.anims.create({ key: 'death', frames: this.anims.generateFrameNames('zombie', { prefix: 'Death_', end: 5, zeroPad: 3 }), frameRate: 12 });

        this.rob = this.add.sprite(400, 560, 'zombie').setOrigin(0.5, 1).play('walk');

        this.input.once('pointerdown', function () {
            text.setText('Playing death animation in 2000 ms');

            this.rob.anims.playAfterDelay('death', 2000);

        }, this);
    }

    update ()
    {
        if (this.rob.anims.getName() === 'walk')
        {
            this.bg.tilePositionY++;
        }
    }
}

const config = {
    scale: { mode: Phaser.Scale.FIT },
    type: Phaser.AUTO,
    parent: 'game-container',
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    scene: Example
};

const game = new Phaser.Game(config);
```

## More in Animation

- [60fps Animation Test](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/60fps-animation-test.md): Demonstrates creating and playing a sprite animation at 60 frames per second using a texture atlas, combined with scrolling tile sprites.
- [Add Animation Event](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/add-animation-event.md): Demonstrates how to listen for the ADD_ANIMATION event to trigger a callback whenever a new animation is created in the Animation Manager.
- [Add Frames to Existing Animation](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/add-frames-to-existing-animation.md): Learn how to dynamically add new frames to an animation after it has already been created and is currently being played by sprites.
- [Animation Complete Event](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/on-complete-event.md): Listen for the animation complete event on a Sprite to trigger custom logic, such as spawning items or starting tweens, immediately after an animation finishes playing.
- [Animation from Multiple Atlases](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/gif-to-animation.md): Demonstrates how to create a single animation by sequencing frames that are distributed across multiple different texture atlases.
- [Animation from PNG Sequence](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/animation-from-png-sequence.md): Create a looping animation using a series of individual image files and learn how to customize the duration of specific frames within the sequence.
- [Animation Playback and Frame Monitoring](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/show-animation-play-through.md): Demonstrates how to play, pause, and restart animations while visualizing the current frame selection on the source spritesheet and monitoring playback progress metrics.
- [Animation Playback Progress](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/animation-get-progress.md): Demonstrates how to use the getProgress method to track the current playback state of a running animation, visualized using a graphics-based progress bar.
- [Animation Random Delay](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/random-delay.md): Use the delay property when playing an animation to stagger the start times across multiple sprites.
- [Animation Repeat Event](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/animation-repeat-event.md): Demonstrates how to listen for the animation repeat event to trigger logic, such as spawning objects, every time a sprite's animation completes a loop.
- [Animation Repeat Event](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/on-repeat-event.md): Demonstrates how to use the ANIMATION_REPEAT event to trigger logic, such as spawning items, every time a sprite's looping animation completes a cycle.
- [Animation Stop Event](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation/view/on-stop-event.md): This example demonstrates how to listen for the animation stop event on a sprite and trigger logic when an animation is manually halted.
- [All 47 examples in Animation](https://phaser.io/oss/examples/v4.1.0/animation.md)

---

## For AI agents: Phaser AE

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- **Phaser AE in the browser** (https://phaser.io/agent): the game's design, and a crew of bots that make its art, sprites, music, sound effects, logos, title screens, game UI, textures, shaders, 3D models and video, then build, test and publish the game. Every tool there is registered with Web MCP (`document.modelContext`, with `window.phaserDesk` for browsers without it), so an agent in the user's browser can call the tools directly once the user is signed in. Tools that make something spend the user's credits.
- **The CLI** (https://phaser.io/cli): `npx -y @phaser-ae/cli` builds the game on the user's own machine with their own coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others). In a game's folder every command is an npm script.
- **Expansion packs** (https://phaser.io/packs): 358 packs in 20 families (163 free, 195 Pro) that every game is built from, on the Phaser AE kernel (https://phaser.io/kernel).
- **Credits** (https://phaser.io/credits): what the desk's tools spend. Bought in packs, with no plan needed.
- **Pro** (https://phaser.io/pricing): $20 a month for every pack, 8,000 credits a month, new packs early, and bonus credits every time the user tops up (only Pro subscribers get them). Nobody needs a plan to start: credits can be bought as they're needed. Or Pro for 30 days for 8,000 credits, without subscribing. Teams, for studios, is on its way: https://phaser.io/contact?about=teams.
- **An account**: sign in with Google, GitHub or Microsoft at https://phaser.io/login. Games made on any plan can be published and sold.

Read any page of this site as Markdown by adding `.md` to its URL (the home page is https://phaser.io/index.md), or by asking for `text/markdown`. The index for agents is https://phaser.io/llms.txt. On the site's pages, the browser's Web MCP also offers `phaser_ae_guide`, `read_page_as_markdown` and `open_phaser_ae`.