Use a string to call a class

There are several issues with your code. Reflection is kinda tricky, so I'll suggest you make some changes in your code for convenience.

First, you cannot call new on an object (a class that has instantiated). You can only do that with a class. Luckily, Activator.CreateInstance already does that for you (takes the type of a class and calls new and then returns the instantiated object).

However, your PlayStateLevel class has a constructor with a parameter. Now, there is a way to call it by passing your variable, but to make things easy, I suggest you have a constructor with no parameters and simply expose the manager variable so you can set it later.

Finally, you'll need to cast (explicitly tell C# what type the object is) so you can pass it to your method.

By the way, I assume that all PlayStateLevel class have a base class called PlayStateLevel. If not, I highly recommend you do.

Thus, you will end up with the following:

 public WinLoseState (StateManager managerRef)
 {
       .
       .
       string currentLevel = "PlayStateLevel" + CalculateLevelNumber ();
       Type type = Type.GetType(string.Format("Code.States.{0}", currentLevel));
       PlayStateLevel pLevel = (PlayStateLevel)System.Activator.CreateInstance(type);
       pLevel.manager = manager;
 }

and

 manager.SwitchState (pLevel);

Hi pekalicious

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. I still have the same system error as before. The lines triggering the error are these, both for my previous script and your script:

My line:

 System.Object obj = System.Activator.CreateInstance(type);

Your line:

 PlayStateLevel pLevel = (PlayStateLevel)System.Activator.CreateInstance(type);

I'm not using a PlayStateLevel base class as you mentioned. These are the classes involved so you can have a bigger picture of the design. I'm only including the relevant snippets for each class:

IStateBase class:

 namespace Code.Interfaces
 {
     public interface IStateBase
     {
     }
 }

StateManager class:

 using UnityEngine;
 using Code.States;
 using Code.Interfaces;
 
 public class StateManager : MonoBehaviour {
 
     private IStateBase activeState;
 
     public void SwitchState(IStateBase newState)
     {
         activeState = newState;
     }    
 }

PlayStateLevel1 class:

 using UnityEngine;
 using Code.Interfaces;
 
 namespace Code.States
 {
     public class PlayStateLevel1 : IStateBase
     {
         private StateManager manager;
 
         public PlayStateLevel1 (StateManager managerRef)
         {
             manager = managerRef;
             Application.LoadLevel("Level1");
         }
 
         public void StateUpdate()
         {
             if ( manager.statTracker.GetLifePoints() <= 0) {
                 manager.SwitchState (new WinLoseStateLevel1 (manager));
             }            
         }        
     }
 }

WinLoseStateLevel1 class:

 using UnityEngine;
 using Code.Interfaces;
 
 namespace Code.States
 {
     public class WinLoseStateLevel1 : IStateBase
     {
         private StateManager manager;
         
         public WinLoseStateLevel1 (StateManager managerRef)
         {
             manager = managerRef;
             
             /*** THIS IS THE CODE I ORIGINALLY ADDED BUT GIVES AN ERROR ***/
             Type type = Type.GetType(string.Format("Code.States.{0}", currentLevel));
             System.Object obj = System.Activator.CreateInstance(type)
             /**************************************************************/        
         }
         
         public void ShowIt()
         {                
             if (GUI.Button (new Rect (10, 10, 150, 100), stringNextLevel)) 
             {
                 manager.SwitchState (new PlayStateLevel2 (manager));
             }                
                 
             if (GUI.Button (new Rect (10, 110, 150, 100), stringPlayLevelAgain)) {
                 manager.SwitchState (new PlayStateLevel1 (manager));                    
             }            
         }
     }
 }

As you can see, the idea is to use a string for:

 manager.SwitchState(new STRING (manager));

Any suggestion?