This question has been asked before but all the answers I found have not applied to me. My armature has the logic bricks "keyboard sensor> and > Action" with my animation selected and frames specified. No objects in the scene have any modifiers other than my characters armature modifier. I tried parenting my object to the armature and removing the armature modifier, but that didn't work. Always sensors do not work either. Also, the animations work perfectly when played before the game is started.
Here's my blend https://www.dropbox.com/s/l3bisldlm1prx5l/kirby2k162.blend?dl=0