Player.alive is undefined

Phaser 3
1

I am trying to add phaser 3 games to my ionic 4 application using this method found on github (https://github.com/write2sv/ionic4-phaser3-template/commits/master).

This means rewriting my games in typescript, and some other changes. one big issue I am coming across is defining my player as alive which is the first if statement in my update(). it just returns undefined and I do not understand why. Can anyone help me on how to get around this??

Here is how I define my player:

 player = this.physics.add.sprite(window.innerWidth / 2, window.innerHeight - 100, 'ship');
 player.setOrigin(.5, .5);
 //this.physics.enable(player, Phaser.Physics.Arcade);
 player.physicsBodyType = Phaser.Physics.Arcade;

I have tried using .enable but I get the following error :“Property ‘enable’ does not exist on type ‘ArcadePhysics’”

Another possible cause:

I get the following error with startSystem “Property ‘startSystem’ does not exist on type ‘ArcadePhysics’.” by adding a physics sprite I thought I would get around both these error’s but no

this.physics.startSystem(Phaser.Physics.Arcade);