Why should you use Scratch to create games?
Scratch is one of the top online coding environments for people of all ages. Android tablets and most desktop operating systems may easily access the platform. It's also a terrific place for new coders ages 5 and up to start learning the principles of coding through block-based coding. Scratch is a very flexible programming language. Scratch blocks are used for a variety of purposes, including animations and interactive storytelling. Scratch, on the other hand, is most commonly used to create video games.
You'll find an amazing library of video games that is continually updated and added to once you visit the Scratch community. Scratch is an excellent programming language for creating interesting games as it allows players to input data and provides them practically complete control over the code.
What is considered as a Game?
Before creating a game, you must first realize what such a game is. Games are currently one of the most prominent types of entertainment. There are numerous types of engaging games being played for fun either for academic or both purposes.
There are two basic prerequisites that all games must meet.
- Something must be under the player's control.
- There must be a goal for the gamer to achieve.
If it satisfies these two criteria, then It's a game
People usually think of popular, sophisticated video games or computer games like Minecraft or Fortnite when they think about games. Games don't have to be as big as they seem. Games can even be as simple as Rock, Paper or Scissors Tic-Tac-Toe.
Step 1: Make a Strategy
The first and most critical stage in creating a game is to create a strategy. This can also be referred to as game design.
This phase provides direction throughout your project. Those who skip this phase and begin coding without a plan are more likely to lose focus of their objective and quit their game before it is finished. Making a strategy can be enjoyable.
Planning is an excellent opportunity to exercise your creativity and comes up with a unique project concept. Follow these three simple principles given below to make the procedure simple;
- Decide on a theme.
- Determine the player's actions.
- Select a goal for the player to accomplish.
The remaining process of the creation of the game will flow smoothly when you've figured out such things. You will not have to accomplish them in any particular order, either. It's generally best to start with one topic and work your way to the other two. However, you should concentrate on the one that most motivates you.
Whenever you're planning a game, try to keep it as basic as possible!
Don't be concerned when your first game is not all you hoped for. Do something that you can produce in an hour or two because it will be more satisfying. Complex games, such as those on the Scratch Homepage, necessitate a great deal of expertise and effort.
Simply concentrate on accomplishing a task, and you'll be on your way to better things in no time.
- Create a visual theme
The overall impact of a game is among the most crucial parts of it. This is unrelated to how the game works, yet it has a significant impact on the player's experience. The visual theme of a game is a mix of its environment and players.
Choosing a subject is frequently the simplest part of creating a game, as it comes naturally if you have a good idea. Try thinking of one thing you'd like to include in the game as a theme.
Either of these concepts can easily be expanded into a comprehensive visual theme with a setting and characters.
- Determine the Basic Mechanics
The next step in developing a game strategy is to determine what the opponents will do during the game. To accomplish this, you have to:
First, consider how players will interact with your game. Then, you can decide what your game's goal will be.
When considering whatever players will do in the game, try to keep things as simple as possible. Most of the most popular games are simply too difficult for newcomers to play.
Resist platformers and battle games in particular. Advance games, such as platform games, require the recreation of complicated concepts like physics & gravity.
Buying and selling games
Hungry Hippo is a basic gathering game. Assist the hippo in eating or collecting food. The goal of the game is to gather as many objects as possible. The Players have control over a character's mobility.
Games of escape
Cake Chaser is a simple skipping game in which we have to assist the cake in escaping the hungry insect. The goal of the game is to avoid being hit by something falling or chasing you. In this game Players direct the movement of a character.
Games with questions
The Number Guesser game is a basic question game. To succeed, you must predict which number Giant is considering. The goal of the game is to Answering questions correctly. In this game players react to the game's queries.
- Assemble your game plan
For example if the game's theme is mermaids, and it will take place underwater, with the player controlling a character's movement. The goal is to move the character about as much as possible while collecting as much stuff as possible.
It is not necessary for your plan to be extremely thorough. We may have some understanding of the game. That should suffice to get you started. It's finally time to start writing code. Just go to Scratch website and then click "Create" to start a new project. It will bring us to a completely fresh Scratch project with no name. Just one thing we should see here on onstage is a cat in the middle.
Step 2: Create a main character
- Generate a Sprite first.
To begin, we must first build a "Sprite" for our primary character. Sprites are used to portray characters and objects in Scratch programes.
These sprites are pictures that display in the main area of your game (in the top right, called the Stage). Sprites can wander around and execute the code that we provide, allowing us to make some absolutely amazing creations.
The Scratch Cat, included in every project by default, is the only sprite in the game. Click the icon labelled "Choose a Sprite" in the bottom right corner of the screen to design a new sprite for your main character.
From this menu, choose the primary character. You may edit the game and paint new sprites yourself under the paint editor or costumes tab.
If you just want, you may even add a photo of yourself. Our initial sprite will be a mermaid for our game. Anyone who wants to can follow along because this is one of the menu's default sprites. After you've finished making a sprite, it should appear in the Stage's center. The cat will also be present unless you wish it to be absent from the game, in which case you can erase it when you right-click its sprite's garbage can icon.
- Program your Character
It's time to bring our new sprite to reality now that we've made it. Because this sprite will be the game's primary character, let's build some code to allow the player to control it.
When the player clicks buttons, the code you write on a controlled sprite will cause it to move. Instead of asking the queries, the code you create can ask them questions if you're developing a question game.
The “Control” component of your strategy should be implemented in general by the code on your main sprite.
Read our article to learn How Block Coding Revolutionized Coding For Kids
We wish our mermaid to be capable of moving it around our game. When we hit the left, right, up, and down arrow keys, she will go left, right, up, and down. We've already finished a significant portion of our game. One-third of our plan has been accomplished: the player can now manipulate a sprite.
Step 3: Select a background
Let's start by adding a framework to our theme before moving on to adding a goal. While backgrounds aren't required to complete a game, they do provide a lot of personality.
You could make a game that works without them, but your game would just be a white screen. Picking a fun backdrop helps to communicate the game's theme and adds to the overall appeal.
You can make a game that works without them, however your game would just be a blank display! Picking a fun background helps to communicate your game's theme while also making it more engaging and realistic. Simply click the blue icon to the right of the "New Sprite" button to select a background. This will lead you to a background menu where you may choose from a variety of options.
You can also make your own backgrounds or use any image from your PC as a backdrop. Click the appropriate buttons in the drop-down menu to try them out. Whatever option you choose, make an effort to match your character to the background. Our game takes place underwater because our primary character is a mermaid.
Step 4: Include a goal
Let's now include an objective in our game. To do so, we'll need to make a new sprite that interacts with our primary character.
- Choose a Sprite
You should already have a general notion of what you want your goal to be based on the strategy you developed previously. Various types of games can have a wide variety of aims.
The following are the goals for the games we stated earlier:
- Objects to be collected in the Collecting Game.
- Enemies you're expected to avoid in the Dodging Game.
- You're expected to answer questions in the Question Game.
You should choose the sprite for your objective based on the type of game you want to build. A wise Sphinx, for example, could pose questions to the player in a Question game.
A terrifying ghost might chase the player around in a dodge game. The mermaid will have to acquire pearls for our collecting game. When she grabs a pearl, another one appears in an unexpected location! For each pearl we gather, our score will rise by one.
This is the sprite we'll use to make the pearl. We created our own pearl sprites using the sprite editor because the Scratch sprite library lacked them. For this phase, try painting a new sprite or using a photo from your computer!
- Create the code for your goal.
We want another pearl to appear in a random spot on the screen whenever the mermaid taps one. By using the blue “go to random position” block, this may be readily performed. Even though there are only a few lines of code in this section, they can be confusing. Let's take a step-by-step look at what this code does:
The game starts after you click on the green flag. The pearl will check to see if it is “touching” the mermaid after the green flag has been clicked. If it is, it will be moved to a ”random position”. Steps 2 and 3 will continue “forever”. The “forever” block on the exterior is known as loop. Until the game finishes, this loop will run whatever code you place inside of it.
This guarantees that the pearl will respond once the mermaid touches it. The pearl would only check this criterion once at the start of the game if it didn't have it. Move the mermaid closer to the pearl. When it comes into contact with the pearl, the aforementioned code is executed, and the pearl moves to a random location on the screen. That's precisely what we're looking for!
Step 5: Raise the number of additional features
Extensions for Scratch. Your project now fulfils all of the fundamental requirements of a game, since you have a controlled character and a functional objective. You can now claim to have built your own video game if you've made it this far. You did an excellent job. Even if your product qualifies as a game, you may still make it more enjoyable to play.
To make your game more complicated, like this Ocean Cleanup game, consider adding additional components that fall into the following categories:
- Goals scored in extra time
- Additional rules
- Added difficulty
- Additional interaction
The following are some instances of components that fit into these categories:
Score
In a game, the score indicates how well the player is performing. This may be the number of items they've amassed or the length of time they've been alive. You may even include a high score to beat.
Timer
A timer maintains track of the amount of time the player has remaining. The game is only playable till the timer runs out! This makes getting a high score in your game much more difficult.
Lives
Players lose lives when they make a mistake in the game. It's game over if they run out of lives.
Additional goals
You may add extra objectives to each game you design to increase the number of interactions and rules. You may add extra objectives to acquire in collecting games. In our game, for example, we can have numerous pearls.
Furthermore, objectives might take a variety of forms! Adding more complicated features to your goals can make your game a lot more enjoyable to play.
Final Tones
Finally, there are a few optional changes that will make our game more enjoyable to play. These visual tweaks may be applied to any project and will have no effect on how players interact with your game.
They'll just make your game more enjoyable. Try putting these additions in place on your own:
- When you collect an item, make a sound effect.
- While playing the game, put on some music.
- Changes in attire
- More sprites should be included.
- Sound is the simplest feature you can make to any game. We can add a variety of noises to our game by utilizing Scratch's sound blocks.
Costume modifications are another element you may offer to any game. We can tell our sprite to "change outfits," allowing us to add motions for things like walking and flying. You can also use this to construct complete projects in a variety of complex ways!
You may even add more sprites to improve immersion - just don't make it too cluttered. Learn more about Scratch coding by joining Cyber Square. Book a Free Class Today!
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