Breen - Designing Digital Games

DESIGNING DIGITAL GAMES

Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Kid logo, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. See www.scratch.mit.edu . Project figures, illustrations and Scratch projects: Copyright 2015 by Derek Breen. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931380

ISBN 978-1-119-17721-0 (pbk); 978-1-119-17722-7 (epdf); 978-1-119-17723-4 (epub)

1. Table of Contents

While many tools out there allow you to create digital games, this book focuses on Scratch because Scratch is the very best! Just kidding who can say which is the best? Of course, that is just MY opinion. But Scratch is certainly ONE of the best applications for rapidly designing your own videogames, whether you are an 11-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl or a 45-year-old bald guy.

There is no one right way to start using Scratch, so you can begin with any project in this book. But if you have never used Scratch before, I suggest starting with (which is far less lame than you might think).

Before making your first game, I suggest browsing the online Scratch community ( scratch.mit.edu ) to see the wide variety of game projects people have made using Scratch. Please share your own game when you are finished and be sure to give credit to Derek Breen for the way his AMAZING BOOK made you the proud game designer you are! (Or not.)

Scratch was created for YOU and the designers at the MIT Media Lab had several goals:

1. Give you powerful software for free.
2. Make it easy for you to learn.
3. Allow many different ways for you to use the software.
4. Enable you to browse/play/remix other projects.
5. Enable you to share your projects.
6. Create an online community where you can learn from one another.

Can I tell you a secret? You know what is more valuable than money? Time! I am being completely honest. You can spend your time all kinds of ways, and once you spend it, just like when you spend ten dollars, you never get it back. Guess what? That goes for me, too. If I am going to spend several months writing about Scratch, then I want to make sure I am producing a book that is genuinely going to help you learn some REALLY cool stuff!

Now let me make a deal with you; if you are willing to invest your time by reading even one project in this book, I will do my very best to get you making an addictive video game ASAP. You will hardly even need to read. Seriously, you can follow along as little or as much as you want and still end up with a KILLER project!

The Tip icon marks tips and shortcuts that you can use to make coding easier.

The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you from scratching your head a ton.

The Remember icon marks concepts youve encountered before and should keep in mind while coding.

The Fun with Math icon describes the everyday math you use while coding computer programs. Finally, you see how that stuff really is used!

The Fun with Code icon describes how the coding youre doing relates to the bigger picture of computer programming.

The easiest way to start using Scratch is to visit section).

Technically, you can use the Scratch website without an account, but you will have to save projects to your computer and then upload them each time you visit the Scratch website to continue working on them. With an account, you can save files online and share projects with other Scratch users.