Making a game on Scratch is a fun and easy way to learn coding. In this blog post, we’ll show you how to make a simple game on Scratch.
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Introduction
Scratch is a programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to make a platformer game on Scratch. A platformer is a type of game where the player controls a character who jumps from platform to platform. Some well-known examples of platformer games are Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and Donkey Kong Country.
Before we get started, you’ll need to create a free account on Scratch. Once you’ve done that, log in and click the “Create” button in the top-right corner of the screen.
What is Scratch?
Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.
Creating a New Project
Creating a New Project
1.Click Create on the Scratch homepage. This will take you to the project editor.
2.Click on the cat sprite.
3.Click on scripts.
4.Click on the events block and drag it into the scripts area.
5.Click on the control block and drag it into the scripts area.
6.Click on the motion block and drag it into the scripts area.
7.Click on file>save as…>name your project>click OK
The Stage
The stage is where your sprites and backdrops appear. It’s also where you code to make your game.
To look at the stage, click on the tab at the top that says “Stage”. The stage will appear on the left of the window, and the code blocks will appear on the right.
Here’s what you can do on the stage:
-Add a sprite: Click on the “Choose a sprite from file” icon in the middle of the screen, then select a sprite from your computer files.
-Add a backdrop: Click on the “Choose a backdrop from file” icon in the middle of the screen, then select a backdrop from your computer files. You can also take a photo using your webcam and use that as a backdrop!
-Resize a sprite or backdrop: To make a sprite or backdrop bigger or smaller, click on it and then click on one of the white handles around its edges and drag.
The sprites
In this part of the tutorial we will add the sprites. A sprite is an object that can be moved on the Stage. It can be a character, animal, vehicle, monster, etc. The possibilities are endless!
To add a sprite, click on the Sprite library icon in the toolbar.
This will open a library of sprites. You can scroll through the different categories to find the one you want, or you can use the search bar.
For this tutorial, we will use a cat sprite from the Animals category. Click on it to select it, then click on the OK button.
The cat sprite will appear on the Stage. You can move it around by clicking and dragging it with your mouse.
You can also resize it by clicking and dragging one of its corners. To rotate it, hover your mouse over one of its edges until you see a curved arrow, then click and drag to rotate it.
Costumes
One of the great things about Scratch is that you can create your own graphics right in the program. This section will show you how to make a new sprite (character) for your game using the tools in the Costumes tab. You’ll also learn how to animate your sprite so it can move around your game.
First, let’s add a new sprite. Click on the Costumes tab:
This will open up the costumes library. Scratch comes with a variety of built-in sprites, but we want to make our own, so click on the button that says “Upload costume from file”:
This will open up your computer’s file explorer. Choose an image file that you want to use for your sprite (PNG or JPG files work best). Once you’ve selected an image, click on the “OK” button:
Your image will now appear as a costume for your sprite:
Sounds
In this section we will be adding sounds to our game. Scratch has a library of built in sounds that we can use, or we can import our own. To add a sound, first click on the souds tab:
Next, click on the sound that you want to add. This will bring up the sound editor:
From here, you can adjust the volume and pitch of the sound. You can also trim the sound so that it is the perfect length for your game. When you are finished, click OK.
Now that we have our sound, we need to tell Scratch when to play it. To do this, we will use the “play sound” block:
Drag this block into your code and connect it to the “when green flag clicked” block. Then, select the sound that you want to play from the drop down menu:
Now, run your program and see what happens!
Scripts
The Scripts area is where you will do the majority of your coding in Scratch. It is here that you will create the code blocks that tell your sprite what to do.
To access the Scripts area, simply click on the Scripts tab at the top of the Stage.
Once you are in the Scripts area, you will see a variety of coding blocks that you can use to create your scripts. These blocks are divided into categories, which you can access by clicking on the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of the Scripts area.
The categories are as follows:
-Control: These blocks allow you to control the flow of your program. For example, you can use these blocks to tell your program to repeat a certain section of code a certain number of times.
-Looks: These blocks allow you to change the appearance of your sprite on the Stage. For example, you can use these blocks to make your sprite change color or size.
-Sound: These blocks allow you to add sound effects to your program. For example, you can use these blocks to play a sound when your sprite is clicked.
-Events: These blocks allow you to respond to events that occur in your program. For example, you can use these blocks to run a section of code when your sprite is clicked.
-Motion: These blocks allow you to control the movement of your sprite on the Stage. For example, you can use these blocks to make your sprite move across the screen or turn in a circle.
Backdrops
A backdrop is the image that appears in the stage. You can change the backdrop by selecting a new one from the backdrops menu. You can also add your own backdrops by clicking the + icon.
Publishing
Publishing is the process of making your project available to the public. When you publish a project, it becomes viewable and playable by anyone on the Scratch website. You can unpublish projects at any time, which will make them unviewable to others until you choose to publish them again.
To publish a project:
1. Go to the project page for the project you want to publish.
2. Click the Share button in the upper-right corner of the page.
3. Select Publish from the drop-down menu that appears.
4. Click OK in the pop-up window that appears, confirming that you want to publish your project.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this guide on how to make a game on Scratch. We hope you found it helpful and that you are now able to create your own Scratch game. If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us.