Contents in Detail

Acknowledgments

Everyone Makes Games

What You’ll Need

A Brief History of Games

Who Makes Video Games?

Why Make a Video Game?

What Should My Game Be About?

About Scratch

How Much Does Scratch Cost?

Do I Need to Know How to Program?

What If I Already Love Programming?

Alternative Tools

1 Leaf Me Alone!: Scratch Basics

Getting Started with Scratch

Leaf Me Alone (While I Eat This Leaf)

Creating Your Own Sprites

Drawing Weird Bugs

Drawing a Backdrop

Using Event Blocks

Moving the Bug

Steering the Bug

Chewing Holes in the Leaf Using Pen Blocks

Starting Fresh Each Game

Checking for Contact Between the Bug and the Leaf

Playing Sounds

Organizing Your Code

Challenge Level

Sharing Your Game

What You Learned

2 Weird Bug Chowdown: Collecting Items and Avoiding Obstacles

Copying a Project and Changing It

Tidying Up Your Code

Leaving a Rainbow Trail

Making Bug Food

Making a Sprite Clone Itself

Using Negative Numbers

Creating a Berry-Free Zone

Telling a Cloned Berry What to Do

Broadcasting Messages

Adding Time Pressure

Using Animation to Make Bad Berries

Branching with if and else

Recording the yuck Message

Poop Obstacles

Why Poop Obstacles Work

Making Poop by Having Sprites Clone Other Sprites

Coding the Poop Obstacles

Raising the Stakes

Creating Our Own Variables

Changing Speed

Ending the Game

Choosing the Butterfly Costume

Coding the Metamorphosis

Changing the Butterfly’s Behavior

Adding a Starting Message

Optional Things to Try

What You Learned

3 Hatlight: A Cave Exploring Platform Game

About Hatlight

Coding Platform Movement

Creating a Hitbox Sprite

Drawing a Test Area

Organizing Our Code with Events

Creating Variables

Coding Player Movement

Moving Left and Right

Climbing Slopes and Steps

Falling

Jumping

Creating Natural Movement with Variables

Creating a World that’s Fun to Explore

Using a Variable to Create a Grid Map

Moving from Screen to Screen

Coding Screen Change

Using Light and Darkness

Coding the Flashlight

Creating Objects to Collect

What You Learned

4 Designing Levels

Let’s Make Some Levels!

Drawing Levels

Drawing a Cave

Saving Details for Later

Things to Keep in Mind

Adding Background Scenery

Teaching the Player How to Play

Showing Objects Players Can’t Reach

Creating Interesting Landmarks

Creating Animation

Animating the Player’s Movements

Or You Can Just Draw a Blob!

Creating a Mirror Image of a Costume

Coding the Animations

Additional Challenges

What You Learned

5 Creating Sound Effects

Sound Design Tools

Recording and Editing Sounds with Audacity

Recording a Deadly Plummet

Sound Selections

Using Effects Tools

Exporting Sounds

Using Sounds from the Internet

Generating Sounds with sfxr

Waveforms

Changing Sounds Using Sliders

Exporting Sounds

The bfxr Tool

Creating Music Loops with Drumcircle

Making a Drum Loop

Adding Some Drums

Adding More Sounds

Adding a Melody

Saving and Exporting Loops

Bosca Ceoil

Adding a Music Loop to a Scratch Game

Extra Challenges

Compose a Score for a Game Using Only Mouth Sounds

Use Music to Create a Contrasting Mood

Create a Procedural Music Game

What You Learned

6 Where to Go from Here

Asking Questions

Record Your Game

Share Your Game on itch.io

Collaborate with Someone Else

Make a Game for Multiple Players

Make a Weird Controller

Keep Exploring and Creating!

Index