6
Where to Go from Here

You made it to the last chapter! How does it feel to be a game designer? a little weird? Don’t worry—that’s normal. Maybe you’re saying, “I don’t feel like a game designer yet,” but this book can’t hear you. It doesn’t have ears.

It’s easy to feel like you’re not qualified to call yourself something, because labels are tricky. Some game designers work in big teams, and everyone contributes a small part of the finished game. Other game designers sit in their bedrooms making fun things on their computer. Still other game designers go to the park to play catch with friends and come up with different ways of playing, such as saying “What if we have to toss the ball under our leg?” or “What if we’re not allowed to touch the ball with our hands?” There are loads of different ways to be a game designer.

Asking Questions

You might not have a ton of game design experience yet, but I’ll let you in on a cool fact about game design: if you’re doing it right, it should always be a bit of a challenge. Even people who’ve designed games for years still ask questions: “What if you can only move one space every day?” “What kind of game can you play at a protest?” “Why don’t games let you make friends with the monsters instead of fighting them?”

Game design is less about finding answers than it is about asking questions. Everyone, regardless of their skill level and experience, can ask questions.

In this chapter, I provide you with a collection of exercise challenges to make a game in a new way. Some of them will help promote your games and work with others. Each of them is a question that, hopefully, leads you to ask your own questions.

You don’t have to do all of the exercises or do them in order. Just do the ones that inspire you the most.

Record Your Game

You also record a video of your game, so you can show off what your game sounds and looks like.

You can use OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Studio at https://obsproject.com/ to capture, edit, and upload a record video of your game. It’s a free program for streaming game video live, but you can also use it to record video. Then you can post your video on YouTube or social media. The OBS Studio website contains information on how to get started.

Share Your Game on itch.io

The website https://itch.io/ is full of hundreds of games. Some people use itch.io to sell their games, and some people give their games away for free. Having your game on itch.io means that people will find it more easily. Now that you know how to make a gif file or video of your game, you can use that footage to show people browsing itch.io what your game looks like.

On itch.io, players can either download your game to their computer or play it on the site. To let players play your game on itch.io, you’ll need to embed it on itch.io. You can find an explanation of how to embed a Scratch game on the Scratch wiki at http://tinyurl.com/scratchio/.

Posting a game on itch.io makes you part of a larger community of game creators and can help your game find a larger audience. Becoming brave enough to put your work out into the larger world is an important part of becoming a powerful artist.

Collaborate with Someone Else

Try making a game with a friend. It can be very exciting to bounce ideas back and forth with someone else, each of you building on what the other comes up with. Some of the most powerful ideas happen that way, and the energy of collaboration can be lots of fun.

You can work together on a project in many different ways. Maybe the other person draws all the pictures and you do the programming. Or maybe you both come up with as many ideas as possible and include all of them. Maybe the other person just hangs with you while you work and tries to give you cool ideas.

Working with other people on creative projects can be tricky, especially when they’re friends. If you get into an argument about the project, it could affect your friendship. Collaborating feels great when you both have the same level of energy and excitement, but tensions can build when you both have different amounts of energy or availability. Sometimes it might feel like one person takes charge of the whole project and makes all the decisions.

Collaboration is all about communication! If someone doesn’t feel like they’re involved enough in decision-making or feels frustrated because they think they’re spending more time on the project than the other person, have a conversation about it! Try not to get defensive. Think about constructive criticism: try to be specific about what the problem is, how it makes you feel, and what could make the situation better.

Collaboration is a lot of work, but it will lead to amazing things you couldn’t make on your own.

Make a Game for Multiple Players

Playing a game by yourself with a computer can be surprising and fun, but playing a game with another person can be even more enjoyable. When you play a game with someone else, you’re not just playing according to the rules of the game. You’re also trying to anticipate, respond to, or make sense of what the other player is doing. Try making a game for two (or more!) players.

Players interact in many different ways. They can each be competing to get the high score, to get to the flag first, or to knock the other player off the giant marshmallow. Or they could be cooperating to try to accomplish the same thing. Maybe they need to work together to steer a giant robot (one player controls the legs while the other player controls the arms). Or maybe your game could be a mix of competition and cooperation.

How do you add a second player? So far, we’ve had the player use the arrow keys to move their character. But Scratch lets us write code for any keyboard key. You can add a second (or third or fourth) player by giving them other keys to play the game with!

Traditionally, game developers use the WASD keys. They’re arranged in the same way as the arrow keys if you think of W as up, A as left, S as down, and D as right. They’re also on the opposite side of the keyboard from the arrow keys, giving both players some room.

What if you put both players’ buttons really close to each other? How would that change how the players interact?

Make a Weird Controller

There are a lot of ideas we’ve seen so many times that we take them for granted. In Scratch’s keyboard Sensing block, the arrow keys are at the very top of the list. But if you have access to video game consoles, how could you move a character using the controller? There’s probably either a d-pad with arrows or a stick that can point in different directions.

Just because people usually do things one way doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do it (or even the best way!). A controller can look like anything. If you made a game about learning to walk in a strange, new robot body, would it make sense for the controls to be familiar? The way we control a game is part of the game’s experience. Try to imagine controls that match what the game’s experience is supposed to be.

Here are a couple ideas for reimagining game controls:

Mod an existing controller. You can use lots of simple objects to change the experience of using a keyboard or mouse. What about a game where the player’s been shrunk? Instead of being next to each other, the keys for moving around can be far across the keyboard from each other. You can make an overlay for the keyboard that has holes for just those keys.

Or how about a game where the player tries to get around a space station in zero gravity by pushing off the walls and ceiling? You could hang the mouse in the center of a cardboard box (its cord dangling through a hole in the top) so the player needs to find somewhere on the side or top of the box to move the mouse against. It would be a game about a mouse, controlled using the mouse, and you could put little ears on the computer mouse so it looks like a real mouse. The possibilities are limited only by your arts and crafts supplies!

Make an object into a controller. An invention called the Makey Makey lets you press keys on your keyboard by touching objects in your house. You can check it out (and buy one) at https://makeymakey.com/.

The Makey Makey Go is cheap and fits in a pocket. Plug it into your computer, and then run a wire from it to any object that’s conductive, which means something that conducts electricity. Most objects in your house that are either metal or contain water (like fruits, plants, or food) are conductive.

You can turn the following conductive objects into a game controller:

• A banana or other fruit
• A leaf or plant
• Aluminum foil
• Coins, paper clips, or metal washers
• A slice of bread
• Modeling clay

When you touch the object plugged into the Makey Makey, it registers a mouse click or spacebar press on your computer. What kind of game would you play on a piece of bread or a ball of aluminum foil?

If you want to use a bunch of different objects to control your game, you might get a Makey Makey Classic. It costs a bit more, but it comes with enough wires to connect six different objects. Try making a new controller for one of your favorite games.

Keep Exploring and Creating!

Most important is to explore and be creative. Making art—whether that’s games, comics, zines, music, writing, or just a little garden in your window—helps you realize what you’re capable of. It leads you to feel wonder for yourself and your surroundings.

The older you get, the less time you have for play and creating things that don’t make money. Get in the habit of making and doing, and hold onto it as you grow older! It’s never too late to start. Making art will increase your enjoyment for life. For real.

Congratulations on finishing the book! But this book is just a starting point. Now that you know how to make games using Scratch, it’s up to you to figure out what to do with that knowledge. Follow your ideas wherever they lead, even if they seem silly, weird, or unoriginal. Keep exploring. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.