Scratch Tutorials

A series of tutorials in Scratch, the free block based coding platform hosted by MIT.

• Scratch Adventure Game
• Asteroids (actually Space Invaders!)

Scratch Adventure Game

A seven part tutorial in which our final project is a game with a moveable player that shoots apples, autonomous enemy, health, and heart pick-ups.

Part 1 – Moving our player

We create an animated player that responds to arrow keys to move.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YtZMZK5rXo
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/376722938/

Part 2 – An Autonomous Enemy

We create an enemy with movement and discuss just how random that movement should be.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYJFTfk0d5Q
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/376613604/

Part 3 – Better Animation

We fix the player code and move the repeated steps over to a function. This also involves playing with our player sprite a bit.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lGUVU2fezo
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/376740479/

Part 4 – Knock-backs

We react to being hit by the enemy by making a sound, changing our appearance, and getting knocked back.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuWPocJvhx0
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/377032535/

Part 5 – Player Health

We add player health in the form of hearts and change the backdrop when the game is over.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4MErIJ4zm8
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/377319571/

Part 6 – Shooting Apples

We give the player the ability to fire apples and do damage to the enemy.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1j8TB0S77E
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/377636048/

Part 7 – Heart Pick-ups

We create pickups. Hearts will appear at intervals and the player can pick them up to add to their health.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlIi5NDcbTo
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/377942493/

Scratch Asteroids (okay, Space Invaders)

A three part follow-up which turns our adventure game into a space invaders game (not asteroids!). The player moves vertically to shoot oncoming enemies. Large enemies split in two.

Part 1 – Changing the movement

We fix our player to the left hand side of the screen restricting their movement to up and down. Enemies approach from the right.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUIA9oh9TnI
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/378653713/

Part 2 – Increasing Difficulty

We make it so the game gets harder the longer you play. We also create a set of variables that allow our enemies to have variable amounts of health.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGoic5EtSaA
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/382151649/

Part 3 – Multiplying Enemies

We make it so larger enemies split in two when hit.

YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoq-hks-X0
Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/384215598/

Bonus – Math Remix

We turn our game into a math facts checker where we lose health when selecting the wrong answer and gain it back for correct answers.

Scratch Code: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/430003395/

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