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Snake

This document provides instructions for building a simple snake game in Scratch. It describes deleting the default cat sprite and creating a new snake sprite with a red tongue. It explains using arrow keys to control the snake's direction and the POINT IN DIRECTION block to move it. It details using a REPEAT UNTIL loop to continuously move the snake until it touches its body or the edge of the screen, at which point the game is over. It also includes awarding points for each four steps and playing intro and game over music.

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Dream CCIE
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254 views7 pages

Snake

This document provides instructions for building a simple snake game in Scratch. It describes deleting the default cat sprite and creating a new snake sprite with a red tongue. It explains using arrow keys to control the snake's direction and the POINT IN DIRECTION block to move it. It details using a REPEAT UNTIL loop to continuously move the snake until it touches its body or the edge of the screen, at which point the game is over. It also includes awarding points for each four steps and playing intro and game over music.

Uploaded by

Dream CCIE
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SNAKE!

Introduction

Scratch is a visual programming language suitable for children and teens to create their own
interactive stories, games and animations. Projects can also be uploaded and shared with
the Scratch community via the Scratch website for others to enjoy.

For this lesson we’re going to build a simple snake game, moving an ever growing snake
around the screen, avoiding double backing on itself whilst staying clear of the screen’s
edge. We’ll award ourselves points as we progress through the game. This game appears
simple at first but soon becomes a tricky one to master.

Let’s get started by first loading Scratch. You can either install Scratch on your computer or
load it via your web browser by navigating to ​https://scratch.mit.edu/

Top Tip

Don’t forget to save your work regularly. It’s


good practice to get in the habit of saving
any progress you’ve made. So when you’re
feeling great after solving a coding problem,
save it, save it, save it!

The save options may differ slightly


between Scratch versions but head on up to
the File option in the top left and you’ll find
it.

Let’s get started


Creating the snake sprite

The first thing we need to do is delete the cat sprite that gets created by default. To do this
just right click on the sprite in the bottom left corner and select DELETE. This will give us a
good clean starting point for our snake game.

Select the PAINT NEW SPRITE option as shown will allow you to create the snake in the
editor on the right.

We only need the head of the snake creating at this point. Make sure the snake’s head is
small in size and most importantly has a red tongue sticking out. We will be using the red
tongue for colour detection later on.
Controlling the snake

We’re going to be controlling our snake using the arrow keys. In order to detect what keys
are pressed, use the WHEN [KEY] IS PRESSED block found in the EVENTS section as
shown. Don’t forget we’ll need four of these blocks to detect when either the UP, DOWN,
LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys are pressed.

Once an arrow key is pressed, the snake will need to move in that direction. As the snake
will be moving on its own, we’ll just be changing the direction it’ll be heading in. This is done
using the POINT IN DIRECTION block found in the MOTION section. Don’t forget to use the
dropdown in this block to set the direction of travel. Once completed, it should look
something like this...
Let’s get things moving

In order to get the snake moving, we’ll slowly build up the logic needed for the game. The
first stage is to locate the GREEN FLAG block in EVENTS as a press of this will tell the
computer that we want to start the game.

Once a new game starts we need to ensure the snake starts from the correct position every
time and that any previous scores have been reset to zero. We do this by building the
following blocks.

Next we’ll play a little introductory music to indicate that a new game is about to start. A
simple tune can be achieved by repeating a couple on notes. Add the following notes and
REPEAT block as shown.

Before the snake moves we need to set the pen’s size and colour as well ensure that it’s
been placed down on the canvas.
We are going to continuously move the snake until the head either touches part of its green
body or touches the edge of the screen as both these scenarios will mean it’s game over.

In order for us to achieve this we first need a REPEAT UNTIL block found in the CONTROL
section. The blocks needed for the two situations we’ll be testing for can be found in the
SENSING section. Incidentally, we’re checking to see if the colour red is touching green -
this is basically when the snake’s red tongue touches its green body.

We’ll also award ourselves a point for every fours steps moved, so add the CHANGE
[VARIABLE] BY block located in the DATA section.

Game Over

Finally, we need to consider what happens when it’s game over. The following REPEAT loop
will play a simple game over tune but this will only get played once the REPEAT UNTIL loop
we built previously has been exited.

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