Scratch for Beginners

Workbook
 Scratch
In this workshop you will be using a
software called Scratch, a drag-and-
drop style software you can use to build
your own games. You can learn
fundamental programming principles
without having to worry about any
spelling or typing errors and enjoy
creating and playing your very own
game.

Let’s have a look at the Scratch software - you can open it by visiting
https://scratch.mit.edu using Google Chrome (Safari can have some bugs) or by finding the
offline editor in Applications. You may have a shortcut already available on your desktop.

Scratch has 5 main sections, firstly starting from the centre of the screen you have a list of
categories to choose from. As you select each one you can see in the column below
different instructions appear (colour co-ordinated), these can be used to create your game
by dragging them across to the right where the scripts can be used for your game. On the
left of the screen you can see the white box with the Scratch character inside, this is your
game. As you begin developing your game, you can play and stop it using the green flag
and red stop-sign buttons above. There is also one last section, this is your library below
your game. As you begin adding Sprites (another name for characters) you can see them all
being stored in your game library along the bottom; you can select these to bring up their
scripts and make changes.

1. Adding Sprites
You can add new sprites (characters) into the game in 4 different ways, using the 4
buttons just below your game library.

The first enables you to import a ready-made character from a range of options such as
animals, fantasy and transportation.

The second one opens up a paint-style editor, allowing you to draw and create your own
character.

The third button, once selected, will allow you to upload a picture to use as a sprite.

The fourth allows you to use a camera on the device to take a picture to use as a sprite.

Delete your Scratch the Cat by right-clicking and selecting ‘delete’. Try adding in your
own characters, or you could even draw your own!

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Scratch
Now that you have your characters we can also change the background of our game to
something a bit more exciting than a white background!
If you click on ‘Stage’ within your library, you can see a blue line around the icon, this
means it is selected properly - always check which sprite is selected to ensure you are
giving code to the right sprite. Now above where you add scripts you can see 3 tabs:
Scripts, Backgrounds, Sounds. Click on ‘Backgrounds’ and you can either Paint, Import or
take a picture of a new background to use on your game.

2. Maze Background
To create a game similar to Pac Man with a maze to move around, you need to draw
one on our Background. If you click ‘Paint’ you can use the line tool to draw up your
own maze.

Hint: If you hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard as you draw your maze, you can
get perfect straight lines.

Once you’ve drawn your maze, click OK.

What’s the problem with the picture

on the left?

Have a look at
the buttons.

You can use the 2 on the right to

change the size of your sprite to
make it fit around your maze without
touching any walls!

When you move you do it sometimes without thinking, especially walking and running. But
our brains are telling you to firstly face the direction you wish to move and to then start
walking in that direction. That is the same structure of instructions you need to give our
character to get it to move.
Have a look on the motion category (dark blue) and you can see all the different types of
instructions you can use to make your character move properly. Can you see any which
you can use to make it move the way you do? How can you get your characters to move,
using which keys on your keyboards?

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Scratch
3. Movement
Use the commands in Motion and Control to get your characters to move.

Firstly drag on the command “When ‘space’ key is pressed”, you can change ‘space’ to
a key of your choice, e.g. right arrow key. Now underneath you can put instructions of
what will happen when that particular key is pressed.

In Motion, use and to start getting your

character to move. You can click on the drop down menus and change the script.

Remember: You must point in the direction you want to go before moving.

Once you’ve done one command, you can right-click and select ‘duplicate‘. This will copy
the selected code, don’t forget to change some of the commands.

Make sure you have told your character how to move up, down, left and right.

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Don’t forget to keep testing your
game to see if it works properly!

So far, you have a character, an obstacle (the maze) and you have also successfully
implemented movement into your game using the keys on your keyboards.
The only problem with your obstacle is that your character does not know yet that it cannot
go through the lines of the maze. At the moment your character should be able to move
anywhere on the screen. There are 2 different ways you could approach this issue:
• You could get your character to bounce off the walls of the maze by telling the
character to move back 2 steps when it comes in contact with the wall, creating the
bouncing effect.
• You could return your character to the beginning when it comes in contact with the
wall, but first you need to tell it where that is.

4. Be careful you don’t touch the walls of the maze!

See if you can use the “Forever” and "If Then" commands in the ‘Control’ category.
First you need to use ‘When *green flag* is clicked’. The Green flag button is your reset
button, so the command means ‘When I reset my game...’. Underneath you can add
"Forever" and an "If Then" inside the Forever block.

Now it says ‘When I reset my game, if *whatever we put in the diamond shaped box*
happens, then do...’
Go into the ‘Sensing’ category, here we can select ‘touching colour’ and add it to your
"If Then" command. You can change the colour in the box by clicking it and using the
eye dropped clicking on a wall of your maze.

Now it says ‘When I reset my game, if I touch the selected colour then do...’. Depending
on how you want your game to work here is where you can either enter ‘move -2 steps’
or ‘go to x: y:’ (choosing which x and y co-ordinates to use).

You can also use the code ‘When *green flag* is clicked’ followed by setting ‘go to x: y:’ and
setting the x and y co-ordinates. This would be your starting position every time the green
flag is clicked (your game is reset).

5. Adding an Enemy
Try adding a new sprite, just as you did with the first one. This one can be used as an
enemy of your first sprite. Ensure you give it a starting position:

‘When *green flag* is clicked...go to x: y:’

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Scratch
In the ‘Sensing‘ category, you previously used ‘touching colour‘ this time you can use
‘touching *drop down menu allowing user to select a sprite*’. Here you can give your
main sprite instructions, that if it touches your enemy, it must go back to the beginning.
You have already done the same code previously, but using a different type of sensing
command.

6. Enemy movement
You can either make your enemy chase your character, create a 2 player game (using
W, A, S and D keys instead of the arrows) or get your enemy moving back and forth in
a loop between 2 sets of x and y co-ordinates.

To chase:
Here you will be using another ‘When *green flag* is clicked’ followed by a ‘forever’
loop. Whatever you put inside the ‘forever’ loop will be completed repeatedly as the
game is running. You need to tell our enemy to ‘glide 1 secs to x: y:’ but instead of
entering a co-ordinate, you can go onto ‘Sensing’ and use ‘x position of SpriteX’. You
can change the amount of seconds and speed it takes to get to that location by
altering the glide for x secs.

If you leave the code like that, the enemy is going to go straight to the position
of your sprite, so you need to add a ‘wait for x secs’ which can be found in the ‘Control’
category.

To move back and forth:

As above you need to use ‘wait’ to break up your commands for your enemy, so to
move to one position, wait, move back to previous position, wait, etc...you need to use
a combination of the ‘wait’ command and ‘go to x: y:’ command inside a forever loop.

2 Player Game:
With a 2 player game, instead of coding your 2nd character to move also to ‘arrow
keys’ you can use the keys W, A, S and D. These will enable 2 people to play the game,
commanding 2 separate characters around the created maze.

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Extended Exercises
Variables can be used to achieve a Score or a Timer.
To implement a Timer, you can click onto ‘Variable’ category and click ‘Make a variable’.
You can name your variable in the pop-up box.
Ensure “For all sprites” is selected and press ‘Okay’, now you can see some command
options have appeared in orange below. You can use “Set Timer to 0” underneath a “When
*green flag* is clicked”, this will set your Timer to 0 each time you reset your game. You can
change the Timer to start at any number you wish, giving your character enough time to get
around the maze.
7. Timer
Our Timer won’t automatically count down, it is only called a ‘Timer’ (but doesn’t really
know it is one yet) so you have to tell it how to count down. You can put this code
anywhere as it does not affect any sprites, only the Timer variable in the background
of the game.

You can see on the left that we have set the Timer to 60, and
after waiting a second the Timer value is being deducted by 1
each time.

Have a go at making your own timer.

Unfortunately, you are missing out some key code here.

What happens when your timer hits 0?
It keeps going, -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 ...
You need to give a command telling our game that forever throughout your game, if
TIMER = 0 then you need to send a message to the game alerting it that the game should
end here. You can do this using ‘Broadcasting’, these commands can be found in the
‘Events’ category. You need to tell your game “If TIMER= 0 (you can find the = sign in
‘Operators’ category) then BROADCAST a message.

8. Broadcasting
See if you can get your game to broadcast a message when the timer runs out.

What happens next?

You need to create a sprite or backdrop that consists of the text ‘Game Over’, we can
tell it to hide and then only appear when it receives the broadcasted message.

We have used “If ” statements quite a bit already, see if you can work out how to do this
task.

Hint: You can tell your sprite to ‘show’ and ‘hide’ using commands from the ‘Looks’
category. You can also find a "Switch Backdrop To" command in "Looks"