Final Scratch Project - Game Post and Reflection

Final Scratch Project - Beetles and the Frog

Reflection

I started my Scratch project with very few ideas, so the best way for me to get inspiration was to look at the sprites and see if I could imagine creating any story around them. I got inspiration for my project once I saw the frog sticking out its tongue and the beetle sprite just a little above it. It was all making blocks and formatting the script from there. 

Working through problems in Scratch is difficult, especially because most of the time when I'm looking at something that's not working in the way I want it to, I'm thinking to myself, "Why in the world wouldn't this work?". Trying different variations of what appears to be the same command helped a lot in debugging. Experimentation as well helped eliminate as many problems as I could. For example, at the beginning I had all my "when score = ___" attached to a "when backdrop switches to___" on the outside of my other script, but for some reason it had to be on the inside of the "forever" block in order to work. At the time, looking at it appeared there would be no problem, but then again I'm still no Scratch expert. For some of the problems I couldn't fix, like making all the bugs disappear at the end of the game, I used that as a conversation piece between the princess and the prince to end the game. That was one "bug" (no pun intended) that I couldn't get out of the game and still it doesn't make sense to me as to why some bugs disappeared and some didn't, even though they had the same script and commands. 

The best way to test the game was to go through it every time something new was added. It would be extremely difficult to add all the script and then go through the entire game over and over again, especially if you don't know that the script actually works, so every time a new feature was added, I'd go through the game and work through it until it was fixed, and then move on.

Final Scratch Project - Game Purpose

My game is going to have a frog trying to eat as many bugs as he can. The difficulty of the game will increase because every time someone earns 15 points, the backdrop will change and more bugs will be added with each new level. Level one will start out easy, with only bugs to begin with. Most of my backdrops will take place in a garden/nature setting, as that is where the frog would live. On the last level, there will be a princess which turns the frog into a prince. Originally I had planned to use enemies that would decrease the score if the frog touched it, but I have found that with all the sprites I have already that adding any more would be a little over the top.

Scratch Day 9: Levels

You can increase the difficulty of a game by changing the speed of certain variables of the project or changing the shape of levels in the project.
The level is given a variable so you can start at a certain level. This allows the game to start at one and move on as you complete each level.

Scratch Day 9: Score

Fish Chomp Project

A variable is essentially a number or set of words that can be added to a project to make it more interesting. Variables allow you to add score, which are a vital part of game-making. To younger kids, a variable could just be explained as another block that makes the score appear in your game. The way you add variables into your project is pretty simple, as all you have to do is title it and then the blocks appear for you to be able to add them to your script. You can put the block that alters the score in a certain place as to add a certain effect on your game. For example, in the fish chomp game above, the score increases by one when the big fish eats a smaller fish.  

Scratch Day 8: Debug it! Part 2

Debug 1- http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23545854/
Debug 2- http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23546176/
Debug 3- http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23546342/
Debug 4- http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23546470/
Debug 5- http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/23546650/
Like debugging before, a prompt was presented to us and explained what was supposed to happen in the project but for whatever reason, it wasn't happening. We had to go in the script of the project and remix it so whatever the prompt asked for was done.
One strategy I used, like before, was simply experimenting and seeing what would happen if one of the blocks were altered. Also, it's usually the command blocks that need to be changed (repeat 10x, forever, wait until ___ = ___) or the broadcast blocks, and not what the sprite is saying.
For someone who was trying to debug, I'd say the best way to figure it out, even if you have no clue and are just staring at the script, is to experiment. The worst thing that could happen is you would have to change it back to how it was at the beginning, but if you play around with the command blocks or the broadcast blocks you're bound to find an answer.

Scratch Day 7: Interactions

For each of these projects, we were given a scenario that had to be completed in the script. I worked on 1, 3, and a variation of 4 to make it my own and more realistic to the backdrop I used. For solving the puzzles, again, the best thing to do was to experiment around with various blocks. The first puzzle I did, where the sprite grows and shrinks, got me thinking of what game I may do.

Scratch Day 6: Scenes

The stage has the ability, like the sprites, to change based on what makes sense in the project. Essentially the stage is another type of sprite that can't be moved while it is presented, because its movement changes the feel of the project. I initialized the sprite in the scene by having Scratch Cat give a tour of her house. This made changing the stage easy as she went though each room. Scenes change in skits you may present during class, in plays, in movies, in books, they change everywhere in the artistic world, so its great that scratch allows you to do the same thing to make a realistic story. One person used backdrops as if they were at a concert with a strobe light-like feel. They switched the backdrops back and forth really quickly. Another person used it to give a tour of different parts of the world, like the moon and the beach. Another changed the scene as the sprite moved around the screen, which is how I used my project. The sprite had an effect on how the scene would go. Another person changed the scene based on what the sprite was saying. When a penguin starting talking about food, the backdrop changed to a gingerbread house. Another person changed the scene by starting with a conversation between a crab and a dragon. The scene changed when the dragon wanted to show the crab he could fly so they went to the dragon's house. This use of scene change added great effect to the project.

Scratch Day 5: Conversations

For the conversations piece of this unit, I created this project by focusing on the "broadcast" feature, rather than using the "wait" block excessively. For remixing the penguins, I merely changed most of the "wait" blocks to "broadcast" and "when I receive" blocks. If I were to describe broadcasting to someone, I would say it's the feature of allowing sprites to have realistic feeling conversations with one another, that would take less time than trying to figure out how to put "wait" blocks in the project, and for how long. Timing would be used if the conversation between the two sprites was not going back and forth, if there was more action in between. Broadcasting would be used if the conversation was straight back and forth between the two sprites.

Scratch Day 4: Characters

The "make a block" function made using Scratch a lot easier. As we learn more and more about the tools available in this program, I've found it has only gotten smoother to work with. If I were to explain "make a block" to someone else, I would say that it is a combination of pre-set blocks that can be condensed in one block. And because that one block saves, you can use it again in future projects without having to make that long combination again. One might use "make a block" if the characters in the project were doing something repeatedly, like dancing, or if you were having them do something that looked really nice on the program so you may wanted to save it for later.