I’ve been playing with the amazing Crumble controller from Redfern Electronics. It comes with full colour LED lights called Sparkles which are really easy to attach using croc clips, and you program it using a Scratch-like interface – so it’s…
Game Kit
I’ve been offline for a while, investigating the amazing #crumble from Redfern electronics – more later on that. In the mean time, I’ve put together a little Game Kit for students to make their own games. They might have their…
Scruzzles
What are ‘Scruzzles‘ you may ask? Well, it’s a puzzle, in Scratch! I’ve put together a small set of them on the Scratch website. Have a go and let me know what you think. If you have ideas for other…
Simple Gravity
To make jumping, falling and throwing objects look realistic, you need to include real-world effects like gravity. This video shows you how to add gravity to a bouncing ball. Download the Scratch 2.0 code: simple_gravity
Friction
To make movement look realistic, you need to include real-world effects, like friction, in your Scratch games. This video shows you a simple way to include friction in the way your objects move. Download the Scratch 2.0 code: friction
Clone bubbles
When you want to have lots of the same object, you can often use clones (Scratch 2.0) to create them very easily. This also has the advantage that if you want to change them, you only have to do it…
Firing things
Lots of games have rockets and guns which the player uses to defeat their enemies. This video looks at a very simple way of adding shooting to your Scratch game. Download the Scratch 2.0 code: shooting
Bring your characters alive!
This video shows you how to add simple behaviours to your Scratch sprites. When they breathe and blink, you can make them seem much more alive. Think about the birds in Angry Birds – they don’t stand still like paper…
Costumes for your sprites
This video is about editing the look of your sprites. I also talk about the difference between bitmap and vector sprites. Scratch v2 which is available through your browser will let you edit vector images. Scratch 1.4 which you can download,…
Positioning your sprites using x and y
This video covers how the x and y coordinates work when you are moving things around the stage. There are also a couple of tips for movement commands.