This is an Advanced Tutorial

This tutorial assumes that you are already familiar with the Scratch programming environment.  Students should have already completed Scripts 1, 2 & 3 and the Frogger game.  

If you are not a student and have not completed these tutorials, then some programming experience will be necessary.

Making a "River Boat"-style 
       video game in Scratch

For those of you who've never used Scratch (a free programming tool from MIT), try my tutorials 1,2 & 3.

The idea behind this game is to drive a boat up a river with rocks as obstacles.  Our game will be similar to this game.

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About these Tutorials

A brief explanation of ownership and rights is found here:  Script 1&2.  If you use these tutorials, please let me know.

About Scratch

Scratch is an entry-level  free and open source software programming environment developed by MIT.

Let's Make a Video Game!

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In this unit of study, we'll be building our own "River Boat"-style video game.

In this unit, we'll cover:
  • positive & negative numbers
  • X and Y coordinates
  • loops and conditions
  • variables and "broadcasts"
  • object-oriented programming
  • input devices (e.g. keyboard)
  • interactive graphics
  • keeping track of points & lives
  • event sequences
  • ... and more


What you will need

  • Scratch installed on your computer.
  • Have completed some Scratch tutorials
    (Previous Scripts 1,2&3 and the Frogger video game will do.)
  • A sense of adventure!


LET'S BUILD!!

"River Boat" ... a video game

This is a "Bonus" assignment for students, so this is more of a "To Do" list rather than a full explanation.

Choose one of the two downloads, test the download has worked
(by playing the game) and then add the following features.
  1. Add 2 land panels on the right that scroll past at "ObjectSpeed".
     Note: You want to stack these two panels so they give the feeling of continuous flowing land.  
     Example: See Bkgnd01 and Bkgnd02, as they are both 360 pixels tall (full height of Scratch screen) and flow down one after the other before reappearing at the top.

  2. Add 2 land panels on the left, just like (1) above.

  3. Add 5 more rocks at various locations (x,y) within the river.
     Example: See Rock01.
     Note: You can move the rocks to random locations using the Operator called "pick random 1 to 10" and change the numbers to all possible values within your river (e.g. -120 to +120)

  4. Add a Timer to keep track of score.  
     Note: There may not be a "time" display item, so you may just increment the seconds as they pass until the "Crash" is broadcast.

  5. Display (or "Say") the Timer's score when the boat crashes.

  6. Add 2 more rocks to come in after 30 seconds.
     Add 3 more rocks to come in after 1 minute.

  7. Create variables "SpeedSideways", "SpeedUp" and "SpeedDown".
     After 90 seconds, increase this speed by 2.
     At that same time, increase the ObjectSpeed by 3.

  8. Create Lives (with "Game Over" after 3 lives).

  9. Create a "Game Over" splash screen.

  10. Create a "Welcome" splash screen.

  11. Create a "Warning" mini-splash screen that appears before
    item (7) above.





DOWNLOADS

You'll need at least one of these files to accomplish the bonus tasks.

1. Download the Scratch file and all images.
(This is a ZIP file and needs to be Extracted.)
game_river_boat.zip
File Size: 64 kb
File Type: zip
Download File

2. Or download just the Scratch file 
(This is the game with costumes included).
river_boat_v01.sb
File Size: 88 kb
File Type: sb
Download File

Super-Advanced Version

If this was too easy, then why not have your boat shoot bullets to blow up the rocks?

Check out this Scratch project and see if you can figure it out.



This ends Mr. Rich's Scratch tutorials.  If you have gotten this far, then you are skilled!