Game dev l1
Game Development Project 🎮
Items in this lesson
Game Development Project 🎮
Mini whiteboards
Draw a simple screen from a video game (FIFA, Mario, Roblox, Minecraft)
Include the player character and at least 2 other objects
Lesson objective
You will understand what a sprite is and create a sprite in Scratch,
you will move your sprite using parameters
Sprites
In game design, all of these objects you drew have a name…
A sprite is a 2D image or character that can be moved, animated, or changed using code.
In programming, sprites are objects that you control, you can change their position, colour, size, or actions through instructions.
Shapes
Before we build full games, we often start with simple shapes. These are easier to control than detailed sprites.
In Scratch, we can create simple shapes like:
Squares
Rectangles
Circles
These are often used for:
Backgrounds
Obstacles
Temporary objects
Which game element is most likely to be a sprite
The background music
The score counter
The player character
Parameters
A parameter is a value you give to a command to control exactly how something happens
A command tells the computer what to do.
A parameter tells it how to do it.
If our maximum speed is 10 and I say move at speed = 4.
our command is "Move" and our "speed = 4" is our parameter
Parameters
Parameters control things like:
📍 Position → Where something appears
📏 Size → How big it is
🎨 Appearance → Color or style
Without parameters, everything would appear in the same place, same size, same look
When we move a character in a video game all we are doing is changing these parameters!
Parameters tell the computer what to do
True
False
Answer C
Answer D
False
A command tells the computer what to do.
A parameter tells it how to do it.
Examples:
Move to position (100, 200)
Change size to 100 pixels wide
Make color orange
Events
An event is a detectable system occurrence (clicks, button presses, or data changes) that trigger code execution.
Programs are always waiting for events
When an event happens → the program responds
🧍 Real-Life Example (Stand Up / Sit Down)
👩🏫 Teacher says: “Stand up”
➡️ Event: You hear the instruction
➡️ Action: You stand up
👩🏫 Teacher says: “Sit down”
➡️ Event: Instruction changes
➡️ Action: You sit down
👉 The event triggers what you do next
Events
In Computing
Pressing a key = event
Clicking the mouse = event
Receiving a message = event
These events make the program respond (move, play sound, start game)
In computing what is an event?
What is Scratch
Scratch is an online tool that lets you:
🎮 Create your own games
🧱 Build scenes using sprites and shapes
🎯 Control what happens on the screen
Scratch is where we design and build our own games
But first lets play some games! - Click here
Open Scratch and create your account
Follow the Tutorial worksheet to begin creating your maze game in scratch
by the end of the lesson you should have:
a Sprite,
a background,
some basic movement code
What did you find most difficult about using Scratch?
