Scratch

Hi Jason,

I'm also a middle-school gifted teacher, and use Scratch quite a bit with the kids (and with others as young as 8, who also love it). I'll take a look through your project when I'm not falling-down tired -- would be happy to chat code with ya.

cheers,
john

Hey again,

Looks pretty good to me, overall. Fairly straightforward code, and works as intended. Where I'd go from there:

- Try to reduce code repetition by pulling out common bits and calling them with broadcasts (or in other ways). Thinking of the string of [if...else] statements on the shark, for example.

- Try to reduce the number of [forever] loops, again with broadcasts. Instead of having the fish looping forever, checking for [touching shark], have the shark broadcast the hit to them.

- Where possible, keep code of the same "nature" in the same place -- for example, anything to do with the scorekeeping should probably be in the same chunk of code; adding/removing/setting points, playing good/bad point sounds. Makes management easier.

- What I might do at this point is start adding some state tracking with variables, so that (for example) if the shark has hit a bad fish, the other events (eating good fish, hitting more bad fish) don't happen during that time.

Anyway, lemme know if any of that doesn't make sense. It's all pretty subjective, so feel free to disagree. 

cheers,
john

Karen & John,

Thanks for your feedback.  I plan on learning how broadcasts work and like some of the extras I can add to the game.  I have also printed out the game direction handout (and more) and plan to put them to good use!

Thanks again!

Jason