Scratch

I'm a big game maker on scratch, and while I was working on a more recent game, quite a few issues came up in the programming that I have no solution for, and I also noticed a few brick combinations that are commonly used, and could easily be simplified into one block. Here are a few of the potential solutions I came up with that could be added to later versions of Scratch:

ScrollX/ ScrollY
As most experienced game designers know, scrollX and scrollY are commonly used variables in making scrolling games. They allow the camera to pan sideways or up and down, allowing large scrolling levels to be created. But scrolling levels take an excessive ammount of scripting: A separate sprite and script combo must be created for each tile of the scrolling level. What I propose we do to solve this problem is create a new set of movement blocks that look something like this:
Round, variable ScrollX and SrollY blocks, like the Current X position, y position blocks.
Normal block: Go to Scroll X [    ] Scroll Y [    ].
([    ] represents changeable number areas)
Normal block: Change Scroll X by [    ].
Normal Block: Change Scroll Y by [    ].

Solid Objects
Now pretty much every platformer you can make uses solid objects, but the current method of solid object making involves creating four separate sensing sprites for each moving charactor you want to resopnd to solid objects, and a long complex chain of scripts. Well, this could be eleminated and easily tranfered into one block:
Normal: Set Solid Effect to: [    >]
([    >] represents a list of choosable options.)
This block would be in the sensing category, and would allow the user to select a solid effect from a list of several effects: The obvious two being solid and not solid, but others could be added, such as liquid, gas, goo, or rubber. This would provide a wide range of options for programmers to choose of which objedcts they want to be solid, and what kind of movement effect they want those objects to have. Another block could be included, saying something along the lines of:
Normal: Set object kickback to: [        >].
This would have four main settings: High, Medium, Low, or none. This would be automaticlally added with any solid object blocks used in a sprite. Basically, it would determine how far back a solid sprite will fly after collision with another solid sprite. In addition to increasing the reality of the sprite movement even more, this would determine which objects are stationary, like ground. By setting the kickback to none, the sprite would not move when in collision with another sprite, making it solid like ground or heavy objects. Of course, this would not mean the object couldn't be moved in other ways, such as set motion paths, but it would insure that the object is not able to be moved by other solid sprites. Also, booleans could be included here, such as:
Boolean: <[    >] Solid?>
This would allow other object to make decisions or options based on whether or not a specific sprite is solid. Other blocks related to sprite movement and solid objects could be added, but I'll leave it up to the scratch team and veiwers to decide how specific those should be.

Brodcast/Commands
Of course, we all know and use the brodcasting blocks in the Controll section, and besides the movement blocks, these are probably some of the most usefull blocks on the program. However, there are two brodcast blocks that I've needed so many times, but just hasn't been added:
Normal: Wait Until I Receive [    >]
Normal: Repeat Until I Receive [         >]
This would probably be the most useful blocks I've listed so far. I've needed these blocks so many times, I couldn't count them if I tried. This would allow for A much wider range of possibility for reaction scripts to brodcasting blocks, and would allow for much easier timing on animations and game cutscenes, not to mention actions that you want sprites to take untill a certain point. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good example of this right now, but I'll post one when I run into a problem like this.

Sound Options
The final Main issue I ran into was the sound options on scratch. It's sometimes difficult to get sounds to work correctly on scratch, because it's not always possible to stop a song and recontinue it at any given point. If you use the "play sound [    >] until done" script, the song won't stop until it's completely finished, making it difficult to switch quickly between songs in a game. If you're good enough with programming, there are ways of solving this, but they require large amounts of scripting chains. You can use the "play sound [    >]" script, but this makes the song stop once it's finished, and if you try to use a forever or repeat block around it, it just plays the first not of the song over and over again. So I propose a
Normal: Play sound [    >] until
block that would allow a song to be repeatted all the way through, but be stopped and replaced with another song at any given point.

So that's all of the main issues I have to address about the current version of scratch.I look forward to hearing other peoples block suggestions, and possibly even seeing some of these issues fixed in scratch 1.4.
Scratch On,
~Delocuro~