Scratch

I don't think I can do this now but is there any other things like this that I could do?

Last edited by qwertypower (2010-05-24 16:16:50)

I would like to write for the Scratch blog. I was actually reading it today, coincidentally. Anyway, here is a short draft I would write for "what is a Scratch company?":

"There are many different kinds of Scratch companies. They range from two-people collaborations to companies with over 15 people in it! The oldest Scratch company that I've ever heard of is Gray Bear Productions. A notable game by them is Night at Dreary Castle, an exciting game with fun minigames..."

Scratch is a programming language for everyone. It is directed at all ages, though mostly kids in-between the ages of 8-16 use it. It is a growing community of wonderful programmers, artists, RPGers, and much much more.
    It was released to the public in 2007 by some students at MIT, and has grown ever since. The first release was Scratch 1.0 and since then it has climbed to Scratch 1.4. The language is based on blocks, that can be dragged and form huge scripts. While this language is easy to use, it also has limits. Many people use this language to help then learn the basics, and then later it helps then use more complicated languages, like C++ or Java.
    Scratch has a website, patrolled by mods and safe for everyone. Scratch.mit.edu is a place to connect and get to know other Scratchers. You can upload your projects, look at other projects, and even rate them! Through their vast website of projects, galleries, and forums you can have a lot of fun!

A rough draft. Half done. I hope you like it.

How's this?

A recent craze on Scratch has been the playing and creating of RPGs (Role-playing games). These can be in the forums or as scratch projects. As far as my understanding goes, there seem to be two kinds of RPG. There are games, very well-programmed, that involve walking around and menu-fighting, and things like that, and there are ones that are sort of small cartoons.These are often collaborative, open galleries, for people to freely add their own scene or episode. Not everyone agrees that this is how scratch should be used. Many believe that scratch should be for people who are interested in programming, graphics and putting their best work out there. That's okay, but it's best to be open to everything. Most of the small RPGs are very well-drawn and the storyline is very well planned out. In my opinion, both types of RPG are okay.

You can also play RPGs on the forums. NOT the [link]scratch forum[/link], but the [link]TBG forum.[/link] The scratch team felt that the TBGs/RPGs were clogging up the forum, so they put them separate. These RPGs, however, are played with words. You might sign up to be Mr. Ice cream man, for instance. Then when Suzie comes in looking for ice cream, you say something like, 'I sell Suzie ice cream.' It's pretty straightforward.

Creating an RPG is just as straightforward. Just create characters. Nothing else. It's a game, so you don't make a script. Just go with the flow. The others will keep it going. Just make a forum topic, or a gallery. People will love it.

RPGs have become very popular on scratch. A lot of the galleries get featured, forum posts get very clogged, and you might end up having more people asking for parts than the number of characters! But don't worry. You can always make up more.

PS, the links are to the scratch forum and the TBGs. I'm not sure what the method of communicating my article to you was, so I just did it here. Thank you.

Hmm... Maybe you should make it so that some people are investigators, some people polish it up, some people interview scratchers. After all, you said you like collabs 

i might

andresmh, are you still accepting these? I think i forgot to submit one cause I do remember seeing it. I'd like to submit one if it's not too late.

By the way, heres an example:

NeilWest reports: NeilWest, precise programmer, precise past.

This month, I'm looking at NeilWest. He started Scratching on January 6th 2010 when his dad suggested he should try Scratch, after coming across it. NeilWest loved the idea, and got to work! He started with the humble Stickman series, a bunch of really short projects based on tests Neil made. None were good, but soon, you could see an improvement of the games Neil made.
As the months went on, Neil went through a phrase where he would remix anything popular. Then he went back to making simple games, but at a better quality. The first proper and working game was Danger Levels 1-6. A few months after Danger, he made I CAN BREAK THESE CUFFS! based on mattlicous' original. This managed to get 207 views, the most he ever got at that time. He then went on to making more sucsessful games like -AIR- and its sequel. Since then, NeilWest has made minigames like M1 or Raw Sushi: Cowboy Style. If you would like to see any of his games or have a blast to his past, click here!

Does anyone want me to write a blog about my famous advert thread? Or would that be inappropriate? (I didn't fully understand the first page)

joletole wrote:

Borrego6165 wrote:

Does anyone want me to write a blog about my famous advert thread? Or would that be inappropriate? (I didn't fully understand the first page)

I could help you make a blog about your advert thread. I don't think it would be inappropriate.

Preview:

Hello all Scratchers,

Almost every scratcher knows about the forums. There you can find stuff like collabs or just poke around and see what everyone is creating. One topic can let scratchers advertise there projects, without ever having to bump it. This topic is called "The Project Club: The Scratch Cat Hideout".

(Put history of advert thread in second paragraph).

(Put how it became a full on company)

Thanks!


That is what your blog could look like!

Thanks!!! What would I do without you?

Here's my idea:

Contents
0. Prologue
1. The Idea
2. Beginning of the Advert Thread
3. Becoming Stickied
4. The Scratch Cat's Hideout Era
5. April 29th Celebrations
6. How you could be helped by this

Prologue
Recently there have been some copies of my advert thread, and whilst I apologise for "shouting" at scratchers, I want everyone to understand how life changing it was for me, and explain why I get hurt personally when people copy it, when I should remember that people remix stuff all the time. This is mine and the advert thread's journey, and I hope it inspires you to make your own companies!
            -Thanks, Borrego6165

The Idea
I remember when I had just finished a series of... well, not very successful games. There was my Inter-carny Inc. theme park builder which was put simply as terrible, there was also my boring Scratch-A-Lot game based on Build-A-Lot, and finally there was my failed collaboration for making a Resort Tycoon game. I was in what I called the "Scratch Depression". I had run out of fresh ideas, and my projects we getting no views because I had lost the passion for scratch I had before; which therefore caused me to create terrible projects. Finally I realised that I would need to stop making games for a little while, and distract myself with other things.

I looked at the show and tell forums, and reminded myself of all the different advert threads I had posted my failed games on, and then I realised something. The advert threads, after only a couple of days running, would be lost forever. I also noticed that when you added a project onto these threads they would just be lost in-between all of the other games and projects, with no way to make them stand out.

So on October 29th, 14 days after Scratch-A-Lot and 10 days after my Beach Resort Games failed, the advert thread was created.

The Beginning of the Advert Thread
At first, it was as busy as every other thread. In the first day or so, people would rush to get their projects on the thread before it was too late. However, I noticed something quite amazing. You see, as an example I put my own projects on the first page, to show other scratchers how they would all be put into categories. Within a few days, my Inter-Carny Inc. game had risen from 28 views to 67 views! Of course, this was when the advert thread was pretty empty, and so it would have been very easy for scratchers to see it. But, the thread managed to stay on top of the first page. At first it would be me bumping it up all of the time, but then other scratchers would occasionally bump it up for me, showing me the true community spirit. However, I was worried this might be just a phase, so I had to start adding projects without asking people, I searched all over the site by typing in key phrases and looking for as many projects as I could find. I managed to increase the number from 45 to 70 before I stopped. It may sound like cheating, but it worked.

More and more scratchers were coming to look at the large collection, I was truly amazed. Everything was working out rather nicely for me.

Becoming Stickied
Before my advert thread was stickied, there were no other "casual" threads which were stickied. Only the serious scratch-team-made were at the top with one or two exceptions. Even the "suggest projects to be featured" topic was not stickied, and that was, and still is vital. So I was quite scared to ask, but then I realised that my thread had reached it's 3400th view (I accidently said 8000 to Joletole- that was mixed up with another event at 8000 views!). This was back on December 19th, which is not long ago considering how fast the views have shot up since then.

I remember discussing it with Paddle2See. There were problems which he would give me but I would try my best to shoot a good explanation back. Then after quite a few discussions, the advert thread was stickied on January 9th, 2012.

The Scratch Cat's Hideout Era
The advert thread was getting old. With no new projects coming in except the odd couple, I had decided to expand. At 8000 views, I announced that there would be contests and re-organisation of the categories. It was also the start of my Project of the Week, which later turned to Projects of the Week now run by the PotW-Team a few weeks later. However, this was not enough.

Yes I had managed to get up to 12,000 views without making many differences to the thread, but the rate in which scratchers viewed the thread was very slowly starting to decline. There were also copies, and the thing that worried me most was that scratchers would prefer to advertise their projects on tiny advert threads instead of my whopping advert thread. I needed to re-generate the thread, so I came up with the idea to run it as a project club, being the first club on scratch.

So in a couple of days from now (it is the 16th of March 2012) I will be changing the layout of the advert thread so that it works like a club with different rooms and features. When making your own companies, it would be wise to re-invent yourself every so often. Not so often that it gets unbearable, and don;t make so many changes that it might as well be a separate company. Keep at it always!

April 29th Celebrations
To celebrate half a year of the advert thread, I will be:
+Uploading my latest games including Rayman4 and Taxi Time Tycoon.
+Re-organising the thread again.
+Starting a new debate show on scratch. (Please don't copy)

So don't miss out!

Thanks for reading!

Last edited by Borrego6165 (2012-03-16 16:04:57)

DARN IT!!  I looked at older posts, and realized this had already been taken!  I spent a whole hour on writing the complete article!

I do in fact understand the line of basics you are going on but i have a question myself, why must you limit the projects to scratchers only? to make this clearer, new scratchers, are they allowed to partake in these...projects? i was told no and that really upset me because i am as expireienced as any "scratchers" and just haven't posted many projects yet.