Scratch

I'm trying my very best to make a game! But it won't upload online because it's too big. I NEED everything thats in the game. What do I do? I've tried to compress it, but it's still giving me the same message

Blu923 wrote:

I'm trying my very best to make a game! But it won't upload online because it's too big. I NEED everything thats in the game. What do I do? I've tried to compress it, but it's still giving me the same message

You could try releasing it in several sections. You could label one (Name of Game) part 1, the next (Name of Game) part 2, and so forth.

Bobby500 wrote:

Right now I am bored so I though I would share some tips with the rest of scratch, especially the newer scratchers! Here it goes:
                                     
                                  How to Make a Better Game/Movie/Project

Question 1- Is it Glitchy?
               A project that is full of glitches that does not work to well is not very good. it shows people that you didn't care enough to fix the glitches or that the project isn't important. Besides, you want them to play the game that you were trying to let them play, not the one where the player gets stuck here, or gains infinite pints here or dies to easily over here. It is just not fun that way.
How to Help-
              One of the best ways to get rid of glitches is to go into presentation mode while playing it and see if anything goes wrong. Also, you can upload it and see if anything is wrong there also. Remeber, you can always repost a project to fix some glitches. If you need help fixing one, just ask on the forums. Someone will help you.

Question 2- Is it smooth?
          A project is not very pleasing to the eye if the characters in it jerk around as if they had trouble walking. Instead of doing 10 steps- wait .1 seconds, how about 2 steps, wait .02 seconds. Acheives the same end but in a smoother way. That makes the project look better made, even though it is changeing a couple numbers! Smoothness goes a long way with making a project better.
How to Help
          To check and see how smoothly a project runs, go to the presentation mode. There it should run as it does online although if it is a big  project it will still lag there. If your project is more than about 7 Mega-bytes, it will lag online and most likly on the computer. To help that, try not to use music in huge projects,  or at least compress them.

Question 3-Home-made vs. Copied Costumes.
         What this paragraph is all about is whether you should draw your own costumes or try to find them on the net first. Home made costumes are great, especially if you are a great drawer but usually the ones around the net are better. Not always but most of the time. However, if you found it on the net, you can almost guarentee that some one else has, especially if it is mario or something. If you want to be completly original, you ccan draw your own. I can't draw for my life on the computer so I find them.
How to Help
          One way to make better costumes of your own is to add shadows and stuff. There will be more on this topic later down. There will be a list of great sites and how to get your own costumes from them also down below.

Question 4-How Do I improve My drawn Costumes?
           To help improve the graphic quality of your hand drawn sprites, one of the best ways is to make it look 3-d. One of the ways to do that is to add reflection and shading. Another is perspective or Layering. Perspective is the use of vanishing points to draw cubes, prisms ect. Layering is putting an object behind an object, giving the appearance of being behind the first object. Also, one thing that really makes a sprite good is movment as in changing sprites really quickly. The best way to do this is have the next costume change a little bit each time.
         Here we have to sprites that I got off the net, to compare and show what each one needs.
http://kirby.classicgaming.gamespy.com/ … ylooks.gif
            Okay, see that drawing in the top right? That is okay. Has a small amount of shading and lines for eyes. That one is okay. The one one the bottom left is the most realistic, providing that you can imagine arms and legs. It uses gradients to shade and reflect off of the kirby. Now, the one on the bottom right is the one that most people would use for scratch. Simple, has shading and reflection, looks like the original and has a black out line which helps define the character. Also, the arms are clearly defined in that one, unlike the one above it.

Question 5-Where do I get Sprites From the net and how do I Put Them On Scratch?
           Just Keep looking for them. One great place is Spriters resource. It has Pokemon, Mario, Nintendo, Sonic and other sprites throughout its website and updates frequently. To get them onto a scratch project, copy the sprite sheet, and paste it on paint. Spearte the one that you want and put that onto a different paint. Then save that as a .png file and upload it onto scratch via pictures.
Places To get Sprites
Spriters Resource
Scratch Resources
Shy Guy Kingdom

Question 6-I have run out of good game ideas. Any suggestions?
          It is whatever you would have fun doing. Me, personally like ripping of nintendo or flash games but you should do what you like best. If you like sports, do a sporting game like football. If you like video games, remake your favorite one. The sky and 10 Mega bytes is the limit! 

Question 7-My game is online, no one is viewing it, HELP ME!!!!!
          Okay, I know this doesn't have to do with the quality of the project but I thought that people want others to see there game. There are several ways to do this. You can post a topic about it on the forums which usually gets you 5-100 views, depending on who sees it when and whether people bump the thread. You can also add it to gallerys that are related to it. Don't spam gallerys or projects with anyones projects. Another good way is to make several good projects because if people like the one that they are playing, they might look at your other ones.

Question 8- Should ITest my games?
Yes. Heres why-For usability, fun, difficulty, etc.  Most of the best game designers out there will tell you that you need to test your game throughout the whole design process.  In fact, the game industry spends millions of dollars each year paying people to test their games. 

There are many ways to test your projects.  Post your games online to seek feedback from the Scratch Community.  Ask them specific questions about your game (see below).  Or, before you post, have your siblings, friends, parents, even grandparents test your game and give you feedback.  Was level 1 too hard and level 6 too easy? - adjust the difficulty.  Did your grandparents find some parts more confusing than your siblings? - modify the instructions. 

Watch while others play to find areas you wouldn't notice problems ordinarily.  Ask them to play without instructions to see if the game play is clear.  Ask them to explain what they think they are doing while they do it.   

Here are a few questions to ask your testers:

Did the game feel too long/short?
Did you understand the goal of the game? What was it?
Did you understand the directions? Ca you repeat them in your own words?
Did you have fun while playing?
Did you think it was too challenging/not challenging enough?
Did you want to play more?
Did you feel like you could win this game if you played again?
Did you like/dislike the graphics/sounds?
Did the pace fee too fast/slow?
Did you feel stuck at any point? If so where?

Just remember that their feedback will help you improve your game.  Don't be offended!

Question 8 was given to me by mletreat. Thank you!

.,-~'More tips'~-,.

--Anti Lag--

Use as little "When green flag clicked" and "forever" blocks as each one is approx another 3kb onto your project size, this may not sound very big but some of the big games use over 100 "When green flag clicked" and 400 "forever" blocks with a total of 1.5 MB!!

--Multiple Actions--

Dispite the text above sometimes It is extremely helpful to have 2 "When green flag clicked" blocks as if you had your arrow key movement all in the same block of script then it could only process 1 at a time, so you could only go left or up, not both at the same time but by having two seperate scripts and putting left and right in 1 and up and down in the other you can go both up and left at the same time!

Those were given to me by Tro95

               I hope that will help improve some of you games! I know I follow these tips whenever I make a game and I hope you do also. I will add more when I think of some. Please tell me if you have any suggestions as I will put them on this list!

Thank you, that is very helpful, but I have a question. Is the "Scratch Resources" website that you mention on Question 5 made by the Scratch Team? If not, than I can't go on there.

Dear Scratch Friends,

Hi, I am TheAnimator_7.  I have made 1 video (please check it out).  I want to know if it was good or not, and what type of video I should do next (and what it should be about....p.s. I am already working on a game but it will take a while so I would like an easy idea for a game that might take a day or two). 

Thanks,

TheAnimator_7

Great tips! One thing to do also, is to not stop working on a project. All games could be better, even if they are top loved; and the more you try, the more chance you have of a front pager.

GeriatricBagel wrote:

Do people look at pointless things?

Yes. Why do you think Doody's projects were all top viewed?

How do u make projects on scratch?

<set pen size to( -Cpr

Nice tips 

Paddle2See wrote:

These are very helpful tips!  I would like to also echo Bobby500 that when making a project, think twice or three times before adding a really big music file.  Music really can slow a project down and it certainly slows down the load time for people with slower internet connections.  A lot of times, when I see that a project is taking a long time to load, I just cancel and move on to some other project that will load faster. 

First, work on making the game motion smooth and the game play fun.  Then, add the music and see how much it hurts the performance.  Finally, decide how much music you can afford to have in the project.  You may decide to compress the music or use a shorter loop or remove it entirely.

Bobby500 - thanks for posting these tips!

True.
I don't consider adding music which makes it faster to load.
I consider commpressing which makes it was MB to a lower from 10 MB number or a number of gigs or  something lower than 1 MB.
Please re-read if confusing.

Paddle2See wrote:

A lot of times, when I see that a project is taking a long time to load, I just cancel and move on to some other project that will load faster

Me too.

Thanks this helped alot 

Thank you SO much. That will be very helpful.