Scratch

archmage · 2010-04-19 02:11:16

I don't really agree with the ideas in the "Bosox method" or similar threads because their entire purpose to to get views. I always thought of scratch as a sort of experimentation and learning tool and making cookie cutter games just for views or e-fame on scratch just seems wrong to me. You have probably also noticed that most top viewed projects are made by people with a following so even projects that took little effort will get tons of views. So all the steps in those threads ie.fast, fun, won't help bring about "the return of the games" because the main requirement is to' have a sort of following.

This isn't really a way to change the community because it requires more effort than casual users will probably put in. This is more about how I got into programming and game programming specifically. If you do these things you can probably make scratch programs like me smile

Step 1: Learn general programming
-You can do this by signing up for computer classes at school (highly recommend this, most classes are useless anyways) or do things the geek way AKA learn everything online. One place you can learn C is at http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/comments/9o3km/lesson_1_some_thoughts_about_programming_language/

Go though all the lessons in the link and that is about as good as going though computer science classes. Also make sure to practice everything a lot and ask on programming forums if you need help.

Step 2: Learn to make games in flash

Why flash? Its probably the most similar programming tool to scratch. Also with flash, there are tons of resources for learning. Anything you want to know can be looked up but in scratch you can only find what the blocks do. If you don't want to get adobe flash because of the price try flash 8 which can be found much cheaper, or the free flash develop with the flixel framework. http://flixel.org/

Adobe flash has the most support going for it but flixel has the flixel wiki. Newgrounds.com is a good source of flash tutorials for the Adobe programs.

Learn how to make as many kinds of things as possible. If you get good you can easily adapt tutorials made for Adobe programs to whatever you are using. Practice is key so try making programs that focus on a single concept so that you get the hang of it.

Step 3: Make some games in flash

They don't even have to be complete, as long as you learned something you did well. The best way to learn to program is to program instead of reading. If you are following tutorials, you must understand how it all works or you will not be able to debug anything. With each game you make you will learn a lot and you next work will be that much better.

Step 4: Make whatever in scratch

If you followed steps 1-3 semi-correctly then you should find that you can do pretty much everything that is to be done in scratch. Scratch is very limited so you don't need to know more complex things like you would if using other languages. At this point you are at a huge advantage over other users because if you want to know how to do something you can adapt the plentiful actionscript examples from the net to scratch. Normal scratch users have no one to learn except from the scratch forums and projects which are not that helpful.

Make sure to make purposeful projects like you other programs in other languages. Your other programs were made to help you develop you game development and coding skills, it would be a waste to just make projects for the sake of getting views. Also be sure to move on with flash when you get tired of scratch.

This is more about bringing games to you as an individual rather than the community. So what do you think of this post in general?

Last edited by archmage (2010-04-19 02:20:59)

fanofcena · 2010-04-19 02:20:31

I totally agree with Archamage big_smile

btw archamage we are going to be simply bombarded by Bosox followers tongue

anyway I jst have one objection with your idea

in short it should be like this

1. learn scratch
2. Learn flash (while learning flash use scratch to visualise code and experimentation)
3. Learn General Program(still use scratch to visualise Code and some small experimentation)

smile i have been making Remake of Rhy's Line Racer on C++ and must say without scratch visualising code in C or C++ is a real messup tongue .

Here is ma C++ games tongue that i can share on forums with source code http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=368654#p368654

Last edited by fanofcena (2010-04-19 02:27:42)

archmage · 2010-04-19 02:29:48

fanofcena wrote:
I totally agree with Archamage

btw archamage we are going to be simply bombarded by Bosox followers

anyway I jst have one objection with your idea

in short it should be like this

1. learn scratch
2. Learn flash (while learning flash use scratch to visualise code and experimentation)
3. Learn General Program(still use scratch to visualise Code and some small experimentation)

i have been making Remake of Rhy's Line Racer on C++ and must say without scratch visualising code in C or C++ is a real messup .

I think the proper way to organize you steps are: 1. learn general programming, 2. Learn flash, 3. Do scratch (not learn)

If you really want to learn to program don't use scratch. The reason for this is because there are no good learning resources for scratch and there is simply not much to learn + teaches bad habits. You can use scratch a bit but don't try to learn from it instead of real programming resources.

Learn general programming after because most languages are fairly similar.

Then learn flash because it is most similar to scratch.

cruelty247 · 2010-04-19 02:34:40

we just simply need to ask politely with puppy dog eyes to ppl who make series plz can you stop while i bring out my game smile

fanofcena · 2010-04-19 06:33:21

archmage wrote:
fanofcena wrote:
I totally agree with Archamage

btw archamage we are going to be simply bombarded by Bosox followers

anyway I jst have one objection with your idea

in short it should be like this

1. learn scratch
2. Learn flash (while learning flash use scratch to visualise code and experimentation)
3. Learn General Program(still use scratch to visualise Code and some small experimentation)

i have been making Remake of Rhy's Line Racer on C++ and must say without scratch visualising code in C or C++ is a real messup .
I think the proper way to organize you steps are: 1. learn general programming, 2. Learn flash, 3. Do scratch (not learn)

If you really want to learn to program don't use scratch. The reason for this is because there are no good learning resources for scratch and there is simply not much to learn + teaches bad habits. You can use scratch a bit but don't try to learn from it instead of real programming resources.

Learn general programming after because most languages are fairly similar.

Then learn flash because it is most similar to scratch.

Agreed big_smile btw I use scratch now as an supportive thing when i write programs

RHY3756547 · 2010-04-19 11:11:39

...

The point about scratch is that you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ACTUAL PROGRAMMING for christ's sake. Flash will not help your ability more than scratch does, as flash doesn't actually teach you video game techniques. You can read those elsewhere and look at scratch projects for coding samples.

Actual programming knowledge is not necessary and does not make you better with it!

steppenwulf · 2010-04-19 11:30:04

archmage wrote:
... similar threads because their entire purpose to to get views.

I agree with you, archmage. Pumping out random games won't do much good unless you have archmage-level fame. I would follow your steps but... I'm too lazy to do it tongue

juststickman · 2010-04-19 11:43:02

I would follow your steps, but I'm too lazy to go back to scratch. Or learn C

Stickman704 · 2010-04-19 12:10:38

archmage wrote:
I think the proper way to organize you steps are: 1. learn general programming, 2. Learn flash, 3. Do scratch (not learn)

I see a strange sense in this here. But unfortunatly, I know scratch anyway smile

Edit: I'm too young to learn c (12 yrs)

Last edited by Stickman704 (2010-04-19 12:26:18)

juststickman · 2010-04-19 12:28:27

Stickman704 wrote:
archmage wrote:
I think the proper way to organize you steps are: 1. learn general programming, 2. Learn flash, 3. Do scratch (not learn)
I see a strange sense in this here. But unfortunatly, I know scratch anyway

Edit: I'm too young to learn c (12 yrs)

But you're not too young to learn flash.

Stickman704 · 2010-04-19 12:40:08

juststickman wrote:
Stickman704 wrote:
archmage wrote:
I think the proper way to organize you steps are: 1. learn general programming, 2. Learn flash, 3. Do scratch (not learn)
I see a strange sense in this here. But unfortunatly, I know scratch anyway

Edit: I'm too young to learn c (12 yrs)
But you're not too young to learn flash.

Why? How old are you?

juststickman · 2010-04-19 13:05:50

Stickman704 wrote:
juststickman wrote:
Stickman704 wrote:
I see a strange sense in this here. But unfortunatly, I know scratch anyway

Edit: I'm too young to learn c (12 yrs)
But you're not too young to learn flash.
Why? How old are you?

11 tongue

archmage · 2010-04-19 13:57:57

RHY3756547 wrote:
...

The point about scratch is that you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ACTUAL PROGRAMMING for christ's sake. Flash will not help your ability more than scratch does, as flash doesn't actually teach you video game techniques. You can read those elsewhere and look at scratch projects for coding samples.

Actual programming knowledge is not necessary and does not make you better with it!

You don't need to know how to do actual programing well to use scratch but you need to know actual programing to use scratch well tongue

A lot of the best users, S65, Canthair, JSO, Paddle2see, and myself did not learn how to program solely with scratch. There is no where to learn where to program a lot of projects in scratch. I am not sure what you first started programming with but I am pretty sure it wasn't scratch because there is no where to learn stuff like how to make 3D wireframes.

As for flash not teaching you how to make games, that is just nonsense since a large part of what flash development is about is game programming. With all the flash games on the web you would think that there are lots of game programming guides.

Just as a test I searched for "scratch turn based rpg tutorial" and "flash turn based rpg tutorial". There were no relevant results for scratch (most of them were about flash) and the flash search had tons of guides some of which are written by professionals.

Also for people thinking they are too young, just try things first. Most programing classes start for people who are 13 years old so 11 and 12 isn't too far off.

Last edited by archmage (2010-04-19 14:02:43)

Stickman704 · 2010-04-19 14:15:18

juststickman wrote:
Stickman704 wrote:
juststickman wrote:

But you're not too young to learn flash.
Why? How old are you?
11

Lol? Really? Where'd you learn as2?

juststickman · 2010-04-19 14:16:01

Stickman704 wrote:
juststickman wrote:
Stickman704 wrote:

Why? How old are you?
11
Lol? Really? Where'd you learn as2?

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kongregate/shootorial-1
http://tutorio.us/?p=150&page=2

RHY3756547 · 2010-04-19 14:46:09

archmage wrote:
RHY3756547 wrote:
...

The point about scratch is that you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ACTUAL PROGRAMMING for christ's sake. Flash will not help your ability more than scratch does, as flash doesn't actually teach you video game techniques. You can read those elsewhere and look at scratch projects for coding samples.

Actual programming knowledge is not necessary and does not make you better with it!
You don't need to know how to do actual programing well to use scratch but you need to know actual programing to use scratch well

A lot of the best users, S65, Canthair, JSO, Paddle2see, and myself did not learn how to program solely with scratch. There is no where to learn where to program a lot of projects in scratch. I am not sure what you first started programming with but I am pretty sure it wasn't scratch because there is no where to learn stuff like how to make 3D wireframes.

As for flash not teaching you how to make games, that is just nonsense since a large part of what flash development is about is game programming. With all the flash games on the web you would think that there are lots of game programming guides.

Just as a test I searched for "scratch turn based rpg tutorial" and "flash turn based rpg tutorial". There were no relevant results for scratch (most of them were about flash) and the flash search had tons of guides some of which are written by professionals.

Also for people thinking they are too young, just try things first. Most programing classes start for people who are 13 years old so 11 and 12 isn't too far off.

Also, quite frankly a lot of what scratch development is used for is games. (unless you're one of these * people who makes second rate art). Flash games are brilliant, and many methods used in tutorials can be transferred onto scratch. The methods, NOT the coding. I don't copy.

Oh really? All I needed was a good knowledge of math and a detailed explanation of how 3D is simulated. The Sims Carnival Game creator was my first programming application (nobody on there could figure out trig, hell) which was followed by scratch. I did not code with any others until recently.

"You don't need to know how to do actual programing well to use scratch but you need to know actual programing to use scratch well tongue "
Isn't that the same thing? :S

Last edited by RHY3756547 (2010-04-19 14:46:55)

Stickman704 · 2010-04-19 15:22:19

juststickman wrote:
Stickman704 wrote:
juststickman wrote:

11
Lol? Really? Where'd you learn as2?
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kongregate/shootorial-1
http://tutorio.us/?p=150&page=2

Whoa. I didn't know as is that easy. Thanks

B2t:
"You don't need to know how to do actual programing well to USE SCRATCH but you need to know actual programing to USE SCRATCH WELL"

It's differnt.

Anyway. Back to the tuts!

archmage · 2010-04-19 15:31:16

Ok, I am going to leave it at this since I know that you will reply every time I reply to your posts and it becomes a vicious cycle.

Generally, scratch projects of people who have previous coding experience are way better than those who do not have previous experience. Learning another language opens doors to more programming resources even though you can still learn though general guides and pseudocode. Generally, learning programming though a real language is more helpful because the guides go over things in more detail.

This doesn't really apply to casual users since they are content sharing whatever and don't want to dedicate themselves. So generally you can use scratch with no programming knowledge but you can't make the best projects without some sort of programming knowledge.

JSO · 2010-04-19 15:58:19

While I did learn programming with Flash, as Scratch did not exist back then, I sort of disagree with your point.

The main difference between Scratch and other programming languages is that you do not need the knowledge of basic programming concepts to get started. You *can* learn all these concepts with Scratch but you need something to push you in the right direction, like a class, an online tutorial, ... This is how we got this huge Scratch 'art' community, people come across the program, try it out and don't push themselves into learning programming concepts.

There are 987,040 online tutorials available on this site, right now. You just don't need them to get started. Trial and error can also make you learn all concepts, it's just most Scratchers lack the interest.

What we really need is the help of the Scratch team, to push people in the direction of creating interactive projects. Displaying a random help screen at the start of the program is an idea... Or what about galleries of tutorials, selected by the Scratch team, covering all programming concepts?

BWOG · 2010-04-19 15:59:07

JSO wrote:
While I did learn programming with Flash, as Scratch did not exist back then, I sort of disagree with your point.

The main difference between Scratch and other programming languages is that you do not need the knowledge of basic programming concepts to get started. You *can* learn all these concepts with Scratch but you need something to push you in the right direction, like a class, an online tutorial, ... This is how we got this huge Scratch 'art' community, people come across the program, try it out and don't push themselves into learning programming concepts.

There are 987,040 online tutorials available on this site, right now. You just don't need them to get started. Trial and error can also make you learn all concepts, it's just most Scratchers lack the interest.

What we really need is the help of the Scratch team, to push people in the direction of creating interactive projects. Displaying a random help screen at the start of the program is an idea... Or what about galleries of tutorials, selected by the Scratch team, covering all programming concepts?

Are you saying that every project is a tutorial?

Last edited by BWOG (2010-04-19 16:00:13)

JSO · 2010-04-19 16:01:06

BWOG wrote:
Are you saying that every project is a tutorial?

Yes. Unlike with Flash games, you can download every Scratch project and learn from it's code.

BWOG · 2010-04-19 16:03:14

JSO wrote:
BWOG wrote:
Are you saying that every project is a tutorial?
Yes. Unlike with Flash games, you can download every Scratch project and learn from it's code.

Even though a lot of them have no scripts tongue

Just saying.

archmage · 2010-04-19 16:07:50

JSO wrote:
The main difference between Scratch and other programming languages is that you do not need the knowledge of basic programming concepts to get started. You *can* learn all these concepts with Scratch but you need something to push you in the right direction, like a class, an online tutorial, ... This is how we got this huge Scratch 'art' community, people come across the program, try it out and don't push themselves into learning programming concepts.

Yeah part of what I was trying to say is that there is a lack of resources to guide people. Even though there are a lot of open source projects, it is hard to learn from the code if you' don't understand what is going on. If scratch had all the learning resources of flash then learning flash would not help as much.

Last edited by archmage (2010-04-19 16:09:17)

JSO · 2010-04-19 16:14:23

So basically, you're saying we should write tutorials wink And libraries, according to your article. That won't be possible until we have something BYOB like though hmm

Thank you for sharing the course, btw smile

Last edited by JSO (2010-04-19 16:16:58)

archmage · 2010-04-19 16:24:10

Well the main reason I recommended to learn general programming then flash is to learn programming concepts that teach you all the uses of different things. Like, a proper tutorial would gives lots of examples on what an array does and some different applications. I haven't found any scratch resources that are able to teach you to use lists in this kind of detail. Flash comes next because most flash tutorials assume you know programming basics and it is very similar to scratch and it teaches you more specific techniques.

If scratch had a really good programming wiki, one that would give you detailed instructions on all the blocks and guides on how to make specific projects then you would not need to learn anything other than scratch to make the best scratch projects.

Its not just about writing tutorials, its also about organizing them, making sure they are high quality, and putting them in an easy to find place.

Last edited by archmage (2010-04-19 16:24:52)

Scratch

archived forums

#1 2010-04-19 02:11:16

Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#2 2010-04-19 02:20:31

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#3 2010-04-19 02:29:48

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

fanofcena wrote:

#4 2010-04-19 02:34:40

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#5 2010-04-19 06:33:21

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

archmage wrote:

fanofcena wrote:

#6 2010-04-19 11:11:39

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#7 2010-04-19 11:30:04

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

archmage wrote:

#8 2010-04-19 11:43:02

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#9 2010-04-19 12:10:38

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

archmage wrote:

#10 2010-04-19 12:28:27

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

Stickman704 wrote:

archmage wrote:

#11 2010-04-19 12:40:08

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

juststickman wrote:

Stickman704 wrote:

archmage wrote:

#12 2010-04-19 13:05:50

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

Stickman704 wrote:

juststickman wrote:

Stickman704 wrote:

#13 2010-04-19 13:57:57

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

RHY3756547 wrote:

#14 2010-04-19 14:15:18

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

juststickman wrote:

Stickman704 wrote:

juststickman wrote:

#15 2010-04-19 14:16:01

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

Stickman704 wrote:

juststickman wrote:

Stickman704 wrote:

#16 2010-04-19 14:46:09

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

archmage wrote:

RHY3756547 wrote:

#17 2010-04-19 15:22:19

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

juststickman wrote:

Stickman704 wrote:

juststickman wrote:

#18 2010-04-19 15:31:16

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#19 2010-04-19 15:58:19

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

#20 2010-04-19 15:59:07

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

JSO wrote:

#21 2010-04-19 16:01:06

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

BWOG wrote:

#22 2010-04-19 16:03:14

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

JSO wrote:

BWOG wrote:

#23 2010-04-19 16:07:50

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method

JSO wrote:

#24 2010-04-19 16:14:23

Re: Return of the Games - the "Archmage" method