A student’s reflection on Microsoft MakeCode #MakeCodeArcade #MakeCode @MSMakeCode

Steve Isaacs posts on Twitter about a student reflecting on using Microsoft MakeCode. Over to JoJo’s Game Design:

In our game design class we started our first coding quest. We are using a program called Microsoft makecode arcade. https://arcade.makecode.com/ The first quest was the walking hero tutorial. Below is what it taught you.
What is a sprite? A sprite is a character in your game that can perform actions.
Then you add a code to make your sprite move with buttons.
That is all the basic walking hero tutorial instructs you to do. Below is a link to my original walking hero game
https://arcade.makecode.com/41777-78045-53247-75466
Then my task was to go back and play around with the codes to make a new game. As someone who is a little too trigger happy, this is the game i designed:
I started by figuring out how to change your background. That was the easiest part. i clicked on scenery because the title seemed self explanatory. Then I added the “set background image code” to my start event.
From there I clicked on the white box and designed my background picture.
Then I explored the other tabs offered to you. My biggest struggle was figuring out where to look for an action I wanted to create in each tab. Then, even if I found the right tab, it was hard to decipher if the title of the code I was looking at was what I was trying to find.
I was looking in the tab called controller.
When I opened it I noticed the “On A button pressed” code as you see circled below.
When I added it, i struggled to figure out how you could add something to happen when you pressed A. So I looked to the info tab. The first things i found were a set score to 0, and set lives to 3. Upon seeing those i saw a “change score by one” and “change life by -1. I realized if i added the first two codes i mentioned, then i would be able to add the second.
So added the first two to my code
Then I realized you add the “gaining points” and “losing lives” to an event. Such as the event of pushing a button I found earlier!!!!!
So i added gaining a point to pushing A, and losing 1 heart for pressing B.
Just then, I thought my game was done. So I attempted to play. that is when I realized my fatal flaw. There is no end to how many times you can push a button. The only way for it to end was for you to have to accidentally press B 3 times. So i realized I needed a time limit. I went back to info and added a 15 s timer to my start. Then my game was complete.
I really enjoyed learning the basic codes, and I can’t wait to learn more! To play my modded game click this link https://makecode.com/_gts9MJ9HjFJd