Creating an Arcade Game
Summary
Materials
Instructional Activities and Classroom Assessments
- Sprites recap (5 minutes)
- Create your own "Eat the Fruit" game (35 minutes)
- Share games and Play each others' games (5 minutes)
- Extension activity - Mod your game
- Extension activity - Try some Arcade game tutorials
- Optional - Download your game to a hand-held game device
- Reflect on the day's process and progress (5 minutes)
Learning Objectives
- CRD-2.B Explain how a program or code segment functions. Computational Thinking Practices: Skills 4.A
- CRD-2.C Identify input(s) to a program. Computational Thinking Practices: Skills 3.A
- CRD-2.D Identify output(s) produced by a program. Computational Thinking Practices: Skills 3.A
Essential Knowledge
- CRD-2.B.1 A program is a collection of program statements that performs a specific task when run by a computer. A program is often referred to as software.
- CRD-2.B.2 A code segment is a collection of program statements that is part of a program.
- CRD-2.B.3
- CRD-2.B.4
- CRD-2.C.1 Program inputs are data sent to a computer for processing by a program. Input can come in a variety of forms, such as tactile, audio, visual, or text.
- CRD-2.C.2 An event is associated with an action and supplies input data to a program.
- CRD-2.C.3 Events can be generated when a key is pressed, a mouse is clicked, a program is started, or any other defined action occurs that affects the flow of execution.
- CRD-2.C.4 Inputs usually affect the output produced by a program.
- CRD-2.C.5 In event-driven programming, program statements are executed when triggered rather than through the sequential flow of control.
- CRD-2.C.6 Input can come from a user or other programs.
- CRD-2.D.1 Program outputs are any data sent from a program to a device. Program output can come in a variety of forms, such as tactile, audio, visual, or text.
- CRD-2.D.2
Details
1. Sprites Recap (5 minutes)
Lead a quick recap of the previous day's sprite activity.
- What is a Sprite? A Sprite is any object in a game that has properties and behaviors.
- Why did you choose the sprite design that you did?
- How does this sprite represent you?
- How did you feel about the process of creating it?
2. Get Started
- Open the browser of your choice and navigate to https://arcade.makecode.com. Remember that MakeCode Arcade is browser based, so you can use it anywhere, but because it is browser based, your work will only be saved locally on the device/browser where you last worked. Be sure to Save your game as a file on your computer or shared folder, or Share your game and copy/paste the link somewhere you can retrieve it again.
- Open the game you started yesterday with the sprite you designed.
3. Activity - Eat the Fruit Game
Using the PowerPoint slide deck, walk students through a simple "Eat the Fruit" game.
4. Extension Activities- For students who may get done early, they can either:
- Try "modding" (modifying) their game to add additional sprites or gameplay behaviors.
- Try one or more of the Tutorials listed on the Home Page.
6. Optional: Download to hardware
If you have purchased any Arcade devices for your class (MakeCode Arcade Hardware), you can distribute these, and have students download, play, and share their games on these devices.
7. Reflection: (If you run out of time, you may also assign this as individual homework)
Students should complete their reflection in their OneNote.
- How did it feel creating your own game?
- What was the hardest part?
- How did you customize your game?
- Was there a backstory to your game?
- What did you think about MakeCode Arcade?
- What about yourself might you share through a game?