Code Your Own Games!: 20 Games to Create with Scratch

Bowen's been playing a number of computer games during the summer, and would frequently ask questions like: "How come this boss monster could change his shape?" That sort of thinking led me to believe that he was ready for the next step: learning to program a computer so he could make his own games. I had originally thought of building a "game construction kit" out of something like Unity, but a few attempts at the tutorial made me realize that this was way too complex. I'd heard about Scratch before, but the online tutorials left me cold. It wasn't that I couldn't figure out the programming language, it was that I was bereft of ideas as to what to do with it that would make interesting projects for Bowen that wouldn't bore him to death. (For whatever reason, it takes a heck of a lot more than "Hello World" to interest a kid used to modern computer graphics!) I bought Code Your Own Games! with relatively little expectation that it would actually be good. It's relatively cheap, and was spiral bound so it would lay flat, and with Amazon purchases I figured returns are easy if it's a piece of junk. When the book arrived, Bowen picked it up, and with the alacrity of a child flipped past the "introduction to scratch" page and jumped straight to the first project. My heart sank when I saw that the book was simply of the format: "Step 1: draw this sprite. Step 2: drag this code to the script tab". Then I noticed that each piece of code was explained with text (not that Bowen would bother reading those!). The projects immediately always did something fun, and half of the project would involve drawing rather than coding (which is about right when it comes to modern game implementation). What was interesting to me was that Bowen didn't learn so much from the book's coding, but from finding "bugs" in the resultant game behavior and modifying the project so the game behaved the way he wanted it to! For instance, in project 8 (Catch the Donut), he noticed that even when the game was over, you could keep clicking on the donut and score points. So this became an opportunity for him to learn how to implement boolean flags in a language that didn't have them, and how to use those flags. In project 4 (Drive me Crazy), he didn't like that the car would move when the throttle wasn't pressed down, so he fixed the code so that the throttle would have to be down for the sprite to keep moving. The language is never formally taught. It's used and the child's expected to pick it up (which is great, that's how programming languages should be taught). Scratch is an object-oriented language with event-driven features, and the unstructured nature of the "drag and drop" code tab gets kids used to the idea that multiple things could be happening at the same time for a sprite. The environment is kind of crude, with copy/paste, etc not really implemented well, but it works. Everything happens online, but you have to manually do your own saves and backups, and more than once Bowen lost some work because he forgot to manually save. Overall, for a 5 year old, this is not a book you can just give to him and expect him to solve major problems. You'll have to help and coach him (including teaching him to make backups), and lead him through some of the problems. But for $7.12, this is a great introduction to programming, doesn't require a powerful computer, and has shown Bowen that the only thing more addictive than a video game is writing one. Highly recommended.

This is a good one. It successfully goes from basic beginner to more advanced concepts. Let me compare it to some other Scratch books: DK Workbooks: Coding with Scratch Workbook --- this is a short book with only an introduction and the most basic projects. It would be ideal for younger children (6 or 7) or as a self-learning introduction to Scratch for kids (9-10). It should be followed up with another book. Coding in Scratch Games Workbook; DK --- this is another good one to introduce Scratch and create some fun games that build skills. Compared to Code Your Own Games, the DK book starts just as easily, but has more beginner and easy games and doesn't progress as far or as quickly. Coding Games in Scratch; DK --- this is a bigger book and progresses to more sophisticated games by comparison. Although it includes more, it also costs more. My kids are learning through a combination of teaching themselves through the book, experimenting with their own ideas, and some coaching from me. One of the problems that came up because of Coding Games in Scratch (DK) and could have come up with this book, happened when my son was attracted to a more advanced game and built it by just copying the code out of the book. Because he didn't fully understand it, he ran into a lot of difficulty and frustration troubleshooting it. I helped him with that, and then directed him back to some projects that build the basics. If you're not supervising their learning, you might choose a short book that teaches only the basics and then follow up with a book that goes farther, after they've spent about four to ten hours coding, which might be in a day or after a few weeks. This book (Code Your Own Games) or Coding Games in Scratch (DK) are both good to introduce Scratch or to follow up after an introduction. After either of these and about 40 to 80 hours coding, they could move on to "Advanced" Scratch books or other languages. If you're supervising their learning or doing classroom-style work, consider "Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math"

It’s a little out dated but still good advice for the code obsessed tween.

At first I was a skeptic and thought the book would never be able to teach a child anything; there were too many graphics, visuals, colors, etc. that would distract from coding. However, when I actually went through the first 10 game exercises, I was amazed at the approach. The book takes you on very simple 2-3 page game coding exercises, with each being a full game, and from game 1 to 20, there is a natural progression (you build upon previous code/games). In two pages, a child learns to "code" (if you can call visual programming coding), and a full game is created; this gives the child a tremendous sense of confidence. Of course, I've had over 15 years of professional software engineering experience, and that may have contributed to my initial skepticism and eventual affinity (I had to ask myself, how would I teach a child through a book, and could not really come up with something competitive and found it near impossible!). It may be that teaching a child to program requires a reference point like this book and a patient, experienced adult to step through; I am not quite confident of how much the progress was due to me and/or the book; nevertheless, the book gave me confidence in teaching and guiding a child. Overall, well done to Mr. Wainewright, it was well worth the investment. There are two things I did not like about the book: the spiral binding and the difficulty in standing the book up (at an angle) to look at and use it while teaching/learning. I do wish in the future, books like these that focus on children learning to code are more ergonomic in their packaging/binding.

Very well written for young readers. Very engaging.

My 7 year old loved this book so much! He's Very much into Minecraft so coding is huge,he learned how to create his own games through this book and is even more eager to create more through coding. Highly recommended!

My 8 year old loves this and has easily managed to work through the chapters. He has even been thinking about how to solve his coding problems in his sleep. The son of a developer :)

It is what I expected. Use it for teaching Scratch in computing.

My son likes it and uses it frequently to make interesting games, so I feel that it is worth buying.