Scratch For Kids For Dummies

CHAPTER 13

A-Maze-ing Game

While Pong is the first videogame I ever played, Pac-Man is the only game I ever saw my grandmother playing! Maybe that explains why it became the highest grossing game in history. (More than ten billion quarters. You do the math!)

Who can say what makes one game wildly popular while another gathers cobwebs in a dark corner of the arcade? As a game designer, you should always strive to create a game that you would want to play. For legal reasons, I cannot show you how to create a game exactly like Pac-Man, but I can share what I know about creating a fun maze game in Scratch.

Create a New Project

Before choosing a title, pick out the characters you want to include in your game. After browsing through the Sprite Library, I decided the best ones to use for a maze game are Mouse1 and Cat2 because each is drawn in a top-down view the way the maze will be. Because the player will be the mouse, I will call my game Amazing Mouse. Okay, not the most creative title, but what does Pac-Man even mean?!

1. Go to scratch.mit.edu or open the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.
2. If you are online, click Create. If offline, select File ⇒ New.
3. Rename your project. (If online, select the title and type Amazing Mouse. If using the offline version of Scratch, select File ⇒ Save As and type Amazing Mouse.)
4. Delete the cat with the Scissors (or Shift-click the cat and choose Delete ...