Be Successful Learning Scratch
Scratch gets a bad press with its colourful blocks and cartoon sprites, people automatically assume that it’s intended for just primary school learners, when it so isn’t. There is so much to learn and achieve through the platform. So to prove a point, First Coding entered a game built using Scratch into a game dev competition. Pitched against other game developers who were using the likes of Unity and other engines to build their creations, despite feeling like a little fish in a big pond, this little Scratch game came third overall!
Here were some of the comments the game received from other developers:
The voting period was kept open for a week after the competition had finished, giving people plenty of time to play all the games that had been entered. The final result for our entry was as follows:
BAFTA Young Game Designers’ Workshop
Good luck to everyone who took part in the First Coding BAFTA Young Game Designers’ workshop. The quality of games produced over the six weeks was incredible. BAFTA have recently announced that they’re extending the deadline, so you now have until the 24th March to submit your games. THE VERY BEST OF LUCK!
Satchel Classes
First Coding is very pleased to announce that we’ll be hosting coding classes on the Satchel platform. Satchel are the people behind Show Your Homework, something that a number of pupils and parents might be familiar with.
First Coding’s first class was on game design with the key takeaways being as follows:
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How to push yourself creatively when coding.
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The best approach to starting a portfolio of work.
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Ways to get involved with the game dev community and get your game noticed
If you’re interested, the class can be viewed here.
The Radio Interview
You can hear the interview that went out on this morning’s Breakfast Show below. In it I talk about the plans we have to build a series f games in time for Christmas. I can’t believe how much interest it generated, they were even running a phone-in to see what ideas people can come up with. Proof that even the silliest of games can get noticed at times!
Coding Projects on the Radio
Listeners to BBC Radio Wiltshire will be able to hear all about some of the great projects coming out of First Coding tomorrow morning. Hopefully the projects featured will demonstrate that even the most simplest of ideas can often be the most fun and creative. The game design idea that is being launched shortly is also revealed as we plan for a creative Christmas. I’ve been told the interview will be aired on the Breakfast Show tomorrow morning. The link will also be posted when it’s made available.
Top 5 Creative Coding Tips
Are you new to coding in Scratch or maybe you would like to improve on your Python programming skills? Then here are our top 5 tips on creative coding.
Python School Groups
We continue this week with our popular Python school groups, looking at clever ways to code text-based Choose Your Own Adventure games. Already there are some great ideas forming and we look forward to seeing the results in a few weeks time. In the meantime, you can play one of First Coding’s adventure games where you must navigate a secret underground bunker, solving puzzles and looking for the source of the mysterious radio transmissions.
The game is called Number Station and you can play it online here: http://numberstation.co.uk/
