About this book
Before you dive into learning how to make your own games, we need to tell you a little about the site you’ll be using—Scratch.
Scratch is a drag-and-drop programming language. Drag-and-drop means that there are blocks that are assigned pieces of code, and you stick them together like LEGOs to create a program. It’s visual, so you don’t have to type lots of brackets and semicolons and weird coding words like “bool.” Instead you snap together a brown Events block to a blue Motion block to make things happen.
Although that may sound odd right now, it will make total sense after you read chapter 1 and get familiar with the Scratch workspace.
Scratch is a friendly community with millions of users, and the biggest issue you’ll have is to not be distracted by playing other people’s projects when you should be making your own. People upload their finished games to the Scratch website where they can be viewed and played by other Scratchers. We’ll teach you how to upload your creations, too.
Joining Scratch is free, and you should go over right now (to scratch.mit.edu) and make an account so you’ll be ready to make your first project. But wait—first grab a parent so they know the information you’re entering online as you sign up.