Bugster Rush – My 10 Year-Old Son's First Coding Project

My 10 year-old son made this game in the language Scratch in a few hours (with some help). Neither of us had coded in Scratch before, and I hadn't really seen it before at all.

At first I had a second computer (a laptop) running so we could Google-search how to do things in Scratch, which was used a lot.

This page is still very new and being fixed up!

I'll write more later about the details of the game, and how to write code in Scratch in general.

Level 2

Near the end of February 2022 a new feature was added, which will appear if you can get to 500 points. It's possible to do on a phone, but much easier on a device with a physical keyboard (using the arrow keys to control the Bugster).

Bugs in Bugster Rush

Known bugs so far (which should be fixed eventually, when there is time):

• Your score resets to zero after dying, so you can't see what you got up to.
• The sprite collision detection isn't ideal yet. On the first level, it works properly on one side but not the other (see if you can notice it). I noticed it after playing for a while, and a school friend of my son did also. On the 2nd level, I think the problem exists on both sides (and you can die by being too close to the falling creatures, even if they don't fully hit you).
• There is a way to cheat and move into a spot where it's really hard to die — if you can find out how to get there (I think it requires a physical keyboard, and can't be done on a phone or other touch-screen-only device).
• The hardest part of the game is surviving the first few seconds, which probably isn't ideal behaviour.

Programming Games

Learning to program games has always been one of the most popular and interesting ways to learn coding. There are lots of different ways to do this now — more than ever before.

Scratch

Scratch is a popular block-based visual programming language (and website) targeted primarily at children aged 8 to 16. It's as an educational tool for programming — which means it's easier to learn to code in, though it's not a "real" language that's used for many other things in the "real" commercial world in the way that Python or JavaScript (or Java, or C#, or C++, etc.) are.

Click here to visit the Scratch website at MIT.

This was my son's first go at learning to code. Rather than use a pre-made template (which is a common way to begin coding), we started with a completely blank canvas. All the graphics are original, which Noah drew himself in Scratch. The only part that's a template is the grid on the opening screen, and that was only because we couldn't quickly figure out how to get a blank canvas (and not a pre-drawn template).

Bugster Rush

The game still needs a bit of work, e.g. your score often keeps counting up even after you're dead. Also, more features will probably be added later, like more levels.

Click on the green flag to start playing. Use the left and right arrows and see how long you can live!

I'll write more about this soon!

Coming Soon

I'll give much better descriptions of some of these different ways here soon. And pictures, and live examples...

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