Getting Started With MakeCode Arcade

 In the following project, I will share my first experience with MakeCode Arcade website. I was assigned to complete the walking hero tutorial, to have an idea of how games function behind the scenes, the process of coding a game and some basics to game design. This fascinating website makes things more easy to comprehend how coding works. After finishing my tutorial, I must get creative and add more things into my code to make it look more like an arcade game.

Here is a link to the website https://arcade.makecode.com

What is a sprite?

A two-dimensional bitmap that is integrated into a larger scene. It can be used to represent the characters in a 2D video game. These can be anything, such as: coins, the player, enemy, platforms, bullets, etc.

My cute alien sprite.

Challenges I encountered during the way

I did encounter some challenges when I started to code some commands I wanted to set for the player and the enemy sprites. It took awhile to figure out how to make the enemy bounce inside the game and for the player to shoot it’s projectiles. I kept inserting the blocks, but each time I would run the code, there was something in it that was preventing it from functioning properly. I had to keep debugging and accommodating the right blocks into place.

Code error

Hopefully, I managed to figure out a way to end all of these problems I was facing. I searched for some tutorials that had similar functions to what I was looking for and I put some of my logic to figure out how it must be done. At the end, the results were very similar to what I was expecting to accomplish from the beginning. It might look simple, but I am satisfied with what I have accomplished at my first experience with MakeCode Arcade.






What I’ve learned about makecode

Now I have a better idea of how games work behind the scenes. All that coding required in order to make the game function properly. There is a lot of work put into a good digital game. Now I see why there are so many people involved to create the video games we play in our video game consoles and our computers. The sounds, the backgrounds, the sprites, the character’s movements and much more. With makecode, I just covered the basics to game designing. I didn’t even have to fully hard code with java, the blocks were already ready for me to organize easier coding. Basically you tell the program to do such things step by step and then run the code. If you forgot to place a small detail or misplace something within your code, your game wouldn't run smoothly.

JavaScript version

Things I modified to my code from the original waking hero tutorial

Almost everything. I have to create the sprite’s shape. I added a score, each time my character would shoot a projectile and overlapped to enemy, the enemy would be destroyed and I would score a point. I set 3 lives to my character. If the character overlapped the enemy, then the character would end up losing one of it’s lives. I implemented the shooting mechanism to my character. Move up, down and to the sides. Some sound effects to make the game more fun and interactive. The game over and other details.

The amount of code needed for my game.

What kind of game can you see yourself making with makecode arcade?

Arcade games. I consider I created a  simple arcade game. My character had its three lives. A game over if the character were to be defeated. I created an enemy I must destroy. Well , there were some things that were missing to make it a more proper arcade game. Some levels would have been nice. More difficulty as you move on, some obstacles too.

Overall, I had fun experimenting and messing around with the code. I had my frustrating moments, my relief moment and my proud moments. I look forward to trying other tutorials and learn more about coding.


Here, have some fun with my project. (There might be some issues with the score).  :V
https://makecode.com/_0MaHR7VdH3W6