Equestrian MAF

In a previous post I talked about my maze game. After we finished coding, my class and I got a kit for making functional arcade buttons and a Raspberry Pi. We learned how to assemble the buttons with a piece of cardboard. After we learn how to hook all the buttons to the Raspberry Pi, and put the game on the Pi’s SD card, we got to use our own boxes and decorate them. I decided to take the theme of my game an use it for inspiration. Since my game is a maze of a road, I created just that on my shoe box. Any way, here are some pictures!:

Theme: For our maze games, my classmates and I were supposed to use a theme based off of a subject in school. The theme could relate to a specific project we have done or just a subject. I chose geography because at the time we started creating our games, my social studies class was doing a world geography mini-unit. I immediately though geography would be the perfect thing for a maze game.

Basic Instructions: Since the Makecode program is a little unclear on how to use certain functions for just playing the game, I thought I could add some tips. To move the player, just move the joystick in the direction you want it to go. This part is pretty straightforward and I made the game so you can’t go off the road, so not much steering is required. When text shows up on the screen make sure to wait for it to fully scroll though, or else you will miss something. To get the text off the screen press A, which I believe it tells you. When you run into an obstacle you will be asked a geography question. A number pad will take over the screen, with the numbers correlating to the answers written on top. This is what the screen will look like if I did not describe it well:

Chose which number you think the answer is for. Move to the number with the joystick then press A. The number you selected will then show up on the yellow line at the top, and then you can move down to the OK button and press A again. As you can, see it is extremely unclear to press A to select anything and it took me a few tries to figure it out. There is a timer going as you move across the map, but it will stop when you are in the question mode. If you answer the question you are on correctly it will subtract 5 seconds from the timer, but will add 5 seconds if you get the question wrong. The goal is to get to the end in the lowest time.

  My biggest challenge: My biggest challenge was definitely getting the questions to behave correctly. First I could not figure out how to make them activate and put text on the screen. Then, after programing the questions and responses (such as, if you get the question wrong it will say “Incorrect. Try again!”) the problem was getting the player to move on after they got the question right. What it would do is keep giving you the question infinitely, instead of letting you finish the game. This took a lot of help and explaining from my teacher, but I eventually got it. Another problem was I wanted a timer, which sounds so simple and that it would just be a straight up block. Turns out, it is completely impossible (without creating your own block from scratch) to keep a timer going during the questions screen. What I had to do was make a score set to update every second, so it looked like a timer. Then I added the putting time on and off, depending on your answer to the question, part to make it more challenging.

What I learned: As I said, I learned that there is no way to create a timer if you want to have text. Just like last time, I learned so much about how Makecode works and what it can do.

What I wanted to do: Originally I planned to make a road trip across America. As soon as I started coding I realized this was too ambitious because I would need to make a huge tile map, which my Chromebook can’t handle. I also originally planned to have the player collect things that could help them on this road trip, which turned into the geography questions at each challenge. Even though my original idea did not work out, I am thrilled with how my game came out!

Here is my game!

How to play: the goal of the game is you are the shark and you are supposed to eat the fishes. The orange fish makes your score go down to 0 and the white fish gives you a point. The orange fish will change location every second and the white fish will move when you eat it.

How its made: I started out by using Makecode’s Chase The Pizza tutorial, which makes a very simple, basic game. All you do is try to get the food in 10 seconds. Pretty boring, right? So, I made it better by adding a second character who can move on its own and makes the game harder. I also created my own custom backdrop of the ocean to make the game more realistic, since all of the characters are ocean creatures. I also cut the time allowed from 10 to 3 seconds.

My experience creating the game: creating the game was no easy task. The tutorial was helpful, but then I was on my own (with the help of my teacher, of course). Following the tutorial was fairly simple, but it did not help me much for creating other elements. My game is pretty simple compared to my classmates’, but I am still very proud. of it This is my first time using Makecode and doing any sort of project with code. I had a particularly hard time figuring out how to make the orange fish move around. Even though creating this game was a challenge, it was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to make more!

Here is a sample of the game and its code is below. I hope you enjoy it!