So what grade are you in? Second. Tenth grade. First grade. I was in 8th grade when I learned
to program. I got my first computer when I was in 6th grade. What gets me excited is
being able to fix people's problems. You can express yourself, you can build things from
an idea. Computer science is the basis for a lot of the things that college students
and professionals will do for the next 20 or 30 years. I like programming because I
like helping people. I get the opportunity to build something that's going to to make
people's lives easier. I think it's the closest thing we have to a superpower. Getting started
is the most important part. I'm a beginner myself, and I want you to learn with me.
Do you have a favorite video game that you've always wanted to make? Well we're going to
get started creating games just by using Play Lab. Good games have a story, and every story
has actors. Actors that do things like speak, move, interact with each other, maybe even
score points based on the rules of that game. Today, we'll be learning how to do all of
these things with fun actors like witches, zombies, aliens, and animals--and then build
a game from scratch that can be shared and played on a phone.
Your screen is split into 3 main parts. On the left is the game space where your program
will run. The instructions for each level are written below. The middle area is the
toolbox, and each of these blocks is a piece of code. The white space on the right is called
the workspace and this is where we'll build our program.
To start off, you'll need to link your blocks to the orange "when run" block. You can link
multiple blocks together by dragging them out until you see the yellow line, and then
they'll snap together.
In this first puzzle, our actor is a penguin and we'll be making it say "Hello!" by dragging
the "say" block out, linking it to the "when run" block, and typing in "Hello." We can
also make the penguin move by using the "move right" and "move left" blocks. Once you have
your blocks in place, hit the "run button" to see what you've programmed. Get started
and by the end, you'll be able to create your own game with all kinds of players that can
interact, turn happy or sad, score points, or throw fireballs, or even vanish each other.
It's all up to you and the game you want to make.