This imaginary tree grows both pears and apples!

Are you ready? Hit the green flag to begin the game. It’s that time of year again. Use the left and right arrow keys to move the basket side to side. Catch as many fruit as you can! There is no time limit, but be careful! There are pinecones that blend into the red fruit, or may be behind it. Once a pinecone goes into your basket you will then lose 10 points and GAME OVER! Feel free to play AGAIN by clicking on the flag. Can you avoid the pinecones to beat your highest score?

*I forgot to mention…press the space bar to change the one of three backgrounds to your preference!*

      My game consists of all of my own images that replace the backdrop and Sprites that I took directly from Scratch in my first game. Since I already had my idea and most of my coding set, I needed to select personal artwork and images that best suited the content of my game. Luckily, I was able to include my oil and acrylic still life paintings (of fruit) that I made during painting courses at SUNY New Paltz. It was lovely that I was also able to bring a part of my kitchen into the game as I captured my fruit basket that I use daily. I used Photoshop to convert my images into a PNG file after I deleted unwanted areas to create my Sprites. As shown, there is a pear and an apple that I duplicated multiple times with varying sizes and degrees/directions of rotations. Instead of the beetles in my previous game, I incorporated my pinecone and copied it three more times to maintain obstacles. Each is a slightly different size and has costume changes based on the way I rotated the pinecones to look like they are spinning when they drop. Having the pinecones fall in a different manner from the way the fruit does, unlike in my first game, helps the player to differentiate between what he/she should avoid vs what the gamer wants to catch. I included sound when the pinecone(s) hit the basket using a small portion of a clip I found of pinecones falling. Ideally, I would have searched for a pinecone to record when I dropped it. Next, I selected a sketch of a made up tree and two images taken from when I was living on campus. Lastly, I added coding so the player can select or change the backgrounds to alter the difficulty of the game or how visible the Sprites are against the background. I kept on replaying the game while I made these changes to ensure my visions were met. Please see my first scratch game post if you would like to read more about my design thinking process.

      I learned from my peers that there are many different ways to personalize a game on Scratch. In general, students incorporated their own sounds, backdrops, and Sprites using digital drawings, traditional artwork, and/or pictures they captured (from various spaces). I was surprised to see a good amount of people who clearly utilized the drawing tools on Scratch or another software to create their background and/or subject matter. I respect those who have the control and patience to draw digitally as I rather draw or paint by hand. In regards to Gianna’s moon puzzle, I am glad she found the draggable code box! It makes it much easier to move the four pieces with your cursor to exactly where you want them to be placed. I was also very impressed with Alexa’s digital drawing skills to create her backdrops and an adorable cactus Sprite. Both of their digitally drawn Sprites are well crafted and belong in the space that was made for them.

      The process of creating my Scratch game relates to my prior experience of art education as I used basic tools on Photoshop to be able to incorporate my own Sprites. I was first introduced to/used Photoshop in middle school during 8th grade to digitally draw a potential front and/or back cover for the school’s literary magazine using a drawing pad/pen. I continued to use the program at times throughout high school, but mostly for editing images of my artwork to best represent how it looked in person. I did recall the object selection tool and I am very appreciative of its abilities. I used it to delete unwanted areas after inverting the selection of the subject matter. I found that completing this simple task was much more efficient than doing so on Scratch as it is less precise only being able to use the eraser tool free hand. I then used the eraser on Photoshop to clean up any edges that the selection did not capture. 

      I think an assignment similar to this can easily be applied to the classroom for those who already have a developing portfolio of artwork. I believe art students are often not given the opportunity to work on a drawing together at school. Thus, it would be a great learning experience to have middle schoolers work collaboratively in pairs. Each pair would create a game at the same time using at least one creation they both made together by hand or on Scratch of a background and/or Sprite. Other Sprites and backdrops should be images of each of his/her own photography, sketches, and/or (digital) work that best fit the theme or content of the game. Students will learn how to use the object selection tool and/or (magic) eraser on Photoshop in case they do not want to draw digitally and wish to upload their own pre-existing image for their Sprite. This project would help students to learn how to compromise (if necessary) and how to divide up small tasks to combine ideas and images through simplified, interactive coding. Students would be able to recognize and solve issues that come along the way with the help of their partners.