Unit 4

Games

THE "BIG IDEA"

Personalization is an important guiding principle in the design of the creative computing experience. By "personalization", we mean both connecting to personal interests and acknowledging that personal interests can vary considerably. There are many ways of knowing and doing – and exploring these multiple ways can help support interest, motivation, and persistence among young learners. In this unit, learners explore some of the advanced concepts and challenging problems associated with game design. An advanced concept or challenging problem can be made more accessible if rooted in activities that are personally meaningful. As an example of the power of context, we turn to a story shared by Mitch Resnick – the director of the Scratch project at MIT.

Learning Objectives - Students will:

be introduced to the computational concepts of conditionals, operators, and data (variables and lists)
become more familiar with the computational practices of experimenting and iterating, testing and debugging, reusing and remixing, and abstracting and modularizing by building and extending a self-directed maze, pong, or scrolling game project
identify and understand common game mechanics

NOTES

Many new concepts are explored in this unit, so we’ve included added support in the form of example project studios, new programming puzzles for extra practice, and starter game projects that we encourage you to remix and reuse as needed.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

In this unit, learners will become game designers and experience creating their own game project. Guided by the activities in this unit, students will be introduced to game mechanics and game development while building understandings of computational concepts (conditionals, operators, data) and computational practices (abstracting and modularizing).

You could get students started on their game projects with the Starter Games activity and then support further development through other activities. From learning common game mechanics such as keeping score and side-scrolling, to the creation of multiplayer games (e.g., Pong), Unit 4 activities offer students multiple opportunities to practice game development.

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