But for the right type of student — and for kids who genuinely enjoy coding — the experience can be immensely satisfying. Scratch can refer to both the programming language and the actual website. This is because both are under the same company. Scratch the programming language is, of course, a drag-and-drop, block-based programming language initially designed for kids aged 8 to It serves as an excellent starting point for kids and beginner coders to grasp programming fundamentals without worrying about technicalities i.
Scratch, the website, is basically a platform that allows kids to create animations, short programs, and interactive games using the Scratch coding language. By focusing primarily on fun and play, kids learn how to think creatively, systematically, and sequentially—all valuable skills involved in coding. The Scratch website also houses a wide range of useful video tutorials and PDF guides to help budding kid developers get started.
Scratch is arguably one of the most popular names in coding for kids both the language and the website because of how far it revolutionized the game. Scratch has made programming far more accessible now than it was fifteen, twenty years ago by eliminating the technicalities and simplifying coding down to its absolute, fundamental basics. Like Scratch, the word Blockly can refer to two different things. One is an open-source, client-side library that uses block-based visual programming again, just like scratch and editors, making it extremely user- and beginner-friendly.
The other is Blockly Games, a website designed for children aged 8 and up. It currently contains eight games that incorporate the Blockly programming language to teach kids the foundations of programming sequences, cause-and-effect, loops, and the like.
The games are basically different challenges that the player must solve by dragging blocks representing lines of code from the side and dropping them on the screen. After they construct their script out of blocks, they can run the program to see if it correctly solves the challenge. If they execute the correct sequence, Blockly shows them their code in actual JavaScript language.
This fun, educational, game-based platform teaches coding for kids both with and without prior experience. Their award-winning K-8 curriculum is chockfull of educational resources for students of different grades and different levels. CodeMonkey utilizes game-based learning to keep kids interested and excited for more, from coding basics to coding with real programming languages.
The graphics are adorable, the language incredibly kid-friendly, and the games all fun and challenging. However, it uses a friendlier syntax similar to English, making it ideal for kids and beginner coders.
Each lesson is introduced as another chapter or milestone in the overarching storyline of the CodeCombat universe. This minimizes the complex technicalities of coding and focuses instead on practical application. The setting is also extremely extensive, with an average of 12 levels per stage and around 10 stages in total.
Kids can choose from 17 different characters, each with their own unique backgrounds and personalities. Playable characters coupled with beautifully designed RPG maps, art assets, and immersive sound make for one incredibly addictive coding game for kids. Players go through each level by coding the appropriate commands and running their scripts to test them. This is a fairly time-efficient process that allows kids to proof their script line by line rather than all at once.
This minimizes stress and frustration, consequently keeping kids engaged for far longer. Of course, beginners are more than welcome to play it, but they may find the first few lessons confusing. Bitsbox is one of the very few coding games for kids that have both a digital and a physical option. And that, if nothing else, is more than enough to warrant it a spot on our list.
The difficulty of these projects ranges from simple, user-friendly app creation to extensive, more advanced challenges. Aside from the unplugged factor, Bitsbox is also incredibly customizable. You can pick from three main package types basic, deluxe, and digital and numerous subscription plans.
Players have to use direction bricks to get the racecar to the finish line in the fastest time possible. The game gets progressively more challenging with each level, forcing kids to think carefully and creatively as they map out the best possible route.
Aside from familiarizing them with the drag-and-drop system of most visual, block-based programming languages, Code Karts also helps develop observation, concentration, and logic skills. This means you can bring the game anywhere and play it, so long as it is installed on a smartphone or tablet.
It is also offered in over 20 different languages, which speaks of a level of diversity and accessibility that we can appreciate. Minecraft is by far one of the most popular computer games. Despite being released a decade ago, the Minecraft community continues to grow and expand, and it shows no signs of stopping. Even people who have never played the game are familiar with the name and the iconic pixelated graphics. Explore Online Classes.
For Everyone. CodeCombat AI League Competitive coding has never been so epic with this educational esports league, uniquely both an AI battle simulator and game engine for learning real code.
Explore AI League. Join Our Global Community. Latthaphon Pohpon, Parent. Joey, 10th Grade. What Our Customers Are Saying. Featured In. Best Creativity Tool for Students. Top Pick for Learning. Hour of Code Activity Partner. What programming languages are available? We currently support Python and JavaScript. How do I get started? What about Google Classroom? How much does it cost to access all of the available courses and resources? Is there a recommended browser and operating system? All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Service Privacy. Turn the player's input into a usable data type. The player has entered a number—now what? Make the player's input a number. Now, this might sound confusing because they just entered a number. But there is a good reason: Python assumes that all input is text, or a "string," as it's called in programming. This text contains the number you want to get. Python has a function that converts a string that only contains a number to the number inside.
Compare the player's number to the correct number. Once the player inputs their number, you'll need to compare it to the one that was randomly generated. If the numbers aren't the same, your game can make the player try another number. If the numbers match, you may tell the player they guessed correctly, and quit the program. This is done with the following code: while userNum! Give the player feedback. While you already have processed their input, the player won't see this.
You'll need to actually print the results to the player so they understand what's happening. Surely, you could just tell the player whether their number is right or wrong.
But with that approach, the player might have to guess times in the worst case, which would be very boring. So tell the player whether their number is too small or too big. This will reduce their number of guesses significantly. If, for example, the player guesses first, and the game replies "Too big.
Try again," there will only be possible numbers instead of This is done with if-constructions, so replace the print "Wrong.
Try again. Try again:". Test your code. As a programmer, you should be sure that your code works before considering it finished.
When programming in python, make sure that you get the indentations correct. Your code should look like this: import random print "Welcome to the number guessing game! Validate the input. The player shouldn't be able to break your game by simply entering the wrong thing. Open the game again and try entering anything that's not a number.
The game will exit with a ValueError. To avoid this, you can implement a way to check whether the input was a number. Define a function. Since validating the input is quite long, and you have to do it multiple times, you should define a function. It will take no arguments and return a number.
First, write def numInput : at the top of your code, directly under the import random. Get the player's input once. Use the input function and assign the result to the variable inp. When the player's input is not a number, ask them to enter a number.
To check whether a string is a number, use the isdigit functions, which only allows a whole number, so you won't have to check for that separately. If the input is a number, convert it from string to number and return the result. Use the int function for converting the string to an integer. This will make the conversion in the main code unnecessary, and you should remove it from there. Replace all calls to input in the main code with calls to numInput. Test the game again.
Enter the wrong things on purpose to see what happens, and then fix any errors as they come up. Try entering some text when the program asks you for a number.
Now, instead of exiting with an error message, the program will ask you for a number again. Suggest restarting the game when it finishes. This way, the player could play your game for a longer time without having to constantly restart it.
Put all code except the import and the function definition into a while-loop. Set True as the condition: this will always be true, so the loop will continue forever. Ask the player whether they want to play again after they guessed the number correctly. Use the print function.
If they answer "No", break out of the look. If they answer anything else, continue. Breaking out of a loop is done with the break statement. Move the "Welcome to the number guessing game" outside the while loop.
The player probably doesn't want to be welcomed every time they play the game. Move the instruction print "Welcome to the number guessing game! Test the game. You'll need to test your game each time you implement a new feature. Make sure to answer both "Yes" and "No" at least once to make sure that both options work. Enter No to quit. Write other text-based games. How about writing a text adventure next? Or a quiz game? Be creative. Part 2. Choose a graphics library.
So you'll have to use an external library to be able to make graphics, for example Pygame for Python. Even with a graphics library, you'll have to worry about things like how to display a menu, how to check what the player clicked, how to display the tiles, and so on.
If you'd rather focus on developing the actual game, you can use a game engine library like Unity , which implements these things easily. Install the graphics library you chose. Cocos2D for Python is easy to install. Make a new directory for your game and media. You will use things like images and sounds in your game. Keep these things in the same directory as the program. This directory shouldn't contain anything else so that you can easily see what assets you have in the game.
Create a new code file in the new directory. Call it main , with the file extension for your programming language. If you write a large and complex program where it makes sense to have multiple program files, this will show you which is the main file.
In this example, we'll create a file called main. Create the game window. This is the basic prerequisite for a game with graphics. Import the necessary cocos2d sub-modules: cocos.
The difference between from This basically means that any main menu background you create will behave like a color layer with some changes you make. Start the cocos director. This will give you a new window. If you don't set a caption, the window will have the same caption as the file name main.
Allow the window to be resized with by setting resizable to True. Define a function showMainMenu. You should put the code for showing the main menu into a function because this will allow you to easily return to the main menu by calling the function again. Create a scene. The scene consists of one layer for now, which is an object of the MainMenuBgr class you defined. Run this scene in the window. Add a main menu to the window. Besides the actual game, you'll need to add a menu the player can use to close the window, among other elements you can add later.
Import cocos. Define MainMenu as a subclass of Menu. Set the alignment of the main menu. You have to set the vertical and horizontal alignment separately. Create a list of menu items and add them to the menu. You should have the menu items "Start Game" and "Quit" at the very least.
Every menu item should be placed inside of brackets. Each item must have a label and a callback function that determines what happens when the player clicks it.
For the "Start Game" item, use the startGame function you'll write it soon , for the "Quit" item, use "pyglet. Create the actual menu by calling self. Define startGame.
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