In this game, you get to make choices as a party planner and then see them come together in a party scene. The most involved part of my job was creating the graphics for each venue/color scheme combo! I used the following raw images, adjusted the colors, and painted the decorations and party-goers in Photoshop.
Turn up the sound and explore!
Programming 101: Variables
This game makes heavy use of variables. Variables are items that can hold a value, much like x in algebra. Variables in programming languages can also hold words, not just numbers.
Each of the three choices in this game (venue, colors, and music) is a separate variable. As the user clicks on a graphic, the variable sets itself to their choice and keeps that value in its memory until the end of the game. For example, here is a script that belongs to the postcard graphic of the warehouse location. In Scratch, orange-colored blocks indicate commands with variables. This script tells Scratch to give the “location” variable a value of “warehouse” when the image is clicked on.
As you can see, “step” is another variable in this game. I used the step variable to control the pacing of the game, basically telling graphics to only appear at certain steps. The step value increases when a choice has been made. This way, things happen in sequence and the user cannot go backwards.
At the end of the game (step 6 or so), a sprite called “Party” finally appears. It shows the party scene and contains 9 different costumes, one for each color/venue choice. Here is an excerpt of the script that tells Scratch which costume should be shown.
… and so on and so forth.