Day 16: Welcome Back — New Game

Choose or Draw a Player Sprite

Delete the default cat sprite. Add or draw a player sprite — a bowl, a character, a basket — whatever you want. Keep it simple and about 50–60 pixels wide.

Add Arrow Key Movement

Make the player move left and right with the arrow keys. Add this code to the player sprite:

when green flag clicked
go to x: (0) y: (-140)
forever
  if <key [left arrow v] pressed?> then
    change x by (-7)
  end
  if <key [right arrow v] pressed?> then
    change x by (7)
  end
end

Click the green flag and test it. Your player should slide left and right smoothly.

Create a Falling Sprite

Add or draw a second sprite — a star, apple, coin, or anything your player would want to catch. Keep it small (about 30x30 pixels).

Make It Fall

Add this code to the falling sprite:

when green flag clicked
go to x: (pick random (-200) to (200)) y: (180)
forever
  change y by (-3)
  if <(y position) < (-170)> then
    go to x: (pick random (-200) to (200)) y: (180)
  end
end

Click the green flag. The object should appear at a random spot near the top, fall down, and reset to a new random position when it reaches the bottom.

Understand What’s Happening

Walk through this code in your head:

1. The object starts at a random x position, y = 180 (top of the stage).
2. The forever loop moves it down 3 pixels every frame.
3. When it passes y = -170 (bottom of the stage), the if block resets it to a new random spot at the top.

This is the same loop-with-conditionals pattern from Week 2 — just applied to a falling object instead of a moving player.

Create a Score Variable

Go to the Variables category and click Make a Variable. Name it score. Make sure “For all sprites” is selected.

On the player sprite, add set [score v] to (0) right after the green flag:

when green flag clicked
set [score v] to (0)
go to x: (0) y: (-140)
forever
  if <key [left arrow v] pressed?> then
    change x by (-7)
  end
  if <key [right arrow v] pressed?> then
    change x by (7)
  end
end

Detect When the Player Catches the Object

On the falling object sprite, add a check inside the forever loop for touching the player. Put it before the bottom-of-screen check:

when green flag clicked
go to x: (pick random (-200) to (200)) y: (180)
forever
  change y by (-3)
  if <touching [Player v]?> then
    change [score v] by (1)
    go to x: (pick random (-200) to (200)) y: (180)
  end
  if <(y position) < (-170)> then
    go to x: (pick random (-200) to (200)) y: (180)
  end
end

Now when the falling object touches the player, the score goes up by 1 and the object resets to the top.

Test It

Click the green flag. Catch the falling object a few times. Watch the score increase.