Hello, coding friends! Ready to add some sparkle to your game library? This tutorial guides you through creating a magical Christmas Fairy catch game—an excellent ScratchJr project for learning movement, continuous falling, and implementing a specific winning condition!

In this ScratchJr game, you’ll control a fairy who must collect pieces of falling holly, with the ultimate goal of catching the special ‘Golden Holly’ to win the game!

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Step 1: Design Your Fairy, Holly, and Scene

First, let’s set the stage for our magical game.

• Select Your Fairy: Start a new project by deleting the cat and adding the Fairy sprite ([00:00:20]). Make her small enough to move easily around the screen ([00:00:27]).
• Set the Background: Choose an indoor scene (like the fireplace room) and use the paint tools to customize it, perhaps by removing unnecessary elements ([00:00:30]).
• Create Collectibles (Holly): Design a sprite for the Holly, complete with red berries and green leaves ([00:00:44]). Duplicate this sprite multiple times, positioning them at the top of the screen ([00:01:28]).
• The Golden Holly: Create one special piece of Golden Holly. This one is crucial, as catching it wins the game! ([00:01:44]).

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Step 2: Coding the Falling Holly and Staggered Start

The main challenge is coding the holly pieces to fall consistently but starting at different times.

The code for the regular holly pieces follows this structure:

1. Continuous Falling: Use the green flag start block, followed by a show block. Add a repeat block (e.g., 5 times) containing the move down block (set to 15 steps, or the full height of the screen) ([00:02:28]). This ensures the holly continuously drops.
2. Staggered Start: To prevent them from all falling at once, you must insert a wait block after the show block. Use increasing delays for each piece (e.g., 10, 20, 30 tenths of a second) to ensure a steady, staggered flow of items ([00:03:03]).
3. Collection and Disappearance: Use the bump block. When the holly touches the Fairy, it must hide and stop the code for that individual sprite ([00:03:46]).

The Winning Condition

• Code the Golden Holly: For the special golden holly, use the same falling code, but change the collision action: when this holly is touched, use the go to page 2 block ([00:05:05]).
• The Win Screen: Create a second page displaying your Fairy sprite and a “Merry Christmas” message ([00:04:06]).

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Step 3: Giving the Fairy Controls

You need simple left and right controls for the Fairy to catch the falling holly.

1. Create Control Buttons: Design two button sprites, one for Left (blue) and one for Right (red) ([00:05:27]).
2. Send Messages: Code the buttons to send a unique message when tapped (Blue message for left, Red message for right) ([00:05:58]).
3. Receive and Move: Go back to the Fairy sprite. Use the receive message blocks:
   • Blue message: Triggers the move left block ([00:06:13]).
   • Red message: Triggers the move right block ([00:06:18]).

This ScratchJr project is a wonderful exercise in controlling multiple moving parts and creating a clear goal for the player. Test your coordination and try to catch that magical Golden Holly!

Ready to tackle more holiday coding fun? You can find a whole sleigh-load of exciting new Christmas coding projects to try next or here is yesterday’s Xmas ScratchJr Project in case you missed it!

Alternatively, if you are looking for Coding Tutor in Hertfordshire to support your children with this, I can also help.