Classic videogames in Scratch

Samuel Villaescusa Vinader

This is a new section in the museum where five of the most iconic video games in the computing history are included. Users can enjoy them at the same time that they learn or improve their skills.

These videogames have been created in the programming language Scratch, what it means that users can comment their opinions about the videogame in a specific space. In addition,there is an interesting option called “reinvent” where the user can have access to the source code and see how the game has been made or add new functionalities.

Pong

Instructions

  1. Press the green flag to start the game and the red button to finish it.
  2. Press “player 1” to play against the computer. The default difficulty is “easy” but you can change it to “normal”.
  3. Press “two players” to play against a friend (in the instructions are the keys for each player).
  4. In the instructions you could find all the information you need to play.

History

The pioneer in the world of the video games was Ralph Baer. In 1968, he registered a patent of what it would be the first interactive video game on TV. In 1971 the first arcade game was built: “the Computer Space Machines” with the game “Computer Space” designed by students Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell. Thanks to this, Bushnell thought of the possibilities he would have if a game like that could reach to the public. So in 1972, he founded the company Atari with Dabney and they revolutionized the market with the game “pong”.

There is a story about the first Pong arcade game. Bushnell tells that the owner of the bar called him and Ted because the machine looked like it stopped working. When they opened it to see what was wrong, they saw that the container where the coins were, was full and that did not allow the game to start.

To access the Scratch web click on the following link –> Pong

Space Invaders

Instructions

  1. Press the green flag to start the game and the red button to finish.
  2. Press “play” to start the game. Once you are playing, there will appear objects to improve the spaceship. You can only obtain one object per game.
  3. Once you have finished the game, press “score” to obtain the highest score as well as the score of the last game.
  4. In the instructions you could find all the information you need to play.

History

Space invaders was created in 1978 by Toshiro Nishikado. He was a designer in the Taito Corporation. The video game was a massive success and it marked the beginning of the genre known as “shoot ‘em up”.

Toshiniro thought about including humans as enemies although he considered it was immoral to create a video game where you could shoot people. After reading a magazine about Star Wars, he decided to use aliens in his video game (the aliens were based on crabs and squids).

To access the Scratch web click on the following link –> Space Invaders

Asteroids

Instructions

  1. Press the green flag to start the game and the red button to finish.
  2. Press “play” to start the game. When you finish the game, a window will come up where you have to insert your name so it can appear in the scoring window.
  3. Once the game is finished, press “scoring” to see the best 5 scores and the names.
  4. In the instructions you could find all the information you need to play.

History

Asteroids was a popular videogame in 1979 based on vectors and designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, workers of Atari. Asteroids has been one of the most popular videogames of the history, such was its success that it left behind Space Invaders in the US, and it has been the most sold videogame of Atari company.

Asteroids’ popularity was so huge that players were constantly competing against each other to get the best score. In 1982, a 15 year-old boy, Scott Safran, got a score of 41.336.440. He was the unbeatable champion until 2010 when John McAllister got 41.338.740 points. It was a three days game and the thing is that John almost lost because he had to go to the toilet. His method was to gather enough lives so he could go to eat or make other necessities.

To access the Scratch web click on the following link –> Asteroids

Pac Man

Instructions

  1. Press the green flag to start the game and the red button to finish.
  2. Press the space bar to start the game.
  3. Once the game is finished, press “score” to get the maximum score as well as the last game points.
  4. In the instructions you could find all the information you need to play.

History

Pac man was one of the most influential games in the 80s. It was created by the designer Toru Iwatani in the Namco Company and distributed by Midway Games in America. Its designer wanted to include a huge amount of levels so he created 255 levels (this is the maximum 8 digit number you can create in the binary system) now that these were stored in 1 byte. There is a story about this detail. The most experimented players who completed the 255 levels found out there was an extra level called “final level”. The thing was this level could not be represented so it produced a distortion effect in the right side of the screen and that made impossible to compete the level.

To access the Scratch web click on the following link –> Pac Man

Donkey Kong

Instructions

  1. Press the green flag to start the game and the red button to finish.
  2. When you start the game, there is an animation showing Donkey Kong breaking the floor. When it is finished, press “1” to start the game.
  3. When the game is finished, press “score” to get the maximum score as well as the last game points.
  4. In the instructions you could find all the information you need to play.

History

Donkey Kong was created by Shigery Miyamoto in 1981 by Nintendo company. It is considered the first platform game and the first to continue a story until reaching the end. It was also the first game to include cutscenes.

To access the Scratch web click on the following link –> Donkey Kong

Creator of the videogames: Samuel Villaescusa Vinader(samuelvv22@gmail.com)

Tutor: Xavier Molero Prieto