Harry 
title
[VIDEO GAME SOUNDS] CARMELO: It's me, Carmelo. Video games are fun
to play but have you ever wanted to
make one yourself? How can I make a character
run and jump on the screen, just by pressing some keys? Just like websites or
the apps on your phone, video games are just
computer programs. We make them by giving
instructions to a computer or to a video game console. And these instructions
can be stored in your laptop hard drive
or even in a CD-rom. And there are things like
make a character appear in the middle of a screen. Or when the player
hits the up arrow key, make the character jump. When we want to give
instructions to another person, we use a human language
like English or Italian. But unfortunately, we cannot
speak to a computer the same way because for now, computers
can only understand simple instructions.
And they're very picky about
the way we word things. In order to give
instructions to a computer, we need a programming language. Just like human languages,
programming languages can be very different
from each other. Many rely on text
so programmers can write words that give
instructions to a computer. Let's say I wanted to
create a very simple video game where a character
moves around the screen. One of the first things I
need to tell the computer is that when I hit a certain
key, the cat goes up. If I want to use the Python
programming language, I could write the
instructions like this. This language looks
foreign but actually, it's not that complicated. For example, here is
where I say that whenever the computer detects any key
press, if the key is the up arrow key, it is to move
the player, our cat, 0 pixels horizontally,
and five pixels up.
To understand the directions
I just gave it in Python, the computer translates
them into many more simpler instructions. Eventually, these
instructions get translated into machine
language, whose alphabet is made of zeros and ones. The processor, which
is the computer brain, can understand and
execute machine language sending back the right
graphics to the screen. Even a simple instruction
like move up five pixels, gets translated into
hundreds or thousands of simpler instructions
in machine language before the computer can
understand and respond. And all these happen in
fractions of a second. Other programming
languages, like Scratch which is developed here
at the MIT Media Lab, are visual
programming languages. Instead of using
words, in Scratch you can drag and
drop blocks together in order to make something
happen on the screen.
For example, if I want
to move a cat around, I would do something like this. So if I wanted my cat to go
up five pixels in Scratch, I would snap together
two blocks like this. And I can do the same with the
left, down, and right arrow keys. Also, I can play
with instructions and I can say that when
I click on the cat, I can change its color. And also, I can make him– [MEOW] A game like Space Invaders
looks simple, but it's not. It includes player movement,
like what we programmed before. But also characters moving by
themselves, music and sounds, shooting, collisions,
keeping score, and that's where programming
gets interesting.
Making something
move up five pixels may not sound very exciting,
but basic instructions like this one are
the building blocks you can use to create
your own video games. What kinds of
instructions would you use to create something like
a memory game, Tetris, Angry Birds, Minecraft? A professional video game might
have millions of instructions written by lots of people
all working together to bring the game to life. Human languages have
grammar and basic words you can combine together
to create things like stories, novels, poems. In the same way,
programming languages have grammar and
basic instructions you can combine
together to create not only video games but
also, animation, simulations, and interactive stories. And video programming
languages like Scratch, make it easier for anyone
to learn how to program. So instead of just playing video
games, now you can make them. So go make one..
