Full Circle Magazine FR

Super Scratch Programming

Super Scratch Programming Adventure is a comic-book styled programming primer. It's geared towards a younger audience, and covers version 1.4 of Scratch. It's about 158 pages long, and in full color. Each chapter of the comic develops the overall story, and gives the reader a reason behind the programming exercises (s)he’s expected to complete. It definitely sounds like an interesting idea that, if implemented correctly, could make game programming approachable for younger audiences. The question is: does it manage to do this?

The Explanations

The book is written well, and offers a screenshot for every step of the process. Due to the fact that the tools are introduced at the start of each chapter, this also allows the actual creation to flow fairly smoothly. The comic manages to convey the reasons for needing, for example, to plot a pentagon-like walking path, by making it relevant to the story. That being said – if you're not a big fan of comics (or find this book too childish), you may have trouble finding the motivation to follow the steps exactly. However, as the book is geared towards younger readers (age 8 and up), this should hardly be the case.

The explanations manage to cover the components and tools of Scratch well, to the point where you feel comfortable using the interface, and, possibly, customizing certain steps of the exercises. The only possible issue that may arise is that, in certain “design” steps (for example, creating a space suit), the tools are explained, and then the next step is simply “draw your own suit!”. While they do offer the completed “astro-cat” sprite, it's hardly a sufficient way to help a child who may be struggling with that particular aspect. After all, some children will be adamant in managing to do it on their own, but designing anything like this can be frustrating beyond belief when you're not sure how to actually complete it.

That being said, the book is geared towards the programming side of things, which it does well. It gives you reasons behind the code that’s implemented, while explaining it well enough for later usage in different projects. If you're looking for a complete guide into creating with Scratch, you'll probably want to find supplementary material for the actual drawing/sprite creation steps.

Programmer avec Scrath

Super Scratch Programming Adventure est un livre sur la programmation pour débutants qui ressemble à une BD. Il vise de jeunes lecteurs et traite la version 1.4 de Scratch. Il fait environ 158 pages et est en couleur. Chaque chapitre de la BD développe l'histoire d'ensemble et donne au lecteur les raisons d'êtres des exercices de programmation qu'il - ou elle - doit faire. Ça a l'air d'être une vraie idée intéressante qui, si mise en œuvre de façon correcte, pourrait rendre la programmation des jeux abordables pour les plus jeunes. La question devient : est-ce qu'il réussit à le faire ?

Les explications

Le livre est bien écrit et propose une capture d'écran pour chaque étape du processus. Étant donné que les outils sont présentés au début de chaque chapitre, a véritable création procède de façon assez régulière. La BD réussit à donner les raisons pour lesquelles on doit, par exemple, tracer une promenade sous forme de pentagone, en rendant celle-ci importante pour l'histoire. Cela étant dit - si vous n'aimez pas trop les BD (ou trouvez le livre trop enfantin), vous n'aurez peut-être pas assez de motivation pour suivre les consignes pas à pas. Cependant, comme le livre vise les jeunes lecteurs ((à partir de 8 ans), cela ne devrait pas être le cas.

Les explications réussissent à bien traiter les composants et les outils de Scratch, au point où vous vous sentez à l'aise avec l'interface et, éventuellement, capable de personnaliser certaines étapes des exercices. Le seul problème qui puisse se poser est que, lors de l'explication de certaines étapes de conception (notamment la création d'une combinaison spatiale), les outils sont présentés, puis la prochaine étape est tout simplement « dessinez votre propre combinaison spatiale ! » Il est vraie qu'ils fournissent un lutin « astro-chat » terminé, mais c'est loin d'être suffisant pour aider un enfant aux prises avec cet aspect en particulier. Après tout, certains enfants voudront vraiment réussir à le faire tout seuls, mais la conception de quelque chose comme cela peut être incroyablement frustrant si vous n'êtes pas sûr comment réellement le terminer.

Cela étant dit, le livre est axé sur le côté programmation, ce qu'il fait très bien. il vous donne des raisons derrière le code qui est mis en œuvre tout en l’expliquant suffisamment pour une utilisation ultérieur dans d'autres projets. Si vous cherchez un guide complet de la création avec Scratch, vous allez sans doute devoir trouver de la documentation supplémentaire sur les étapes réelles du dessin/de la création du lutin.

The Language

There are certain words used in this book that I simply wouldn't expect an 8 year old to know. Stuff like “palette”, “magnifying”, “experiment”, “techniques”, etc. I may be misjudging our youth, but it seems to me like using simpler language (to some degree at least) would be beneficial. This same issue persists throughout the comic as well, using terms like “seven dimensional strings”. If your goal is to fascinate young children with the story in order to make your exercises seem relevant, it would be important to make the story flow smoothly for any reading level. This is something I find the book does not do sufficiently well.

If you don't mind answering questions like “what does this mean” or “what is a […]”, then your kid should still thoroughly enjoy the book. Conversely, if your kid has access to a child-friendly dictionary, the problem can also be averted. That being said, I feel that the book could have included a glossary of terms, and solved this problem completely.

Other than that, the language used is clear and patient. However, I don't feel the tone of the overall instruction is animated or all too witty, which could be a problem when trying to keep the attention of children. This could, however, be simply because I am far outside the intended age group, and as such may be misjudging younger readers’ reactions.

The Art

This isn't usually a category with which one would score a technical book, but due to the fact that it's attempting to tell a story through a visual medium (a comic), and trying to teach the creation of video games, it is a very relevant category for this particular book.

The comic is well-drawn, and the characters are consistent in their appearance. That being said, the art style in particular didn't appeal to me. It was a combination of the color choices and the backgrounds used for certain panels. This may be due to the fact that I am not their intended audience, but I would have preferred a different visual style. The selected art, however, is very consistent and well-drawn.

The sprites and other in-game visuals are also very well done. This can affect the reader in two ways: it can be daunting to try to compete with that style, especially as a beginner. It can also make a game seem cheap when swapping between two artists like that. It can be solved by using the supplied sprites, regardless of whether or not you could complete the drawing stages on your own. However, I find that this takes away from the overall experience of designing a game, if you're using other people's sprites. Some may be of the opinion that sprites at this resolution can't look too different in the end. Generally, I would agree. However, while I admit that I haven't explored all the aspects of sprite creation, it still seems to me that there are sufficient options and customization available that two sprites created by two artists can look extremely different.

The Conclusion

Does this book teach you to program using Scratch? Yes, definitely. It will impart enough knowledge for you to begin working on separate projects, if you so wish.

Does this book teach you to create complete games using Scratch? This is where I find the book falls just a bit short. Yes, it teaches you the tools to create sprites and environments. Yes, it teaches you to program these environments. However, it does not teach you how to use the tools to get results of the quality that they exhibit throughout the book. For anyone who plans to use this book to create completely original games, I highly recommend you look for a complimentary video guide, or book, to creating sprites in Scratch.

The other minor problems I mentioned (language, art style) will impact the score only a little – as I'm essentially guessing at what someone in the correct age group would think of it. Overall, I'd give this book a 3/5. While the book does claim to only teach you to program, it also infers that you'll be creating games. While this is true in a technical definition of the word “create”, most would assume this includes graphical creation as well. While that skill is covered by introducing the tools and expecting you to complete certain “drawing” steps, the book falls short of actually teaching you to use these. I find the book would be improved by ignoring the “drawing” steps completely and offering their ready-made sprites only, or else take the reader through step-by-step.

Full Circle would like to thank NoStarch Press for the review copy of this book. Support those who support FCM and buy from NoStarch.com