Hi Scratchers!

Have you heard about Genuary? It's a month-long creative challenge where people create generative art based on daily prompts. It's happening in January 2025 (yes, that's in just a few days!). Get it? January, Generative, Genuary…

Would you be interested in joining Genuary 2025 using Scratch? The challenge is about creating art through algorithms and code, not AI-generated images. Each day brings a new prompt to interpret in your own way.

You can use vanilla Scratch, but also consider trying advanced forks like TurboWarp or adacraft (full disclosure: I'm the author of adacraft) if you want to push the boundaries of what's possible with block programming. These tools offer additional features that could be helpful for generative art (like better performance, more precise math operations, etc.).

I'm really curious to see what the block programming community could bring to the generative art world. If you're interested, let's start discussing how we could participate in Genuary 2025!

Feel free to share links to your creations in this thread, or discuss how to approach specific prompts. We could help each other figure out interesting ways to implement the daily challenges using blocks.

What do you think? Would you join in?

There's a post in “Show and Tell” to share your Genuary creations (but you can still share them here).

There's a post in “Project Ideas” to discuss ideas about Genuary prompts (but you can still discuss them here).

There's a studio where you can share your Genuary 2025 projects created with Scratch (help welcome to curate the studio, just ask me).

And the rules are fairly flexible. See the FAQ. Extract (my favorite is the last one):

Do I need to follow the prompts strictly?
No.

Do I need to post every day?
No.

Do I need to do the correct prompt on the correct day?
No.

Does it need to be X?
No.

Can I…?
Yes. But please follow the Geneva Conventions.

Here are the prompts for all month:

JAN. 1. (credit: Stranger in the Q)
Vertical or horizontal lines only.

JAN. 2. (credit: Monokai)
Layers upon layers upon layers.

JAN. 3. (credit: Roni Kaufman)
Exactly 42 lines of code.

JAN. 4. (credit: Stranger in the Q)
Black on black.

JAN. 5. (credit: P1xelboy)
Isometric Art - (No vanishing points).

JAN. 6. (credit: Jonathan Barbeau)
Make a landscape using only primitive shapes.

JAN. 7. (credit: Camille Roux)
Use software that is not intended to create art or images.

JAN. 8. (credit: Piter Pasma)
Draw one million of something.

JAN. 9. (credit: Piter Pasma)
The textile design patterns of public transport seating.

JAN. 10. (credit: Darien Brito)
You can only use TAU in your code, no other number allowed.

TAU = 2 * pi = 6.2831853…

JAN. 11. (credit: Rachel Ehrlich (Joy of Randomness) and the Recurse Center)
Impossible day - Try to do something that feels impossible for you to do. Maybe it is impossible. Maybe it’s too ambitious. Maybe it’s something you know nothing about how to accomplish.

JAN. 12. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Subdivision.

JAN. 13. (credit: Heeey)
Triangles and nothing else.

JAN. 14. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Pure black and white. No gray.

JAN. 15. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Design a rug.

JAN. 16. (credit: Stranger in the Q)
Generative palette.

JAN. 17. (credit: Roni Kaufman)
What happens if pi=4?

JAN. 18. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
What does wind look like?

JAN. 19. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Op Art.

JAN. 20. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Generative Architecture.

JAN. 21. (credit: Darien Brito)
Create a collision detection system (no libraries allowed).

JAN. 22. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Gradients only.

JAN. 23. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht, Roni Kaufman)
Inspired by brutalism.

JAN. 24. (credit: Bruce Holmer)
Geometric art - pick either a circle, rectangle, or triangle and use only that geometric shape.

JAN. 25. (credit: Bruce Holmer, Chris Barber (code_rgb), Heeey, Monokai)
One line that may or may not intersect itself

JAN. 26. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Symmetry.

JAN. 27. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Make something interesting with no randomness or noise or trig.

JAN. 28. (credit: Sophia (fractal kitty))
Infinite Scroll.

JAN. 29. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Grid-based graphic design.

JAN. 30. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Abstract map.

Not to be confused with AbstractMap.

JAN. 31. (credit: Melissa Wiederrecht)
Pixel sorting.

You can sort pixels by weight, size, age, etc.

Here are some ideas for day #1 prompt "Vertical or horizontal lines only":

1. Artistic barcode generator: Create a program that randomly generates patterns of vertical lines with varying thicknesses and colors, like barcodes. Play with density and contrasts. Option to animate the result.
   
2. Procedural skylines: Generate abstract urban landscapes by superimposing horizontal lines of different lengths and thicknesses to represent buildings. Set maximum height, density, and colors. Add a day/night option.
   
3. Generative weaving: Simulate a weaving pattern by intersecting vertical and horizontal lines of different colors. Randomly vary patterns, colors, and weaving density.
   
4. Line rain: Animate vertical lines falling at random speeds, playing with their opacity to give an impression of depth. Option to make them bounce off horizontal lines.
   
5. Generative Mondrian: Procedurally recreate Piet Mondrian's characteristic style by randomly assembling and coloring vertical and horizontal lines.
   

Here is a studio where you can share your Genuary 2025 projects created with Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/36112623/ (help welcome to curate the studio, just ask me).

Share a link here for your projects created with TurboWarp or adacraft (or any other Scratch mods allowed in the Scratch forum).

Here is a first project for day 1, to use as an inspiration.

It's a minimal implementation of a basic way to use horizontal and vertical lines with Scratch: just draw until the drawer touches a sprite for horizontal lines, and only if it touches it for vertical lines.

Remix it to change the colors, maybe add some other masks with different drawer colors, change line size, etc.

See it here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1115178059

Genuary 2025 starts tomorrow!

There's a post in “Show and Tell” to share your Genuary creations (but you can still share them here).

There's a post in “Project Ideas” to discuss ideas about Genuary prompts (but you can still discuss them here).

Nice !

I’m actually doing genurary, I have 1 and 2 done, and I’m currently doing 3.
I’m on this alt purley to avoid clutter tho.

Catz41 wrote:

I’m actually doing genurary, I have 1 and 2 done, and I’m currently doing 3.
I’m on this alt purley to avoid clutter tho.

Cool!

If you want, you're welcome to add your projects to this studio when they're ready: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/36112623

Hah – the January 7 prompt is my specialty. I once hand-coded a ship drawing in SVG format and submitted it to an art contest. It earned a honourable mention.

SuperSonicmario wrote:

Hah – the January 7 prompt is my specialty. I once hand-coded a ship drawing in SVG format and submitted it to an art contest. It earned a honourable mention.

Cool! Do you plan to join Genuary tomorrow?