Need help revising my sticky.

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-

I have officially updated the old forum post with this forum post. I still want feedback, though! The original forum post can be viewed here.

While doing some stuff, I noticed that my sticky was kind of in need of an update. It wasn't as organized as I wanted it to. So, I created this:

STEPS ON IMPROVING YOUR PROJECT

Most people have a really good idea, but they have trouble making it good for viewers. Here are some tips that we have come up with:

Qualities

Code
Performance
When you make a project, you want to make sure it performs well and doesn’t have many exploits. Here are some ways to check this:

Make sure your project has a high frame rate. When something is happening or moving around, is it choppy? If so, you have a low FPS, or frames per second. Causes of a low FPS can be a lot of things, but there are 2 main causes. The first is a lot of stuff going on. If there are a lot of clones all doing something, or a lot of computing going on, the frame rate will start to drop. Try simplifying these things, or adding an option to get rid of them if it is just a graphic effect. The other cause is custom blocks. When you are editing a custom block, you may see a “run without screen refresh” option. This is really useful for making things run instantly, but when you put a pause, like a “wait () seconds” block, the screen can’t change until that block is changed.
Glitches can cause an issue as well. An easy way to test this is to do things that you wouldn’t normally do in a play through, like press a button in the wrong order, or press a key before it is time to. If these have unexpected results, try to fix these.

Thinking ahead
Once you fix the issues, you might notice that there are scenarios you may not have planned for. What if the player hits the tree instead of the monster? What if a user presses the right and left arrow key at once? Finding solutions to these scenarios can really give your project a boost, as it makes your project more usable with less issues.
Art
Costumes; home-made or taken?
When you are making a project, sometimes you can’t draw something the way you wanted it. This happens all the time! It is important to know when to make your own costume, and when to take it.

Always try drawing it yourself first. If it doesn’t look how you wanted it, and you can’t make it better, use a taken costume. Is is VERY important to know how to use these though.
When you use an already made costume, you have to take it from the right place. The best place is always scratch, you can look up what you want and download the costume. Do this by 2 finger tapping or right clicking the costume. Then, hit export. Import this into your project by hovering your mouse over the magnifying class, and hit the box with an arrow coming out of it. This says “import costume”. Then, select your costume in the files. It usually has a .svg or .png on it. When you import it, it is required to credit the user. You can mention them and say what you took in the credits, or link their project.
Another way to get sprites is off the web. Never take something directly off of google. First, find a royalty free site or a site protected under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. You can usually find that on the sites “About” page, if they have one. Never download something off of a site unless you know that the site is protected off of one of these. If you want to easily modify the sprite in scratch, make sure it is an SVG, or Sized Vector Graphic.

Smoother Graphics
If your animations seem a little choppy, the easiest way to fix this is by adding transitions. Find the 2 costumes that the animation are between, and duplicate the first. Modify it so that it looks like a transition from the first to the second. Repeat as many times as necessary, and your project will look much more smooth.

Improving Costumes
We have all had that moment when we draw something and it looks… odd. There are ways to improve it:

Keep it simple. A complicated sprite can look funny when even a minor detail is a little off. Keeping the sprite design simple will make this less common, and easier to spot the issue. A simple costume also sometimes will look better to the eyes, depending on the level of simplicity.
Shading. I know, this sounds really complicated, but there is a really easy way to do this.

Step 1: Duplicate the part of the object you are trying to shade. You can only do one color at a time.

Step 2; Align it with the original costume

Step 3: Delete certain parts so that it only covers one corner of the object.

Step 4: Use the layer buttons to put it in the right layer, and repeat as many times as necessary.

Only 4 steps, and anybody can do it.
Geometric vs organic shapes.
There is a good way to use geometric shapes, and a good way to use organic shapes. If your sprite looks too harsh or flimsy, try changing the corner settings from curved to pointed or vice versa, and see if it looks better.

Posting your project, and getting attention

Advertisements
Advertising is an important part of getting people to see your stuff. But what is the right way to advertise? There are 4 ways to advertise. You can do all of them if you want.

Put it in a related studio. For example, if your project is about how much you love PB&J sandwiches, put it in a studio about food. When other people add projects, they will see yours and might look at it.
Make your own studio. Making a studio and inviting people to it is an easy way to get people to look at your project. Just don’t overwhelm people with studio invites, making multiple studios for one project is not okay.
Put it in the Show and Tell Forum and write about it to let people know about your project.
Advertise in Advertising Allowed Places.

Testing
Testing is a very important part of making a project. Ask a group of friends, a family member, or the scratch community for some feedback. Here are some questions you might ask:

Did the game feel too long/short?
Did you understand the goal of the game? What was it?
Did you understand the directions? Can you repeat them in your own words?
Did you have fun while playing?
Did you think it was too challenging/not challenging enough?
Did you want to play more?
Did you feel like you could win this game if you played again?
Did you like/dislike the graphics/sounds?
Did the pace feel too fast/slow?
Did you feel stuck at any point? If so where?
Was it boring at any point?
Was the plot fully formed?

FAQ

nothing yet…

I need some feeback and FAQs. For comparison, here is the Original sticky.
Thanks!
PS: It won't be blue, that is just to separate it from my post.

Last edited by p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- (Dec. 4, 2022 21:40:27)

New!

Vaibhs11

too much blu- oh

Anyway, nice. Try splitting the paragraphs more for readability

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-

Vaibhs11 wrote:
too much blu- oh

Anyway, nice. Try splitting the paragraphs more for readability

I tried splitting the paragraphs, can you give me some specific examples? Thanks

New!

Vaibhs11

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- wrote:
Vaibhs11 wrote:
too much blu- oh

Anyway, nice. Try splitting the paragraphs more for readability
I tried splitting the paragraphs, can you give me some specific examples? Thanks

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- wrote:
Make sure your project has a high frame rate. When something is happening or moving around, is it choppy? If so, you have a low FPS, or frames per second. Causes of a low FPS can be a lot of things, but there are 2 main causes. The first is a lot of stuff going on. If there are a lot of clones all doing something, or a lot of computing going on, the frame rate will start to drop. Try simplifying these things, or adding an option to get rid of them if it is just a graphic effect. The other cause is custom blocks. When you are editing a custom block, you may see a “run without screen refresh” option. This is really useful for making things run instantly, but when you put a pause, like a “wait () seconds” block, the screen can’t change until that block is changed.

Glitches can cause an issue as well. An easy way to test this is to do things that you wouldn’t normally do in a play through, like press a button in the wrong order, or press a key before it is time to. If these have unexpected results, try to fix these.

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- wrote:
Always try drawing it yourself first. If it doesn’t look how you wanted it, and you can’t make it better, use a taken costume. Is is VERY important to know how to use these though.

When you use an already made costume, you have to take it from the right place. The best place is always scratch, you can look up what you want and download the costume. Do this by 2 finger tapping or right clicking the costume. Then, hit export. Import this into your project by hovering your mouse over the magnifying class, and hit the box with an arrow coming out of it. This says “import costume”. Then, select your costume in the files. It usually has a .svg or .png on it. When you import it, it is required to credit the user. You can mention them and say what you took in the credits, or link their project.

Another way to get sprites is off the web. **Never take something directly off of google**. First, find a royalty free site or a site protected under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. You can usually find that on the sites “About” page, if they have one. Never download something off of a site unless you know that the site is protected off of one of these. If you want to easily modify the sprite in scratch, make sure it is an SVG, or Sized Vector Graphic.

These two take a lot of space and they aren't separated properly, try using two line breaks.

Here, I did them for you.

Last edited by Vaibhs11 (Nov. 21, 2022 11:50:45)

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-

I'm gonna post this updated version here, and then post the old version here for reference. If you have feedback, you can use either forum thread. Thanks!

Vaibhs11 wrote:
(post above, too long)

I can't quite see the difference, but I will try to implement that when I post it right now.

New!

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-

ORGINAL POST

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- wrote:
Hey there! After a while of this being closed, I asked a moderator to open it back up so I can update it. I have decided to post my first itteration of my update here. If you want, take 5 minutes to read over it and let me know what you think of it. Thanks!

Steps on improving your project

Hey there! This is a topic to help improve your project, and make it to the best of your abilities. You don't have to do these things, but it will definitely help out your project!

Questions you should ask yourself when reviewing your projects:

#1- Is it Glitchy?

A glitch is an issue in your project that make the project not run as it's supposed to be, or has issues where the project doesn't work when something happens. This may be un-appealing, and doesn't look good, or can make your project not work.

How to solve it- go through each part of the project in the editor, and if you come across a glitch, go into the sprite causing it. try moving around different things until you can find what is causing it. Then, either try to figure it out yourelf, make a new topic in ‘help with scripts’ with the script that's causing the glitch, a link to the project, and what you want it to do (more info on how to format your topic here).

#2- Is it smooth?

People like projects with nice graphics and a high quality animation. In order to do this, you need smooth transitions. Smooth transitions might be small, like making a character walk more slow, or large, like making a pen scene transition. If your project is choppy, this may be an issue.

How to improve this: first, make sure all of your code makes smooth animations, as follows.
Instead of

forever
move (100) steps
wait (10) secs
end

use

forever
repeat (100)
move (1) steps
wait (.1) secs

Instead of

switch costume to [ anna lean down v]
wait (1) secs
switch costume to [anna pick up ball v]
wait (1) secs
switch costume to [anna shoot v]

make a transition between those 3 costumes, and use

switch costume to [anna lean down-1 v]
repeat (30)
next costume 
wait (.1) secs
end

If that doesn't seem to work, check the size of the project by downloading it and looking at it in your files, like this:

My project, called Awesome patterns! has 43 kilobytes, with 109 blocks, 2 sprites and 0 costumes (the're empty). If your project doesn't seems larger then it needs to be, try to shorten the scripts, deleting blocks you don't need, and cleaning the workspace up. If it still seems to be laggy, ask for help in Help With Scripts.

Graphics and how to make them

#3-Home-made vs. Copied Costumes.
Home-made costumes can be great, but some other costumes drawn by other people might look better. Here's some advice to help you decide.

Are you good at drawing?
If you want to use a copied costume, Have you already selected the image you want? If not, do you think it will be easy to?
Are you good at editing images?

#4-How Do I improve My drawn Costumes?
Sometimes, you imagine an awesome sprite in your head, and you go to make it, and it looks…. Well, you know, odd. Here are some tips to help you:

1. Make it simple. Sometimes, things look best when they don't have a lot of effort in them. You might think something needs to look really intricate, but people might not notice the details, especially if it just pops on for 1 second. Here's an example, using a blob I made:

I made a simple blob shape, and then added an eye, and put specks on it.
2. Fully think out what you are going to do before you do it.
When making something, think about the aspects you want. Do you want it to have scales, or feathers? Do you want it's head to be an oval, or a triangle? When doing this, you get a general idea of the sprite, and then you can put more detail in, rather then making a simple shape.
3. Use organic shapes.
Organic shapes are shapes with curves, and sometimes look a bit better then geometric shapes, with points. People sometimes like organic a bit more then geometric. Here's an example:

Which one to you like better?
4. Shade your Items.
When you shade, you add small details, but it looks much better, Usually, when you shade, you make it brighter towards where the light is, and darker on the opposite side, but it doesn't always have to be that, sometimes it is used to blend colors together. Here's an example:

It doesn't affect it a lot, but it still adds a bit of detail.
#5-Where do I get Sprites From the net and how do I Put Them On Scratch?
You can look on google,or search around scratch (be sure to give credit!) or, you can use these sites:

Spriters Resource
Scratch Resources
Shy Guy Kingdom

Project sharing and testing

#6-I have run out of good game ideas. Any suggestions?
I suggest doing whatever you like doing. If you like making text engines, make a new font! If you like making paralaxes, make a parallax about this month! If you like making animations, make an animation about your favorite food! The limits are endless. If you want more ideas, go here
#7My-game is shared, and nobody is viewing it, any help?
After sharing a project, some people may not notice it. Here are someways to get more views:
Put it in a studio. People might notice it there, and want to see it.

Make a topic in Show And Tell and describe what your project is about.

Make a studio, and invite people to it and make it about your project.

Advertise in advertising allowed places.

#8- Should I Test my projects?
Yes. You want to make sure there aren’t any bugs, so it might be a good idea to run through it a couple of times. Also, just because you like it doesn’t mean others will. This is why you should hold 3 stages of testing.

Stage one: Personal Testing.
First, you want to run through the whole game a few times, to make sure that nothing is wrong. You need to remove any glitches, and make sure the plot makes sense. Add any features you need to add,

Stage 2: Family testing.
You also want to make sure that others like it. This means you might want to have your family try it. You want a variety of people, including siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins and more. Have them play the project the whole way through, and then ask them about for feedback. Here’s some feedback you want from them:

Did the instructions make sense?
Did the plot make sense?
What do you think the topic is?
Did you enjoy it?
Was it to hard or easy for you?

Stage 3: Online testing.

Congratulations, you made it to the final phase of testing! Here, is where you share your project. You want to have people volunteer to test your project. First, gather some people, then ask them to run through your project, and answer these questions:
Did the game feel too long/short?
Did you understand the goal of the game? What was it?
Did you understand the directions? Can you repeat them in your own words?
Did you have fun while playing?
Did you think it was too challenging/not challenging enough?
Did you want to play more?
Did you feel like you could win this game if you played again?
Did you like/dislike the graphics/sounds?
Did the pace feel too fast/slow?
Did you feel stuck at any point? If so where?
Was it boring at any point?
Was the plot fully formed?

Remember that their feedback will help you improve your game. Don't be offended!

After this, your project should be awesome!

New!

0-G_Games

I must say that it is important that a game, or any project that requires input from the user, is never too difficult, as Scratch has a share of younger or inexperienced (new) users. Games should be relatively simple (think Tetris or Angry Birds) and not too difficult (like Cuphead or Dark Souls). If you want a game to become difficult, it is best being an endless game. If it were a game with an objective or a set amount of levels that are required to be beaten in order for you to win, hard levels may make the game alienating to people who are not very experienced with games. To include more viewers, it is best to make the game endless, so there is no goal in sight and all players are guaranteed to keep playing, or have difficulty settings, so you can choose the mode that best fits your experience.

Written by 0-G_Games
Alt acc: @Polar-Studios

Last edited by 0-G_Games (Jan. 7, 2023 00:30:17)

CarnivorousBirds

Now scratch is important for scratchers, especially when making projects

Artwork: Very important, especially when making an animation or parralax, or the whole thing goes wrong
Code: Very important on all projects

Game ideas: DON'T USE VARIABLES! IF YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT CODING, USE VARIABLES! BUT OTHERWISE, ACT AS IF THERE AREN'T THERE!

Scar out.

when green flag clicked
stop [this comment v]

choirgurl2013

p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- wrote:
I have officially updated the old forum post with this forum post. I still want feedback, though! The original forum post can be viewed here.

While doing some stuff, I noticed that my sticky was kind of in need of an update. It wasn't as organized as I wanted it to. So, I created this:

STEPS ON IMPROVING YOUR PROJECT

Most people have a really good idea, but they have trouble making it good for viewers. Here are some tips that we have come up with:

Qualities

Code
Performance
When you make a project, you want to make sure it performs well and doesn’t have many exploits. Here are some ways to check this:
Make sure your project has a high frame rate. When something is happening or moving around, is it choppy? If so, you have a low FPS, or frames per second. Causes of a low FPS can be a lot of things, but there are 2 main causes. The first is a lot of stuff going on. If there are a lot of clones all doing something, or a lot of computing going on, the frame rate will start to drop. Try simplifying these things, or adding an option to get rid of them if it is just a graphic effect. The other cause is custom blocks. When you are editing a custom block, you may see a “run without screen refresh” option. This is really useful for making things run instantly, but when you put a pause, like a “wait () seconds” block, the screen can’t change until that block is changed.
Glitches can cause an issue as well. An easy way to test this is to do things that you wouldn’t normally do in a play through, like press a button in the wrong order, or press a key before it is time to. If these have unexpected results, try to fix these.
Thinking ahead
Once you fix the issues, you might notice that there are scenarios you may not have planned for. What if the player hits the tree instead of the monster? What if a user presses the right and left arrow key at once? Finding solutions to these scenarios can really give your project a boost, as it makes your project more usable with less issues.
Art
Costumes; home-made or taken?
When you are making a project, sometimes you can’t draw something the way you wanted it. This happens all the time! It is important to know when to make your own costume, and when to take it.

Always try drawing it yourself first. If it doesn’t look how you wanted it, and you can’t make it better, use a taken costume. Is is VERY important to know how to use these though.
When you use an already made costume, you have to take it from the right place. The best place is always scratch, you can look up what you want and download the costume. Do this by 2 finger tapping or right clicking the costume. Then, hit export. Import this into your project by hovering your mouse over the magnifying class, and hit the box with an arrow coming out of it. This says “import costume”. Then, select your costume in the files. It usually has a .svg or .png on it. When you import it, it is required to credit the user. You can mention them and say what you took in the credits, or link their project.
Another way to get sprites is off the web. Never take something directly off of google. First, find a royalty free site or a site protected under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. You can usually find that on the sites “About” page, if they have one. Never download something off of a site unless you know that the site is protected off of one of these. If you want to easily modify the sprite in scratch, make sure it is an SVG, or Sized Vector Graphic.

Smoother Graphics
If your animations seem a little choppy, the easiest way to fix this is by adding transitions. Find the 2 costumes that the animation are between, and duplicate the first. Modify it so that it looks like a transition from the first to the second. Repeat as many times as necessary, and your project will look much more smooth.

Improving Costumes
We have all had that moment when we draw something and it looks… odd. There are ways to improve it:
Keep it simple. A complicated sprite can look funny when even a minor detail is a little off. Keeping the sprite design simple will make this less common, and easier to spot the issue. A simple costume also sometimes will look better to the eyes, depending on the level of simplicity.
Shading. I know, this sounds really complicated, but there is a really easy way to do this.

Step 1: Duplicate the part of the object you are trying to shade. You can only do one color at a time.

Step 2; Align it with the original costume

Step 3: Delete certain parts so that it only covers one corner of the object.

Step 4: Use the layer buttons to put it in the right layer, and repeat as many times as necessary.

Only 4 steps, and anybody can do it.

Geometric vs organic shapes.
There is a good way to use geometric shapes, and a good way to use organic shapes. If your sprite looks too harsh or flimsy, try changing the corner settings from curved to pointed or vice versa, and see if it looks better.

Posting your project, and getting attention

Advertisements
Advertising is an important part of getting people to see your stuff. But what is the right way to advertise? There are 4 ways to advertise. You can do all of them if you want.
Put it in a related studio. For example, if your project is about how much you love PB&J sandwiches, put it in a studio about food. When other people add projects, they will see yours and might look at it.
Make your own studio. Making a studio and inviting people to it is an easy way to get people to look at your project. Just don’t overwhelm people with studio invites, making multiple studios for one project is not okay.
Put it in the Show and Tell Forum and write about it to let people know about your project.
Advertise in Advertising Allowed Places.

Testing
Testing is a very important part of making a project. Ask a group of friends, a family member, or the scratch community for some feedback. Here are some questions you might ask:

Did the game feel too long/short?
Did you understand the goal of the game? What was it?
Did you understand the directions? Can you repeat them in your own words?
Did you have fun while playing?
Did you think it was too challenging/not challenging enough?
Did you want to play more?
Did you feel like you could win this game if you played again?
Did you like/dislike the graphics/sounds?
Did the pace feel too fast/slow?
Did you feel stuck at any point? If so where?
Was it boring at any point?
Was the plot fully formed?

I need some feeback and FAQs. For comparison, here is the Original sticky.
Thanks!
PS: It won't be blue, that is just to separate it from my post.

ArianaGrandeFan456thisismysignature

Catscratcher07

0-G_Games wrote:
I must say that it is important that a game, or any project that requires input from the user, is never too difficult, as Scratch has a share of younger or inexperienced (new) users. Games should be relatively simple (think Tetris or Angry Birds) and not too difficult (like Cuphead or Dark Souls). If you want a game to become difficult, it is best being an endless game. If it were a game with an objective or a set amount of levels that are required to be beaten in order for you to win, hard levels may make the game alienating to people who are not very experienced with games. To include more viewers, it is best to make the game endless, so there is no goal in sight and all players are guaranteed to keep playing, or have difficulty settings, so you can choose the mode that best fits your experience.

Written by 0-G_Games
Alt acc: @Polar-Studios

this more so applies to if you want your game to be popular, over investing in appeal to the majority often means loss of quality.

trouble with clones? view my clone id toolbox! I also have built the bases of a tower defence game link here.
I'm despite, Team rocket is threatening to steel all my Pokémon If I don't give them a proper sprite, I can't defend myself against them. Have you see Meowth? level 130, 100% accuracy OHKO move, U-turn, WONDER GUARD…

Catscratcher07

CarnivorousBirds wrote:
Now scratch is important for scratchers, especially when making projects

Artwork: Very important, especially when making an animation or parralax, or the whole thing goes wrong
Code: Very important on all projects

Game ideas: DON'T USE VARIABLES! IF YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT CODING, USE VARIABLES! BUT OTHERWISE, ACT AS IF THERE AREN'T THERE!

so, we should just use list for a single value? that is bad for code readability

trouble with clones? view my clone id toolbox! I also have built the bases of a tower defence game link here.
I'm despite, Team rocket is threatening to steel all my Pokémon If I don't give them a proper sprite, I can't defend myself against them. Have you see Meowth? level 130, 100% accuracy OHKO move, U-turn, WONDER GUARD…

Discuss Scratch