Launch Week IV — Scratch L3 Lesson 48

Learnt28 min · a score, a top five, a front door
Basic24 min · build the front door
Challenge 1–327 min · names, a cold test, play again
Extrabonus · ship it

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

The last lesson of Level 3. Today the game gets a front door, a score, a board of the best five — and a test that finds what you cannot see.

shipped

Review — making it fast 5 min

The Stage is drawn about thirty times a second, and loops wait for that — or do not.
Three hundred clones is the whole project’s allowance.
hide is not delete this clone.

Quick-fire

Your game has a score. Why is one score not enough to make anybody play again?

Reveal the answer

Because there is nothing to beat. A number on its own is a fact. A number beside your five best is a challenge, and it costs one list.

Today’s Topic 3 min

Turning the design sheet’s “the point” into a score
A top five with insert () at () of [best five v] and delete (6) of [best five v]
A title screen that waits, so the flag never drops you into a falling rocket
The cold test: ten minutes away, then play it with every script window shut

Learning outcome

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

Score a game in a way that matches what the game is about.
Keep the best five results in order, for ever.
Test your own game cold, and find the thing it never told you.

Learnt — a reason to play twice 28 min

1 · The score comes off the design sheet

Line two of the sheet said: put the rocket down gently, with fuel to spare. A good score is that sentence as a sum — so a player who does what the game is about gets the big number.


if <(state) = [landed]> then
  set [score v] to (round (((fuel) + (bonus)) - (([abs v] of (fall)) * (10))))
else
  set [score v] to (0)
end

Fuel left, plus what that pad is worth, less ten for every unit of bump. round keeps a tidy number on the Stage.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

A score is the design sheet turned into arithmetic: 60 fuel left, plus 150 for the pad, less 14 for the bump — 196.

the sum

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. The pilot brakes gently, and the sentence at the end shows the whole sum.

60 fuel left, 150 for the pad, 14 off for the bump: 196. Land hard and the bump eats the lot.

2 · The best five, in order

A board is a list you put things into, not onto the end of. Walk down until you meet a score smaller than yours, go in above it, and throw the sixth away:


define file the score
set [place v] to (1)
repeat until <<(place) > (length of [best five v])> or <(score) > (item (place) of [best five v])>>
  change [place v] by (1)
end
insert (score) at (place) of [best five v]
if <(length of [best five v]) > (5)> then
  delete (6) of [best five v]
end

The or is what stops it walking off the end of a short list — the search from Lesson 3-11, with an insert at the end of it.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

A new score walks down the board until it meets a smaller one, goes in above it, and whatever falls off the bottom is thrown away.

filing a 205

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. Eight scores arrive one at a time; watch the list monitor re-order itself.

Eight flights, five kept, always in order — and the board never grows past five.

3 · A front door

Right now the green flag drops a player straight into a falling rocket. Give the game a screen that waits:

Say the name of the game and the keys.
wait until <key (space v) pressed?>.
Clear the bubble with say [], then start the flight.

Basic — build the front door 24 min

Your game, your score. The order below works for any of them.

Step 1 — the score

Write the sum in words first, on the design sheet.
Make score and build the sum after the flight loop.
Play twice: once well, once badly. Are the two numbers far enough apart?

Step 2 — the board

Make the list best five and show it on the Stage.
Build file the score from Learnt part 2.
Call it after the score — and only when the score is above 0.

Step 3 — the door

Put the title and the keys in a say before everything else.
Add wait until <key (space v) pressed?>.
Check the rocket does not move at all until space is pressed.

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag, read the title, press space, then fly with the up arrow and the left and right arrows.

What you are aiming at: nothing happens until the player says so, and every flight ends on the board.

The rocket falls while the title is still up.

The flight loop is in a second script with its own when flag clicked. Two hats mean two things happening at once — put the loop under the wait, in the same script.

My board fills up with zeroes.

Every crash is being filed. Wrap the call: if <(score) > (0)> then.

The board is empty every time I press the flag.

delete all of [best five v] is inside the game. Move it out, or use it only on a reset button you press on purpose.

A new best score goes in at the bottom.

The comparison is the wrong way round, or it is comparing text. Check it reads (score) > (item (place) of [best five v]).

CHALLENGE 1 · L3-48-M1🪙 30 Adcoins8 min

A name on the board

“312” tells you nothing about who. Ask the pilot’s name and put it on the line — without breaking the ordering.

ask [Pilot name?] and wait before the flight.
The board shows a line like Rosa − 312.
The order must still be by score, highest first.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 1 — two lists kept in step. One holds the line a player reads (Sam − 318), the other the number the code compares (318).

names on the board

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. Seven pilots fly one after another; watch the board keep itself in order.

Seven pilots, five kept: Sam − 318 at the top, Kofi − 100 fifth. Two lists kept in step, one to read and one to compare.

Done when: seven scores in a row land in the right order, each with the right name beside it.

Teacher reveal — why one list is not enough


insert (score) at (place) of [best score v]
insert (join (who) (join [ - ] (score))) at (place) of [best five v]

A line like Rosa − 312 is text, and > on text does not compare the number in it. So the numbers live in their own list and the two are changed together, every time. The alternative — pulling the number back out of the line — is Level 4’s work.

CHALLENGE 2 · L3-48-M2🪙 50 Adcoins9 min

The tester who was told nothing

Everything you know about your game is in your head, and none of it is in the game. Watch what a first flight actually looks like.

Watch the run below without reading the code first.
Write down the one thing the player did not know.
Put that thing into your own game — on the screen, not in your head.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 2 — a first-timer does not brake early. They leave the burn until the ground is close, and the game tells them exactly how close.

the tester’s flight

faded sprite = where it ends up

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag and watch when the flame comes on. The sentence at the end says how late that was.

The burn started at y −64 and it arrived at 4.9 — twice the safe speed. The game never said to start early.

Done when: your game shows, on the Stage, the one thing a first-time player has to know — without anybody telling them.

Teacher note

The lesson is not “write instructions”. It is that a designer cannot see their own game. If two pupils swap projects and play in silence for three minutes, both will learn more than an hour of polishing would teach them.

CHALLENGE 3 · L3-48-M3🪙 70 Adcoins10 min

Play again

One flight per green flag is a demonstration, not a game. Make three in a row — and keep the one thing that must survive.

Put the whole game inside a loop.
A new flight My Block puts back every variable a flight changes.
The board is not one of them.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 3 — three flights from one green flag. Everything is put back between them except the one thing that must not be.

flight 3

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag once. Three flights run one after another, and the board monitor keeps all three.

Three flights, one flag. Everything reset between them except the list of best scores.

Done when: you can play five times without touching the green flag, and your best score from the first go is still on the board.

Teacher note

This is Lesson 3-46’s second-go bug, met again on purpose — and the cure is the same one: one My Block holding every reset, so there is one place to look when something is remembered that should not be.

EXTRA MISSION · L3-48-MX🪙 100 Adcoinsbonus

Ship it

Everything from the four weeks, in one project, handed to somebody who has never seen it.

A title with your name on it, and the keys.
Three pads, the small one worth double.
Dust that tidies up after itself, a score, and the best five.

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag, read the title, press space, then fly: up burns, left and right lean. Aim for the small pad on the right.

Four weeks in one project — planned, mended, made tidy, and now finished.

Summary — and the end of Level 3 5 min

A score should reward whatever the game is about.
A board is an insert in the right place, then a delete off the bottom.
A front door waits for the player.
A replay resets everything except the records.
The designer cannot see their own game. Somebody else can.

Level 3 in one table

Twelve arcs, forty-eight lessons. Everything you now know how to do:

Arc	What it gave you
🥤 Vending Machine	The four operators nested, `[floor v] of ()`, `() mod ()`, `pick random () to ()`, `round ()`.
❓ Quiz Master	Lists: add, `item () of [list v]`, `length of [list v]`, insert, delete, replace.
🃏 Card Battle	Searching a list, sorting one, and `item # of () in [list v]`.
🎆 Firework Show	My Blocks: define, inputs, and one behaviour written once.
🫧 Bubble Popper	Clones with their own numbers, and the 300 ceiling.
⛈️ Storm Flight	Game state: a title, a game, an ending, lives and a pause.
🧀 Cheese Maze	`touching color ()?`, walls, goals and guards.
🦘 Jump Quest	Gravity as a kept number, jumping, landing, standing on things.
🗺️ Scroll World	Moving the world instead of the player.
🏰 Tower Defence	Clones, lists, My Blocks and state in one game at last.
🥊 Arena Duel	Two players, one keyboard, one rulebook read from lists.
🚀 Launch Week	Planning, debugging, making it fast, and shipping it.

Score: A number that says how well the point of the game was met.
Leaderboard: An ordered list of the best results, kept between goes.
Playtest: Watching somebody else play, without helping them.
Ship: To finish something and give it to other people.

Hand in

Save and share your finished game, and keep the design sheet with it. That is the end of Level 3 — twelve games, and now one of your own.

Learnt28 min · a score, a top five, a front door
Basic24 min · build the front door
Challenge 1–327 min · names, a cold test, play again
Extrabonus · ship it

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

The last lesson of Level 3. Today the game gets a front door, a score, a board of the best five — and a test that finds what you cannot see.

shipped

Review — making it fast 5 min

The Stage is drawn about thirty times a second, and loops wait for that — or do not.
Three hundred clones is the whole project’s allowance.
hide is not delete this clone.

Quick-fire

Your game has a score. Why is one score not enough to make anybody play again?

Reveal the answer

Because there is nothing to beat. A number on its own is a fact. A number beside your five best is a challenge, and it costs one list.

Today’s Topic 3 min

Turning the design sheet’s “the point” into a score
A top five with insert () at () of [best five v] and delete (6) of [best five v]
A title screen that waits, so the flag never drops you into a falling rocket
The cold test: ten minutes away, then play it with every script window shut

Learning outcome

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

Score a game in a way that matches what the game is about.
Keep the best five results in order, for ever.
Test your own game cold, and find the thing it never told you.

Learnt — a reason to play twice 28 min

1 · The score comes off the design sheet

Line two of the sheet said: put the rocket down gently, with fuel to spare. A good score is that sentence as a sum — so a player who does what the game is about gets the big number.


if <(state) = [landed]> then
  set [score v] to (round (((fuel) + (bonus)) - (([abs v] of (fall)) * (10))))
else
  set [score v] to (0)
end

Fuel left, plus what that pad is worth, less ten for every unit of bump. round keeps a tidy number on the Stage.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

A score is the design sheet turned into arithmetic: 60 fuel left, plus 150 for the pad, less 14 for the bump — 196.

the sum

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. The pilot brakes gently, and the sentence at the end shows the whole sum.

60 fuel left, 150 for the pad, 14 off for the bump: 196. Land hard and the bump eats the lot.

2 · The best five, in order

A board is a list you put things into, not onto the end of. Walk down until you meet a score smaller than yours, go in above it, and throw the sixth away:


define file the score
set [place v] to (1)
repeat until <<(place) > (length of [best five v])> or <(score) > (item (place) of [best five v])>>
  change [place v] by (1)
end
insert (score) at (place) of [best five v]
if <(length of [best five v]) > (5)> then
  delete (6) of [best five v]
end

The or is what stops it walking off the end of a short list — the search from Lesson 3-11, with an insert at the end of it.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

A new score walks down the board until it meets a smaller one, goes in above it, and whatever falls off the bottom is thrown away.

filing a 205

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. Eight scores arrive one at a time; watch the list monitor re-order itself.

Eight flights, five kept, always in order — and the board never grows past five.

3 · A front door

Right now the green flag drops a player straight into a falling rocket. Give the game a screen that waits:

Say the name of the game and the keys.
wait until <key (space v) pressed?>.
Clear the bubble with say [], then start the flight.

Basic — build the front door 24 min

Your game, your score. The order below works for any of them.

Step 1 — the score

Write the sum in words first, on the design sheet.
Make score and build the sum after the flight loop.
Play twice: once well, once badly. Are the two numbers far enough apart?

Step 2 — the board

Make the list best five and show it on the Stage.
Build file the score from Learnt part 2.
Call it after the score — and only when the score is above 0.

Step 3 — the door

Put the title and the keys in a say before everything else.
Add wait until <key (space v) pressed?>.
Check the rocket does not move at all until space is pressed.

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag, read the title, press space, then fly with the up arrow and the left and right arrows.

What you are aiming at: nothing happens until the player says so, and every flight ends on the board.

The rocket falls while the title is still up.

The flight loop is in a second script with its own when flag clicked. Two hats mean two things happening at once — put the loop under the wait, in the same script.

My board fills up with zeroes.

Every crash is being filed. Wrap the call: if <(score) > (0)> then.

The board is empty every time I press the flag.

delete all of [best five v] is inside the game. Move it out, or use it only on a reset button you press on purpose.

A new best score goes in at the bottom.

The comparison is the wrong way round, or it is comparing text. Check it reads (score) > (item (place) of [best five v]).

CHALLENGE 1 · L3-48-M1🪙 30 Adcoins8 min

A name on the board

“312” tells you nothing about who. Ask the pilot’s name and put it on the line — without breaking the ordering.

ask [Pilot name?] and wait before the flight.
The board shows a line like Rosa − 312.
The order must still be by score, highest first.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 1 — two lists kept in step. One holds the line a player reads (Sam − 318), the other the number the code compares (318).

names on the board

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag. Seven pilots fly one after another; watch the board keep itself in order.

Seven pilots, five kept: Sam − 318 at the top, Kofi − 100 fifth. Two lists kept in step, one to read and one to compare.

Done when: seven scores in a row land in the right order, each with the right name beside it.

Teacher reveal — why one list is not enough


insert (score) at (place) of [best score v]
insert (join (who) (join [ - ] (score))) at (place) of [best five v]

CHALLENGE 2 · L3-48-M2🪙 50 Adcoins9 min

The tester who was told nothing

Everything you know about your game is in your head, and none of it is in the game. Watch what a first flight actually looks like.

Watch the run below without reading the code first.
Write down the one thing the player did not know.
Put that thing into your own game — on the screen, not in your head.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 2 — a first-timer does not brake early. They leave the burn until the ground is close, and the game tells them exactly how close.

the tester’s flight

faded sprite = where it ends up

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag and watch when the flame comes on. The sentence at the end says how late that was.

The burn started at y −64 and it arrived at 4.9 — twice the safe speed. The game never said to start early.

Done when: your game shows, on the Stage, the one thing a first-time player has to know — without anybody telling them.

Teacher note

CHALLENGE 3 · L3-48-M3🪙 70 Adcoins10 min

Play again

One flight per green flag is a demonstration, not a game. Make three in a row — and keep the one thing that must survive.

Put the whole game inside a loop.
A new flight My Block puts back every variable a flight changes.
The board is not one of them.

WHAT IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Challenge 3 — three flights from one green flag. Everything is put back between them except the one thing that must not be.

flight 3

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag once. Three flights run one after another, and the board monitor keeps all three.

Three flights, one flag. Everything reset between them except the list of best scores.

Done when: you can play five times without touching the green flag, and your best score from the first go is still on the board.

Teacher note

EXTRA MISSION · L3-48-MX🪙 100 Adcoinsbonus

Ship it

Everything from the four weeks, in one project, handed to somebody who has never seen it.

A title with your name on it, and the keys.
Three pads, the small one worth double.
Dust that tidies up after itself, a score, and the best five.

Runs here in the page. Nothing to install.

How to use this: Click the green flag, read the title, press space, then fly: up burns, left and right lean. Aim for the small pad on the right.

Four weeks in one project — planned, mended, made tidy, and now finished.

Summary — and the end of Level 3 5 min

A score should reward whatever the game is about.
A board is an insert in the right place, then a delete off the bottom.
A front door waits for the player.
A replay resets everything except the records.
The designer cannot see their own game. Somebody else can.

Level 3 in one table

Twelve arcs, forty-eight lessons. Everything you now know how to do:

Arc	What it gave you
🥤 Vending Machine	The four operators nested, `[floor v] of ()`, `() mod ()`, `pick random () to ()`, `round ()`.
❓ Quiz Master	Lists: add, `item () of [list v]`, `length of [list v]`, insert, delete, replace.
🃏 Card Battle	Searching a list, sorting one, and `item # of () in [list v]`.
🎆 Firework Show	My Blocks: define, inputs, and one behaviour written once.
🫧 Bubble Popper	Clones with their own numbers, and the 300 ceiling.
⛈️ Storm Flight	Game state: a title, a game, an ending, lives and a pause.
🧀 Cheese Maze	`touching color ()?`, walls, goals and guards.
🦘 Jump Quest	Gravity as a kept number, jumping, landing, standing on things.
🗺️ Scroll World	Moving the world instead of the player.
🏰 Tower Defence	Clones, lists, My Blocks and state in one game at last.
🥊 Arena Duel	Two players, one keyboard, one rulebook read from lists.
🚀 Launch Week	Planning, debugging, making it fast, and shipping it.

Score: A number that says how well the point of the game was met.
Leaderboard: An ordered list of the best results, kept between goes.
Playtest: Watching somebody else play, without helping them.
Ship: To finish something and give it to other people.

Hand in

Save and share your finished game, and keep the design sheet with it. That is the end of Level 3 — twelve games, and now one of your own.