Getting Started with MicroWorlds EX Video Game Programming

These video tutorials should help you get started learning with MicroWorlds EX or MicroWorlds EX Robotics! You may download them and watch them as often as you wish.

These screencasts (video clips) were created to walk you through basic techniques you will need to create an original “Snac Man Jr.” game (it’s like Pac Man without lawyers).

The MicroWorlds EX Project book has a tutorial in creating a similar game, but I find that it is unnecessarily complex, despite having written it myself.

I can now teach beginners to design their very own video game with very little instruction.

Continue practicing using the MicroWorlds EX tools and turtle animation techniques before moving on to the main event.

Snac Man Jr!

Now you will learn how to begin designing your very own Snac Man Jr. video game!

Stop the video as necessary and try to imitate the actions described.

The learning adventure continues…

Extension activities

What would you like to add to your game? How might you improve it?

Here are some suggestions:

• Different prizes
• Predators
• Power pellets
• Additional levels
• Acceleration
• Temporary invisibility (makes it hard for ghosts to eat you)
• Better graphics
• More sound effects

Additional Resources

• MicroWorlds EX Exploring Projects Book (PDF)
• MicroWorlds web site
• MicroWorlds sample project library
• Gary Stager’s Logo resource page

Gary Stager

Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.