BAFTA/Catherine Lanaspre/Faith Ekundayo Deep Sea Dash (Scratch) – Catherine Lanaspre (13) & Faith Ekundayo (13) Croydon
“A fish that struggles through a sea that is abundant with plastic, hoping that it will get past the plastic to safety.”
In our game, a fish has to swim past the pieces of plastic that are floating in the ocean to get to the flag. We based our game on the real life impact humans are having on the environment. We were inspired after we read an article in the news about a dead whale who had washed up on the shores of Indonesia with 1,000 pieces of plastic in its stomach. This game is to inform players of the impact they are having on the environment.
We learnt how to make a rolling screen. We learnt that instead of making the backdrop move, it was a matter of making the objects move from left to right. Also, when the sprites moved from left to right, we had to ensure it looked realistic. When making the seaweed that was on the ocean floor, we programmed the seaweed to alternate from one costume to the next to act like the seaweed was swaying in the water.
We faced much difficulty when trying to make our game look more realistic as we weren't sure how we were going to make the fish like it was swimming in the water and the seaweed look like it was actual seaweed. In the end, we discovered that we could constantly switch between two costumes to make the fish as if it was swimming with a fin that flapped up and down; to make the seaweed like it was swaying.
If we were to develop our game, we would add more levels with different scenarios. For example, another level would be about solving air pollution: there would be a human who owns a petrol car, they have to drive down the road and collect coins, once they get to a certain amount of coins they can upgrade to an electric car.
We also plan on adding a button that enables the player to change the speed in which their character is moving at, this button could also make it possible to add a timer, making the game more intense as the player has to complete the task in a certain amount of time.
