Simple Graphical Effects

• Name: Simple Graphical Effects

• Description: A common pattern is to add graphical effects when things happen in the game. For example the look of a player may change when they get zapped as a way of showing their death, or you can animate food when it is collected, or enemies when they get zapped.

• Need for Pattern: Having graphical effects is a way of increasing the excitement of the game and giving game players feedback on what happens in the game.

• Related Game Patterns: Jumping on Enemies [related]

• Coding Concepts involved: Events

• Links to other Computing Patterns: , Change Listener

How to implement this Pattern in MakeCode

Animate Food Collection

Click on the plus sign next to the destroy otherSprite block and you can choose from many effects that happen to your sprite when the Food gets collected and how soon that effect happens. In the block below the confetti effects happens very quickly after the Food is touched.

Animate Enemy getting Zapped

This requires you to have added the Jumping on Enemies pattern. In the on sprite of kind Player overlaps otherSprite of kind Enemy condition listener loop click on the plus sign to the destroy otherSprite block and you can choose from many effects that happen to your sprite when the Food gets collected and how soon that effect happens.

Test your Changes and Next Steps

Test your game to check that your changes have the desired behaviour and that there are no side effects.

To check that you are making the most of this pattern you can ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you animated all of the events that happen in your game?
• Are the timings right for your game or are they too long or short?

This Game Pattern is one of many allowing you to make improvements to your platform game and to learn coding and wider computing concepts. Find more on the Game Pattern page.

A next step you might want to try is to add sound effects when things happen.