Stage 8: Customize the Game
Keep both tabs open all week. Open in a new tab — don’t use the buttons in this page to leave the course.
a new player sprite, a new backdrop, sounds, and a clear theme
how the look of a game changes how it feels to play
a game that's recognizably yours — not Scratch's default
Show the room three quick before-and-afters:
- Cat catching a star → Shark catching a fish (under-the-sea theme).
- Plain white backdrop → A space backdrop with stars.
- No sound → A "pop" sound when the catch happens.
Each change took 30 seconds and made the game recognizably different. The mechanics didn't change. The vibe did.
The big idea
For seven stages you've been working with Scratch's defaults — a cat sprite, a blank white backdrop, no sounds. The game runs, but it looks like every other beginner's project. Today you make it yours.
The mechanics are the bones of the game (the code you wrote in Stages 6 and 7). The look and sound are the skin. The skin is what your parents will notice first on Friday. "Oh, you made a shark eating fish!" lands differently than "Oh, you made the cat catch stars."
The bones (don't change today):
- cat moves with AI predictions
- star falls and gets caught
- score, timer, win condition
The skin (today's work):
- cat → your chosen character
- star → your chosen object
- white backdrop → your chosen scene
- silence → catch sound + win sound + theme music
A theme is the umbrella idea — the kind of game your version is. Pick one before you start changing things. Examples:
- Under the sea — shark catching fish, ocean backdrop, bubble sounds.
- Space — astronaut catching crystals, starfield backdrop, sci-fi music.
- Bakery — chef catching pizzas, kitchen backdrop, dinging timer.
- Forest — fox catching berries, woods backdrop, animal sounds.
Pick the theme. Then change the sprites, the backdrop, and the sounds to match.
- sprite
- any character or object on the stage
- costume
- a sprite's look — you can swap it
- backdrop
- the background image on the stage
- sound
- an audio clip you can play in a script
- theme
- the umbrella idea that ties all your sprites, backdrops, and sounds together
Your Stage 7 game should run end-to-end — the timer counts down, the score goes up when you catch the star, and the game ends with YOU WIN or TRY AGAIN.
Build it
Step 1 — Pick your theme
Before touching the laptop: think for one minute. What theme would you want to demo to your parents on Friday?
Write your theme on paper:
My theme is: ___________________
Examples: under the sea, space, bakery, forest, sports, dinosaurs, candy, sci-fi.
A theme makes every other decision easier. "Should this sprite be a starfish or a flower?" Easy if you picked under-the-sea.
Step 2 — Change the player sprite
In RAISE Playground, click on the cat sprite in the sprite list (bottom-right area).
You have two options:
Option A — Pick from the library. Click Choose a Sprite (the cat icon at the bottom-right). Scroll the library and pick a sprite that fits your theme. Click it.
Option B — Upload your own. Click Upload Sprite (the arrow-up icon). Pick an image file (PNG works best).
Important: your new sprite still has all the AI scripts from Stage 6! The code follows the sprite role, not the look. Click the green flag and confirm the new sprite still moves with your hand signs.
Step 3 — Change the falling object
Same process for the star sprite. Click on it, then pick a new sprite (Option A) or upload one (Option B).
The script still does what it did before — falls from the top, gets caught, restarts. Just looks different now.
If you added a Bomb sprite in Stage 7's hard stretch, change it too — keep the theme. (Bomb in space = asteroid. Bomb in bakery = burnt cookie.)
Step 4 — Change the backdrop
Click on the Stage tile (bottom-right, next to your sprites). The Stage has its own backdrop list.
Click Choose a Backdrop (or Upload a Backdrop). Pick one that matches your theme.
Some good defaults:
- Underwater — under-the-sea theme.
- Stars — space theme.
- Forest — forest theme.
- Boardwalk — chill / summer theme.
Step 5 — Add sounds
Click on the cat (or whatever your player sprite is now). Click the Sounds tab at the top of the script area.
Click Choose a Sound and pick a catch sound (something short and satisfying — "pop", "bell", "chomp").
Now connect the sound to the catch event. Go back to the star's script (or whatever falls). Inside the if (touching cat?) block, add a play sound until done block from the Sound category. Pick your catch sound.
When you catch a star, the sound plays.
Add one more sound: a win sound. Pick something celebratory. Inside the cat's win block (the say "YOU WIN" part), add a play-sound before the say.
Step 6 — Test the whole game
Click the green flag. Play one full 30-second round.
Watch for:
- The new sprite moves with your hand.
- The new falling object lands in the new theme.
- The catch sound plays every time.
- The win sound plays at the end.
- The backdrop fits the theme.
Save your project. Your version of the AI Collector Game now exists.
Understand it
Customization is not optional. It's how your game stops being "a thing the camp taught us to make" and starts being "a thing I made." Every choice — sprite, backdrop, sound, color — is a tiny vote about what kind of game you think this should be.
A theme is shorthand. Once you pick "under the sea," every other decision is faster: the sprite is fish-like, the sound is bubbly, the backdrop is water. Without a theme, every choice is independent and the game ends up feeling random.
The reason sound matters more than you'd expect is that the human brain responds to feedback. A score going up with no sound is a number changing. A score going up with a "ding" feels like an accomplishment. Pros call this audio feedback. Add sounds anywhere the game does something important — catch, win, lose, even start.
The mechanics didn't change today. The code you wrote in Stages 6 and 7 is the same. What changed is the container the code lives in. That's the whole secret of game customization — the bones stay; the skin can be anything.
Try this
Try this
Three short experiments. Predict before you run, then test your guess.
Imagine you keep all your code exactly the same but change every sprite and sound to be creepy — dark sprites, scary sounds, a haunted backdrop. Predict how the game would feel different. Would the same code feel like a different type of game?
Mute the tab for 30 seconds and play your game without sound. Then play it again with sound. How big is the difference? Sounds are doing more work than you'd think.
Stage 9 is your final-build day before the parent demo. Look at your theme right now. Would a parent who doesn't play games understand the theme in 5 seconds? If not, what would you add to make it instantly clear?
Test your stage
- You picked a clear theme and wrote it down somewhere.
- The player sprite is no longer the default cat.
- The falling object is no longer the default star.
- The backdrop is no longer the plain white default.
- At least two sounds play during the game (catch sound and win sound at minimum).
- All Stage 7 mechanics still work — score, timer, win/lose.
- Design check. Show your game (silently — don't say a word) to a coach or another camper. Can they tell what the theme is just by looking and listening?
If it breaks
- The new sprite doesn't move when I make a hand sign. You probably picked a new sprite but the AI scripts only attached to the old cat. Click your new sprite, look at its script area. If it's empty, copy the AI control script from the cat (right-click → duplicate, drag to the new sprite).
- The catch detection broke after I changed sprites. The falling sprite's script checks
touching (cat). If you renamed the player sprite, that "cat" reference is stale. Click the falling sprite, open its script, and update the touching block to point at your new player sprite. - The catch sound doesn't play. Two suspects. First, is the play-sound block inside the
if (touching cat?)block, not next to it? Second, did you pick the sound from the right sprite's sound library? Sounds belong to the sprite that plays them. - The backdrop image is huge and the game elements are tiny. Upload size matters. Either resize the backdrop before uploading, or pick a backdrop from the RAISE library — those are pre-sized.
- Everything works but the game feels random. Probably no clear theme. Pick one sentence theme and revise every sprite and sound until they all match.
This is the funnest stage of the week for most kids 7–9. Customization is intrinsically motivating — they get to make creative decisions that feel real. Step back and let them play.
The biggest risk is theme drift — a camper picks "space" and then puts a tropical fish in. Gently steer: "Does a fish belong in space?" Not as a rule, but as a question. Often they have a reason ("It's a space-fish!") and that's fine — the goal is intentional choice, not strict consistency.
The single most common technical mistake: changing the sprite name in the sprite list, which breaks the touching (cat) reference. Walk the room and gently encourage renaming via the costume label inside the sprite, not the sprite list. Or accept the breakage and use it as a Stage 9 debug opportunity.
If a camper finishes early and is bored, push them into the hard stretch (looping music). A camper with an obvious win and looping music on Friday has a demo, not just a game.
This stage is energy-heavy. Plan extra movement breaks for the kids who finish fast and start bouncing off the walls.