Falling Duck II Skillmap -- Blocks, JavaScript, AND Python

Arcade Show & Tell
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This started off as a set of tutorials for Ima.notarobot’s journey to learn JavaScript

I’ve finally finished the skillmap for an advanced version of Falling Duck. You can build the project in all three languages – Blocks, JavaScript, and Python – and each language has five levels. Along the way, you learn to use Richard’s Mini Menu extension as well as the Settings extension.

There is a ton of planning that goes into these skillmaps … and all of that happens before any writing! Just planning out the activities for the skillmap took a couple dozen hours, and then each level takes another 18 to 24 hours of work to write, test, and debug (total for all three languages). I started each level in Blocks because that’s the hardest one to write – that usually took 12 to 16 hours. Writing the JavaScript and Python levels after that only took about 8 hours for both. And that’s with no artwork added to the skillmap! Sorry it looks so … plain. :smiley:

They’re super fun to write, which is why I like to create them.

Have fun!

https://arcade.makecode.com/--skillmap#github:robo-technical-group/pxt-tutorials/falling-duck-skillmap

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my goat @AlexK has done it

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W @AlexK for acknowledging the existence of JavaScript and Python
I’m going to do the skill map sometime, hope it gets on the main page to.

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That was my real motivation for writing these, redSprite. There aren’t many tutorials – and no skillmaps that I know of – that use the other two languages. Yes, I plan for all of my future tutorials and skillmaps to use all three languages.

When someone is ready to make the switch to one of the typing languages, I feel like this skillmap would be a good way to get started, as it includes some more advanced techniques along with most of the basics … and it does so without treating you like a beginner. (Nota bene: Use the hints when you get stuck!)

The Blocks path, too, is a good one to push your skills, as you learn about parallel arrays along with the two extensions that I mentioned earlier.

The only “basic” thing that I don’t touch in this skillmap is tilemaps, but that’s just because of the style of the game.

Have other ideas for tutorials and skillmaps? There’s a topic for that. :wink:

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OK, the timing of this thread is just wildly coincidental, as I haven’t seen Friday’s stream yet. If you ever wondered how we start planning a tutorial or skillmap, the dev team did a great job of walking through the brainstorming process of what goes into building the concept for a skillmap or tutorial.

I just started the stream. I’ll watch the rest of it tomorrow. Great video as always!

I ramble a bit on this process in my always-in-progress set of articles on building skillmaps.

Crazy timing, dev team! Love the unintended synergy this weekend! :laughing:

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Uhm…

image
image501×199 4.48 KB

This is in JavaScript step 6 level 2, apparently it says the asset doesn’t exist?

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Tutorial and Skill Map Ideas

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Thanks, redSprite. I’ll fix that. I’ve made that correction. It seems that constant is not consistently available in JavaScript and Python.

Replace the constant with an array of images:

            animation.runImageAnimation(
                heroSprite,
                [
                    sprites.duck.duck3,
                    sprites.duck.duck4,
                    sprites.duck.duck5,
                    sprites.duck.duck6,
                    sprites.duck.duck1,
                    sprites.duck.duck2,
                ],
                100, true
            )

I’ve published a new version with that correction.

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