🏁 Lesson 4.4: Capstone Part 2 — Lives, Game Over & Launch Day
Last time you built a playable Star Catcher. Today you finish it: missed stars cost lives, a big GAME OVER ends the round, a little polish makes it feel real, and then your child shows it off on launch day.
📚 What You'll Learn
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Reopen a saved project and pick up where you left off
- Use a lives variable and an if inside a clone to end the game
- Send a broadcast that shows a Game Over sprite and stops everything
- Playtest and tune a game until it feels right
- Keep a second sitting fun and hold a launch day with your child
Estimated Time: 35 minutes • Project: Star Catcher, finished — score, lives, Game Over, and polish
In This Lesson
🎬 Where we left off
First, open your saved project. If you saved online, click My Stuff (the folder icon at the top of scratch.mit.edu) and choose Star Catcher. If you saved a file, open the editor and choose File → Load from your computer, then pick the .sb3 file.
Play one round together before touching any code. In Part 1 you built:
- Bowl: calls reset game, then slides with the arrow keys.
- Star (original): hides and keeps making clones.
- Star (each clone): falls, and if it touches the Bowl, scores and pops:
What's missing? Missed stars pile up, lives never changes, and the game never ends. Those are today's jobs.
🛠️ Try It: Lives, Game Over & polish
The numbering continues from Part 1, so today is steps 8–10. Test after each one; with a child driving, expect about double the times shown.
-
Missing a star costs a life (about 5 min)
On the Star, add a second if inside the clone's forever loop, under the catching if. A clone that falls past the bowl takes a life and deletes itself; if that was the last life, it announces Game Over:
when I start as a clonego to x: pick random -220 to 220 y: 170showforeverchange y by -5if touching Bowl? thenchange score by 1hideplay sound Pop until donedelete this cloneif y position < -170 thenchange lives by -1if lives = 0 thenbroadcast game overdelete this cloneThe green less than block is in Operators; drop the blue y position reporter (bottom of Motion) into its left slot. For game over, open the broadcast dropdown and choose New message.
Why check lives inside the star? The star is the one that knows it was missed, so it's the natural place to notice the last life. delete this clone sits last in that if, so each miss costs exactly one life.
-
Show GAME OVER (about 5 min)
Click Paint (the brush under Choose a Sprite), write GAME OVER with the Text tool, and name the sprite Game Over. Give it two scripts:
when ⚑ clickedhidewhen I receive game overgo to front layershowstop allstop all freezes everything and removes every clone, but GAME OVER stays visible because it was shown first. The green flag hides it for the next game.
-
Add music, then playtest and tune (about 7 min)
Click the Stage (bottom right), open its Sounds tab, and choose a sound from the library's Loops category. Then give the Stage this script:
when ⚑ clickedforeverplay sound your music loop until doneNow play three games. Too hard? Change -5 to -3, or lengthen the wait between stars. Too easy? Do the opposite. This is called tuning, and kids love it.
✅ Project Completion
Tick these off together:
- ☐ The bowl moves left and right with the arrow keys
- ☐ The green flag resets score to 0 and lives to 3 (via reset game)
- ☐ The original star stays hidden; clones fall from random spots
- ☐ Catching a star adds 1 to score and plays a sound
- ☐ A missed star removes 1 life and disappears
- ☐ At 0 lives, GAME OVER appears and everything stops
- ☐ Pressing the green flag again starts a fresh game
- ☐ The project is saved (File → Save now, or Save to your computer)
🛠️ Try It: Make it theirs
Bring out the someday list. Your child picks one item, adds it, tests it, and only then picks another.
🌟 If you want to go further: stars speed up
Make a speed variable; add set speed to 3 to reset game. Replace change y by -5 with change y by (0 − speed), and add change speed by 0.2 next to change score by 1. Every catch speeds things up.
🌟 If you want to go further: rocks to dodge
Duplicate the Star and give it a rock costume. In its clone script, touching Bowl does change lives by -1 (plus the lives = 0 check) instead of scoring; a rock reaching the bottom just deletes itself.
🌟 If you want to go further: a high score
Make a high score variable. In the Game Over sprite, before stop all, add if score > high score then set high score to score. Keep it out of reset game so it survives between games.
🌟 If you want to go further: levels
Make a level variable, set to 1 in reset game. In the Bowl's forever loop, add if score = 10 and level = 1 then set level to 2, switch backdrop. Level 3 uses the same pattern with a bigger score.
🚀 Launch Day
When the checklist is complete, hold a launch. It takes five minutes, and it's what your child will remember:
- Pick a player. A sibling, grandparent, neighbor, or someone on a video call.
- The designer explains the rules first, just like on the design card: "Use the arrows. Catch stars. Don't miss three!"
- Hands off. Your child watches someone play their game; don't explain for them.
- Ask the player for one thing they liked and one idea. The idea goes on the someday list.
Publishing to the Scratch website is a separate decision with its own safety choices. Lesson 5.2: Sharing Safely & the Scratch Community walks you through it; until then, show it off in person.
🐛 Common problems & fixes
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Stars still pile up at the bottom | The y position < -170 check is outside the forever | Put it inside the clone's forever loop, with delete this clone inside the if |
| Lives drop by more than 1 per miss | delete this clone isn't inside the lives if | Make it the last block inside that if |
| GAME OVER never shows | Broadcast and receive messages don't match, or lives never reach exactly 0 | Pick the same game over message in both; check reset game sets lives to 3 |
| GAME OVER is showing when a new game starts | The Game Over sprite has no green-flag hide | Add when 🟩 clicked → hide to that sprite |
| Music overlaps itself or stutters | start sound used in the forever | Use play sound … until done so each loop finishes first |
If it worked before step 8 and doesn't now, the bug is in step 8. That's the gift of building one piece at a time.
🌱 Growth mindset: finishing is its own skill
The last stretch is often the hardest: the "wow" moments are behind you, and bugs feel personal because you're so close. That's normal. Name it out loud: "This is the finishing part. It's slower, and that's okay. One more fix." Kids who watch a grown-up push calmly through the last 10% learn that finishing is practiced, not inborn.
💬 Teach It: Finish strong
The director/typist roles still apply. What's new is keeping energy up and handling frustration near the finish.
Restart the momentum
Don't open with "okay, step 8." Open by playing, which reminds your child they already made something that works:
"Before we add anything — can you beat your high score from last time? Show me!"
Stop on a win
If energy fades, stop right after something works, never mid-bug. Step 8 working is a fine place to pause.
When frustration hits near the end
A broken game right before the finish can bring tears. Slow down and make the bug small:
"It worked before we added this part, so the problem is only in this part. Let's read it together, one block at a time."
If they're past the point of fun, it's fine to say "let's save it and fix it with fresh eyes tomorrow." That's a real programmer move.
👧 Ages 5–7
Lives are optional. If you add them, you build while they watch the number drop. They paint the GAME OVER sign and pick the music. Launch day is the star event.
🧒 Ages 8–11
They build steps 8–10 with you reading aloud. Let them do all the tuning, and let them choose one someday item on their own.
🧑 Ages 12+
Give them the checklist and let them finish solo. Then challenge them: plan a new game with a fresh design card, using the same routine.
🌟 End on a high
Launch day is the high. Afterward, ask your child, "What was the hardest part, and how did you get past it?" Their answer is the real lesson of the capstone.
🎯 Quick Check
Question 1: Each missed star is taking away 2 or 3 lives instead of 1. What's the likely cause?
Question 2: Why does the Game Over sprite show itself before running stop all?
Question 3: Right before the finish, the game breaks and your child is close to tears. Best move?
📓 Learning Journal
Take five minutes to write it down
This closes Module 4, so leave room for a look back at the whole project.
- Key concepts: In your own words, what does a broadcast do in Star Catcher, and why does the lives check live inside the star clone?
- What clicked: Which moment made it feel like a "real" game: the lives counting down, GAME OVER appearing, or the music?
- Questions & confusion: Which part could you not yet rebuild from memory?
- Ideas to try: What did your launch-day player suggest? What would your child's next game be?
- Progress & feelings: Looking back over all of Module 4 (clones, My Blocks, and a two-part game), what are you proudest of? How did your child's confidence change from Part 1 to launch day?
💡 Teach It tip: Have your child add a drawing or screenshot of the finished game, with their best score and their launch-day player's name, next to the design card. It's page one of their game design portfolio.
Summary & Module 4 Complete 🎉
🎓 Key Takeaways
- A clone can check its own fate: missed stars subtract a life and delete themselves.
- A broadcast lets one sprite tell another "it's over"; show the sign, then stop all.
- Tuning numbers is how a working game becomes a fun one.
- Start second sittings by playing, stop on a win, and shrink bugs to the last change.
- Launch day turns "I made a game" into "people play my game."
🏆 You finished Module 4!
Clones, custom blocks, and a complete game taken from a paper plan to launch day with your child.
🏅 What You've Accomplished
- Finished Star Catcher with score, lives, and Game Over
- Used a broadcast and stop all to end a game cleanly
- Held a launch day with a real player
📋 Before the Next Lesson
- Tick every box on the Project Completion checklist
- Add one someday item, or start a design card for your child's own game
- Write your journal entry
❓ Common Questions at This Stage
I ended up doing most of the building. Is that a problem?
It's common in a first capstone. What matters is who made the decisions: if your child chose the idea, sprites, sounds, and tuning, it's their game. Next time, hand over one more step; that's what the next lesson is about.
Should we publish it on the Scratch website?
Not yet. Sharing is a great goal, but read Lesson 5.2 first so you can make the choice together with the safety settings in mind.
My child wants to keep adding features forever. Should I stop them?
No, that's the best outcome! Keep the rhythm: one feature, test, save. If it gets tangled, call this version "done" and start Star Catcher 2.
🔭 Looking Ahead
Next comes the other half of this course: Module 5: Teaching Scratch to Your Child. It opens with Lesson 5.1: The Art of Not Taking Over, on the hardest part of coaching: keeping your hands off the mouse. You'll learn what to say instead of fixing it yourself, so the win belongs to your child.
💛 Encouragement for the Journey
You started this course unsure what a sprite was. Now you've planned a game, built it over two sittings, and watched someone play it. That's what game designers do. Keep the design card somewhere you'll see it.