👋 Getting Started

Welcome back to Python Game Design! For your next project you and your students will code your very own story adventures. Direct your students to the Choose Your Own Adventure project!

Lesson Steps

Have students log into their myBetabox accounts and open up the Python Game Design: Choose Your Own Adventure project.
Have them read the following sections:
1. Welcome to Python Game Design!
2. Setting Up Repl.it
3. Keyboard Guide
Guide your students into creating their Repl.it accounts. If they don't already have one. They may need to verify their accounts in their emails. Once they have them set up, they can share their progress with you. If they've already created accounts then they will sign in.
Introduce the Repl.it tools and interface in Setting Up Repl.it.
Check for understanding on how to type the symbols in the Keyboard Guide.
If you'd like, you can print out our Python cheat sheet and distribute to your students for their reference. This is also found in their Welcome to Python Game Design! section.
Review the section vocabulary below.

Vocabulary

Code: Instructions that tells a computer or computer program what to do.
Verify: To prove.
Interface: The area where a user can interact with the computer, usually by clicking or typing.
Syntax: The format, or way, code typed. Syntax is different for different languages.

What is Python?

Python is a programming language used throughout the world. People like Python because of its ease of use and its power. We will use Python to create games that you can actually play and enjoy!

Here’s a quick guide for Python syntax (how to code in the Python language). You may find this helpful as you program your project.

You can always reference this sheet if you get lost or forget something! You can also download and print it out by clicking HERE.

Now you’re ready to code! Open a new tab or window to follow along with our myBetabox videos. Then, click on the next section to start!

Repl.it Set Up

What is Repl.it?

Repl.it is the website that we will be using to code our game. This will prevent us from having to download anything such as Python or an IDE and will allow us to easily share our projects!

To use Repl.it, simply go to www.repl.it and click sign up in the top right of the site. Once you have set up your free account, we can start exploring the interface!

Repl.it Interface

The first step to coding on Repl.it is creating a new repl, which stands for…

Read (computer reads the code you typed)
Evaluate (runs the code)
Print (shows the results)
Loop (does R, E, and P in a loop)

Think of it repls like coding projects. You should notice a button on the top right that says ‘+ new repl.’

When you click this button, you will be asked what programming language you want to use. For now, we are simply going to click on Python and name it whatever you would like!

Now that our repl has been created we can see the coding interface. The far left of the screen is our file directory and will tell us what files and folders are in our project.