Tutorial: Chili Garden

In seven short steps you build Chili Garden: a gardener has lost three chilis. Find them, get the key to the shed, and open the gate to find what is inside.

Each step starts where the last one ended and takes about 10 minutes. Read them in order the first time.

Step	You learn	Tools
1. Rooms	Start a game, choose colours, draw tiles and walls	Projects, Colors, Library, Paint, Room
2. Avatar and sprites	Draw the avatar and a character, animate it, give it a sound	Paint, Library, Room
3. Items	Draw items and scatter them for the player to find	Library, Paint, Room
4. Dialog	Make the gardener talk, and answer differently once you have the chilis	Dialog
5. Exits and endings	Add a second room, a locked gate and an ending	Room, Exits & endings, Colors
6. Variables	Remember that the gardener said thank you	Variables, Dialog
7. Test and release	Play it through, fix problems, release it and play it on VGC Zero	Problems, Play, Download, Projects

The game you will make

flowchart LR
  Start([Start in the garden]) --> Gardener{Talk to the gardener}
  Gardener -- fewer than 3 chilis --> Search[Find chilis in the garden]
  Search --> Gardener
  Gardener -- 3 chilis --> Key[Get the key]
  Key --> Gate{Gate}
  Gate -- no key --> Locked[The gate is locked...]
  Gate -- key --> Shed[The shed]
  Shed --> End([Ending: the golden chili seed])

Download the finished game

Stuck, or want to look ahead? Download chili-garden.bitsy and open it with Import in Projects. It is the game every screenshot in these docs shows.

Before you start

You need a Chili Platform account with a verified email. See Open the creator.