Skip to content

1. Rooms

A room is one screen of your game: 16×16 cells, each 8×8 pixels. That is 128×128 pixels, the size of the VGC Zero screen. In this step you make the garden.

The finished garden in the Room tool: a hedge around the edge, flowers, a gate at the top

Start a new game

  1. Open Projects and choose New game.
  2. Click the title Untitled game in the top bar and type Chili Garden.

A new game already has a room with a wall around it, the avatar, a cat, a cup of tea and a key. You change all of them in the next steps.

Choose the colours

Every room uses a palette of three colours.

  1. Open Colors. It shows the colours of the room in front in Room.
  2. Rename the palette to garden.

  3. Set the three colours. Click a swatch to pick, or type a hex code:

    Colour Used for Chili Garden
    Background Empty cells, the inside of drawings #223a28, dark green
    Tiles Every tile #78b45a, leaf green
    Sprites and items The avatar, characters and items #ff5a46, chili red

The Colors tool with the garden palette: background, tiles, sprites and items

Draw the hedge

The new game has one tile, block. Turn it into a hedge.

  1. Open Library and choose Tiles. Pick block.
  2. Paint shows it large. Rename it hedge.
  3. Draw with the Pencil (B): click a pixel to turn it on, click it again to turn it off. Drag to draw a line. Fill (F) fills an area.
  4. Tick Wall so the avatar cannot walk through it.

Tip

A tile looks best when its edges match, so it repeats without seams. Try leaving the same pixels on at the left and right edge.

Draw a flower

  1. In Library, choose New tile. Name it flower and draw it. Leave Wall off, so the avatar walks over it.
  2. Make one more tile called gate for the opening at the top of the room. Leave it off Wall too.

Paint the room

  1. Open Room. Rename the room garden in Name.
  2. Pick hedge in Library and choose the Place tool (P) in Room.
  3. Click or drag in the room to paint. The new game's walls are already there; fill any gaps you want.
  4. Pick gate and click the middle of the top edge, cell 8,0. The cell under the pointer shows at the bottom right of Room.
  5. Pick flower and dot a few around.
To Do
Remove a tile Click it again with the same tile, or use Erase (E)
Find out what is on a cell Pick (I), then click the cell
See which tiles are walls Tick Walls under the room
Hide the grid Untick Grid
Undo a stroke Ctrl+Z

Check it

Open Play and choose Play game. Walk around with the arrow keys: the hedge stops you, the flowers do not.

Next

2. Avatar and sprites: draw the player and the gardener.