Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games [Paperback]

This book's subtitle is "Learn to program by making cool games!" but let me say right at the start: this book doesn't really teach you how to program in general. Instead it teaches you how to program the Scratch game programming environment.

Scratch is a mostly drag-and-drop environment that lets you build simple animations, play sounds, and determine when objects overlap. The book walks you through creating some very simple games such as making characters walk around the screen, collecting "dimensional strings" without getting zapped, dodging bad guys in a maze, and battling dark wizards in space.

The games are corny but don't let the simplicity of the storyline fool you. Although the games seem simple, they introduce important programming concepts. They show how to use variables, loops, events, broadcast messages, sprites, animation, timing, pseudorandom numbers, sound, and more. They also show how to use the Scratch programming environment to build programs, edit images, and interact with the user.

After reading this book and working through the example games, you won't know how to program in general-purpose languages such as Java, C++, C#, or Visual Basic, but you will know some of the fundamentals needed to understand those languages so learning them should be a bit easier. There are many differences between Scratch's drag-and-drop approach and those other languages, which require much more typing, but Scratch may provide a gentle and entertaining introduction to programming concepts. And you just might end up writing some games that are fun enough to be worth playing more than once.

The book's forward says Scratch is designed for ages 8 and up, and that seems about right. My son, who is now 10, has been to several game programming day camps over the last few years. They used an environment somewhat similar to Scratch and he loved them. Working through this book would probably have given him an even better introduction to programming and I suspect it would have been even more fun.

If you're an adult and you want to learn "real" programming, you should probably look for a book about the specific language you want to study such as Java, C#, or whatever. If you're a younger aspiring game developer looking for a fun introduction to programming, or an adult that wants to try a different method of programming, this book may be perfect for you!

(The following review is by my daughter.)

It's cool. I like like how the book makes it easier to figure out how Scratch works. I like how it has cartoons at the beginning of each stage. I think everyone should buy this for their kids if they have enough money for it. Anybody can get Scratch because it is free.

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As an adult, I largely concur. The Scratch website has some good introductory documentation, but it's kind of hard for a kid to follow alone. This, however, is just what an inspired kid needs to dive right in. And of course the "games!" focus is a good hook. The official web site is referred to at the end of the book, and makes a great next step.

Mother of an 11yo son here. He said "I'd really like to learn to program so I can make my own games.Can I do that?"
I considered the following before discovering this book (via BoingBoing) - Alice (what, until recently, we used at my University); Mindstorms (modified LabVIEW); actual old-school command-line BASIC or similar ('cause that's what I speak). However, Alice spends way too much time in the uncanny valley, Mindstorms takes a while to debug (run, watch the robot hit a wall, troubleshoot, debug, run......), doesn't really get you to games and is also very abstract, and I wanted something he could do on his own without my help.
Enter Super Scratch - this language and this book are aimed precisely at kids who are out to create games. It's games from page 1, you can see the programmer's self-efficacy grow immediately. My son spun off on his own after lesson ~4, saying he 'sees how it works' now. He's still working his way through the book, but he's doing 'jazz' on top of the lessons. It's cool.
This is a good introduction to algorithmic thinking and common structures like "while" loops. An amusing by-product is that my son has said he prefers designing board-games now, as the instructions don't have to be as precise for humans as for machines. He gets it!
Yes, we could have used free online resources to learn Scratch, but having it laid out in a logical, appropriately paced, and non-distracting manner is a plus for the book over the Internet. Further, he enjoys the self-consciously cheesy story lines that frame the problems. That being said, I don't think I'd use this book with anyone over the age of 12 (at least until they're 20 and can appreciate irony better).