Minecraft Modding For Kids For Dummies
Overview
Join more than 100 million players in the online world of Minecraft
Are you a Minecraft fanatic looking to mod your games? Hours of fun await! Minecraft Modding For Kids For Dummies teaches you how to mod in easy-to-do parts. Offering loads of helpful explanations and cool projects along the way, this friendly guide will have you advancing levels, keeping score, respawning players, building portals, creating an archery range—and much more—faster than you can say redstone!
There's no denying that modding is cool. After all, it allows you to alter your Minecraft gaming world to constantly keep things new and fun. While it isn't incredibly difficult to learn to mod, it does take some practice. Luckily, Minecraft Modding For Kids For Dummies is here to help you build basic coding skills to make modding your games as easy as 1-2-3!
Are you a Minecraft fanatic looking to mod your games? Hours of fun await! Minecraft Modding For Kids For Dummies teaches you how to mod in easy-to-do parts. Offering loads of helpful explanations and cool projects along the way, this friendly guide will have you advancing levels, keeping score, respawning players, building portals, creating an archery range—and much more—faster than you can say redstone!
There's no denying that modding is cool. After all, it allows you to alter your Minecraft gaming world to constantly keep things new and fun. While it isn't incredibly difficult to learn to mod, it does take some practice. Luckily, Minecraft Modding For Kids For Dummies is here to help you build basic coding skills to make modding your games as easy as 1-2-3!
- The book is in full color and lies flat so you can look while you play
- Includes lifetime access to LearnToMod software with 3 months free access to a private Minecraft server
- Features larger print to make the text feel less daunting
- Offers next steps you can take if you want to learn even more about modding and coding
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About The Author
Stephen Foster, Ph.D. has been researching game-based coding education for over 10 years. He is the CEO of ThoughtSTEM, a company that teaches computer science to kids across America.
Sarah Esper, Ph.D. has dedicated her life to coding education. She is the co-founder of ThoughtSTEM. She has over 10 years of experience with computer science curriculum design.
Lindsey Handley, M.Sc has hundreds of hours of experience as a classroom instructor for Minecraft-based science and computer science classes. She is also the COO and co-founder of ThoughtSTEM.
Sample Chapters
minecraft modding for kids for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
Modding Minecraft allows players to make large interactive modifications to their Minecraft worlds with a simple click of a button. Although you can build infinite mods, this book focuses on creating Minigames within Minecraft, where players can compete in single-player and multi-player mode. Designing and coding the Minigames requires coding, but with the help of LearnToMod, you can create your own Minigame to play with friends!
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Minecraft
One benefit of using LearnToMod, aside from getting to learn how to program, is that you get your own, private Minecraft server. You can run all your mods or just play! Sometimes, though, it’s fun to play with friends. And luckily, you have a way to add your LearnToMod friends to your private Minecraft server so that you can show them all the awesome mods you have made — or play one of the minigames you’ve made by following the instructions in this book.
When you code in Minecraft, you can use a random integer to make your code behave in random ways. An integer is just a number; the random integer Math block in LearnToMod chooses a random number between two numbers (1 and 10, for example) every time the code is run.
Using integers in Minecraft.
The first time you run this code, the result might be 5; the second time, it might be 8; and so on.
Minecraft
One neat thing about Minecraft is that some realistic physics are at play within the game. For example, if you have water and you put ice in it, it starts to freeze!
Okay, maybe in the real world, adding ice doesn’t make water freeze, but it does make it colder.
You can check out this cool effect in the Minecraft simulator at the LearnToMod site.
Before writing all the code to make a Minecraft Minigame, you need to design your game. The Gameplay Loop is a simple process that you can follow to make sure your game is fun, challenging, and complete.
The Gameplay Loop has four parts:
Start: Create a basic scene.
Goal: Add a way to win and lose.
Challenges: Make winning more difficult.
Minecraft
After Iteration 1 you can move on to Iteration 2 and add in another player so that your Minecraft game becomes a multiplayer game. To add Player2, follow these simple steps:
Start with main and look at the first function, SetupMultiplayer. Add another variable named Player2, and put the Minecraft username of the second player there.
Knowing how to create drones, move them, and use them to place blocks allows you to build anything you can imagine in Minecraft. Building large, complex structures, however, requires lots of code, and the whole process can get confusing.
Before making a large, complex structure, explore how to make a smaller structure so that you can understand the mechanics of building with drones.
When the code in your Minecraft mod isn’t working the way you want, such as when you make a row of eight bricks instead of two rows of four bricks, it may have an error, or bug. If your code has a bug in it, you have to debug it, or fix it. Writing large, complex mods makes it even more likely that you’ll run into mistakes that are hard to find.
Minecraft
Here, you learn how to plan a mod that, when run in Minecraft, causes a block to be thrown from your location. When the block lands, it causes an explosion, destroying anything around it. You can later modify this fun, powerful mod to have it do other things also, such as teleport you to where it landed.
Design the launch and explosion
Before you start coding, plan your strategy.
Modding (adding modifications to the game) is a great way to customize your experience in the game, and mods allow players to inject their own creativity into their open Minecraft worlds.One of the great things about Minecraft modding is that anyone and everyone can add their own spin on things. You have the ability to create your own mods, share them with the community, and gain notoriety for creating some cool in-game ideas!
Minecraft
In Minecraft, experience points, XP for short, are collected from glowing experience orbs. When a player collects enough orbs, they “level up,” making their character more powerful and able to access new talents and equipment. Gaining experience and leveling up is important because you can spend experience points to enchant and repair items, which allows you to improve your weapons and advance in the game.
You can earn a few different kinds of Minecraft badges. Here, you find out how to earn Scramble badges, which are different from the other types: All the code blocks you need are already in the programming area — they’re just scrambled around on the screen in an animation.
To earn a Scramble badge, follow these steps:
Test the correct version of the code in the simulator or Minecraft to see what it’s supposed to do, like saying “Hello, World!
A Missing badge has nearly completed code that is missing only a few blocks. Your Minecraft challenge? To figure out which blocks are missing and where to place them. Without those missing blocks, the mod cannot run.
As with a Scramble badge, you use a smart strategy to earn a Missing badge. Follow these steps:
Identify how many blocks are missing, and identify where they’re missing.
Here, you find out how to complete the Functions challenge in Minecraft and earn the Functions badge. To start, be sure that you have opened the Functions challenge by clicking on the badge.
By the time you reach the end, you will know how to define two new functions: creeper1 and creeper2. This is the final code that you write.
Minecraft
One of the most commonly used construction commands in Minecraft is /fill. You can use this command to place lots of blocks in a certain area instantly. To use this command, follow these steps:
Go to a corner of the area you want to fill.
The Fill command affects blocks in a box-shaped region, up to 32,768 blocks in volume.
You can make art in many ways in Minecraft, but one of the most fun is making Pixel art. Pixel art is a great way to expand your game and make it more exciting for players who visit your world (server).
What is pixel art in Minecraft?
Pixel art is a new phenomenon that has become very popular in Minecraft. A player can create basically anything by placing enough blocks in the correct pattern.
After you have earned at least ten badges, you might have an idea for your own creative Minecraft mod that you want to write. Just have your idea handy and follow these steps:Make a Minecraft Mod with LearnToMod Software.Minecraft is an awesome game because it gives its community the ability to make their own modifications (mods) to the game through custom coding and third-party platforms.
Minecraft
You can make lots of projectile effects in Minecraft in addition to exploding. Rather than rebuild all the projectile code from scratch, you can abstract the projectile state-machine (make it a projectile state-machine for any effect, not just exploding) and create a library that helps you build a lot of different projectiles.
Minecraft
A function is a way to group a lot of code and then name it. In Minecraft, you make a new function (or define or write a new function) when you drag a function block, change its name, and add code inside it. You call a function when you drag the specific function block into another function, like the main function.
A drone in Minecraft is an invisible, flying robot that can move around and place blocks and entities at its location. Building large structures is made much easier when you can use drones. Minecraft drones move faster than typical player movement and can more easily reach higher places, as opposed to having to craft and use player-made items like ladders.
Before you jump in and begin coding your Minecraft mod, you first need to outline it. After you understand the structure of your mod and how you want to approach breaking it up into functions, you can outline it in LearnToMod.
Follow these steps:
Go to mod.learntomod.com and click on Mod at the top of the screen.
Minecraft
Before playing your Minecraft mod, identify the different test cases to make sure that your game is working properly. Test cases are the different ways to test your mod to check whether it’s behaving correctly.
Before you write a test case, make two lists that spell out
What you will test: For example: Break the melon block.
After you write your first mod, the next task you take on is to run the mod in Minecraft. The third badge, Run Your Mod spells out the steps to do this:Click the Mod button at the bottom of the programming environment.You can see the button in the lower left corner.
When you click on it, you see a message.This message lets you know that the mod was successfully sent to your Minecraft account.
Writing mods and testing them is fun, but being able to have your friends test them in their Minecraft worlds can help you and your friends come up with creative mods, because you can get new ideas.
After you write some code, have your friends test it for you — it’s a good way to find bugs and become a better modder.
The first thing to do when designing a new Minecraft mod is to sketch out the result you want. Keep these guidelines in mind when you’re sketching out your mod:
Use graph paper. You can sketch out your mod more accurately on graph paper than on blank paper. This is what graph paper looks like. You can look at each box on the graph paper as a single block in Minecraft.
Minecraft
Minecraft modding gives you the ability to spawn entities and add inventory items that you might need. In the Inventory and Entity Commands badge set, you can find badges that show you how to spawn entities (for example, make creepers and cows appear) using drones and how to programmatically add objects to the inventory (make diamond swords or redstone appear).
To test your multiplayer game, launch Minecraft and go to the LearnToMod server. Then type the command /open. This opens your Minecraft world to anyone else who has access to the LearnToMod server, but the only way they can get in is if they know the number that you see.
You see this message, but your number will probably be different.
Minecraft
In the Drones and Locations set of badges are specific badges related to Minecraft locations. The fun part about having the location of a player or drone is that you can make things happen directly at that location, such as strike lightning.
Use Locations to strike lightning on yourself in Minecraft
Make sure you’re in Creative mode while in Minecraft when you test this badge.
Minecraft
Before you jump into making a Minecraft game, spend some time designing it so that you can prevent major errors when you go to develop it. You should always design your code before writing it. When you have a program that is complex, like a game, this rule becomes critical because it has so many pieces of code that could introduce errors.
Minecraft
The LearnToMod online software walks you through a series of challenges that you complete in order to earn Minecraft badges. These challenges help show you basic programming skills and how to make Minecraft mods.
Here, you learn how to log in to the LearnToMod online software, create and run your first mod, and share that mod with other modders.
When players refer to Minecraft functions, it is referencing one of two scenarios: using functions when writing code for your own mod OR the in-game /function command that allows a player to run a specific list of commands. We’ll go through how, in both instances, functions can be used to effectively by players to manipulate the game, execute specific actions, and ultimately make the game easier.
Minecraft modding is a fun way to add your own spin on the gaming world and learn some coding at the same time. The ability to code is a good skill to have and can be useful in other things, as well.When you’re ready to write your first Minecraft mod, click on the Learn tab to go back to the list of badges, and then click on the Write Your First Mod badge.
Minecraft
Here, you learn how to write and debug the first function for a Minecraft mod that builds a house. This process is referred to as building a one-click house, because whenever you’re in Minecraft with one-click capability, you can have a house.
Start a new mod titled Simple_House.
Design a simple house on paper
First, sketch out the house on paper.
Minecraft
You can make a Minecraft mod that builds a house. This process is known as building a one-click house, because whenever you’re in Minecraft with one-click capability, you can have a house. Once you have the first function written, you will need to add walls and a roof to your house.
Prepare to write the second function for your house
Before writing the second function, you have to make sure that the drone is in the correct location.
To mod Minecraft, you have to write code. Luckily, the LearnToMod Software walks you through that! One of the first things that you should learn is how to make drones in Minecraft and use them to build structures.
Drones are invisible robots that can move and place blocks of certain types, or even spawn entities (like Creepers)!
Minecraft
Modding Minecraft allows players to make large interactive modifications to their Minecraft worlds with a simple click of a button. Although you can build infinite mods, this book focuses on creating Minigames within Minecraft, where players can compete in single-player and multi-player mode. Designing and coding the Minigames requires coding, but with the help of LearnToMod, you can create your own Minigame to play with friends!
Minecraft
After you have completed an iteration of the Spleef game, you can repeat the gameplay loop and make the Minecraft game more fun, challenging, and unique. Here, you will be taken through four examples in each of the parts of the gameplay loop so that you can
Add a lava platform underneath the diamond arena.
Challenge your player to destroy 200 blocks.
Minecraft
On the second iteration of the gameplay loop, you can add more levels to your Minecraft game. You can also take this time to make the arena more unique and personalized, or change the item you make the player break to go on to the next level.
Start: Make the arena unique
Add some designs to the arena floor. Here, you can see where two //hcyl WorldEdit commands were used to make one hollow cylinder of glass and one of diamond.
Minecraft
After you have set up the initial scene, you can use the scene for a Minecraft game. The arena function stays the same, but you add a melon block on the opposite side of the arena from the player.
This shows the new function, SetupGame, which creates the arena, places the melon block, and puts the player in the starting position.
Minecraft
When you build any Minecraft game, the first thing you need is a basic scene for the game. For Monster Arena, you need a large, enclosed area. This shows the kind of arena you build — a large, circular platform that has a radius of 20 blocks. Surrounding the arena is a fence, reinforced with stone. The fence is required so that neither the monsters nor the player can leave the arena throughout the game.
Minecraft
The first step in creating your Minecraft game is to build the scene. These instructions explain how to create the scene for a basic game called Spleef. The scene in Spleef is an arena that has a fence around it.
To make this arena, you use the ArenaBuilder library on LearnToMod. A library is a mod that is already written for you.
Minecraft
In Minecraft, you have no way to indicate that you no longer want to trigger events. To trigger an event means that Minecraft recognizes that the event has happened and then calls the function that was set up in the event call.
For example, this shows the SetupPlayer function, which has an event setup block in it.
Minecraft
After your Minecraft mod has an arena to play in, you need to make a way for the player to win and lose. The easiest version of the goal for Spleef is this:
Win: You win if you stay on the diamond platform.
Lose: You lose if you fall through the platform.
It’s impossible to lose now because players don’t make blocks below them disappear.
Minecraft
You will be well on your way to Minecraft modding success if you make sure to do two things for all of your mods: refactor your mods and test, test, test!
Refactor your mods
A mod that starts to grow too big for you to remember it all can cause a lot of problems because if you try to make changes, you might make changes in the wrong function.
Minecraft modding can offer you a way to show your individuality in the gaming world. Video games are made up of thousands of lines of code. Code makes players (like you) able to explore new worlds, interact with characters, and have fun.
Some games, like Minecraft, allow players to add their own code to the games to create new worlds, challenges, or even characters.
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