Table of Contents
Overview
Overview to Alice – (Start here to understand the basics of Alice 2.2)
Alice 2.2 is a fantastic educational tool for anyone looking to dive into the world of programming, especially if you’re interested in game development. If you dream of making your own car game or any type of interactive digital world, Alice provides an intuitive, visual environment to learn the fundamental concepts. This guide will walk you through a series of tutorials designed to get you started with Alice, even if you have no prior coding experience. From understanding the interface to creating complex interactions, these lessons will empower you to bring your game ideas to life. Let’s begin your journey into game creation with Alice!
Essentials of Alice Tutorials
(From the built-in Alice Tutorials)
Alice Lesson 01 – Tutorials 1 & 2
Alice Lesson 02 – Tutorial 3
Alice Lesson 03 – Tutorial 4
Note: For tutorials that require starter worlds or additional files, these can typically be found within the Alice 2.2 files folder, often located in a shared drive or accessible online depending on your learning environment.
Essentials of Alice Tutorials
(From Duke University http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice09/)
Consider these for extra foundational knowledge in Alice. These can serve as extra credit if you are in a structured learning environment.
Name: The Essentials of Alice (Bunny) (pdf) Level: Beginner Time: 15 minutes Prerequisite: Overview to Alice, Alice Lessons 1- 4 (above) Description: This introductory Alice tutorial guides you through creating a world featuring a bunny. It’s perfect for getting your first taste of Alice’s capabilities, covering essential concepts like scene setup and using built-in methods to control objects within your game world.
Save as “Beginner Bunny”
Name: The Essentials of Alice (Kangaroo) (pdf) Level: Beginner Time: 15 minutes
Prerequisite: Overview to Alice, Alice Lessons 1- 4 (above)
Description: Similar to the Bunny tutorial, this short Alice lesson walks you through building a world with a kangaroo. It’s another excellent starting point to quickly grasp what Alice can do, focusing on scene composition and leveraging pre-programmed object behaviors.
Save as “Beginner Kangaroo”
Introduction to Alice Tutorials
(From Duke University http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice09/)
Choose one of these tutorials to proceed.
Name: An Introduction to Alice (pdf) Level: Beginner Time: 1 hour
Prerequisite: Any of the previous 4 beginning tutorials.
Description: This Alice tutorial is designed for first-time users to learn the fundamentals of Alice programming. Featuring an astronaut and a humvee, you’ll explore basic object manipulation and world interaction, essential steps towards making your own games, perhaps even a car game!
Save as “Beginner Space”
Name: Getting Started with Alice Level: Beginner Time: 1 Hour
Prerequisite: Any of the previous 4 beginning tutorials.
Description: This Alice tutorial introduces core concepts for game development in Alice. You’ll learn how to add objects to your scene, arrange the environment, create and use custom methods for object behavior, control the camera perspective, and set up basic interactive events. It’s designed to be accessible for younger learners (8+) but is also a great starting point for anyone new to Alice.
Save as “Beginner Fish Fairy”
Beginning Alice Tutorials
*(From Duke University http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice09/***)
Select one of the following tutorials to deepen your Alice skills.
Name: Princess and Dragon Introduction to Alice Level: Beginner Time: 45 Minutes per part
Prerequisite: Either of the two Introduction to Alice Tutorials or their equivalent.
Description: This comprehensive Alice tutorial is divided into four parts and expands on the basics. You’ll learn to populate your worlds with objects, design scenes, write new methods to define object actions, master camera controls for dynamic views, implement event handling for user interaction, and much more within the Alice environment.
Save as: “Beginner Princess and Dragon”
Name: Skater World: Learning to Program Level: Beginner Time: 45 Minutes per part
Prerequisite: Either of the two Introduction to Alice Tutorials or their equivalent.
Description: This four-part Alice tutorial, “Skater World,” focuses on programming logic and game elements. You’ll discover how to add objects to your scene, adjust their properties, create custom methods for unique actions, control the camera to enhance visual storytelling, import and animate 2D images to enrich your game world, and even incorporate 3D text and sound effects to create a more immersive experience.
Save as: “Beginner Skater World”
Name: Learning to Program with Alice Level: Beginner Time: 45 Minutes per part Prerequisite: Either of the two Introduction to Alice Tutorials or their equivalent. Description: Similar to the Princess and Dragon tutorial, this four-part Alice tutorial guides you through adding objects, setting up engaging scenes, writing methods to control object behavior, managing camera perspectives, and implementing events for interactivity. It covers a wide range of fundamental Alice skills applicable to various game types.
Save as: “Beginner Outdoor Adventure”
Topic Tutorials
*(From Duke University http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice09/***)
Topical Alice tutorials are designed to provide focused experience on specific Alice programming concepts. It’s recommended to complete one of the one-hour beginner tutorials or a set of the four-part beginner tutorials before tackling these.
These tutorials are categorized by difficulty: Level I, Level II, and Level III. Always check the prerequisites for each tutorial to ensure you have the necessary foundational knowledge.
It’s beneficial to review the Intermediate and Advanced tutorials below to help guide your selection of Beginner tutorials, ensuring you build the skills needed for more complex projects later on.
Level I Topic Tutorials
Choose one of these Level I tutorials to explore specific Alice topics.
Name: How Tall Are You? Introducing Decisions and the use of Functions Level: Level I Time: 30 minutes
Prerequisites: one-hour beginner tutorial, or 4 part beginner tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial introduces decision-making in programming using IF/ELSE statements and functions. You’ll learn to create scenarios where actions depend on conditions (true/false), using functions to determine object properties like height and distance. The tutorial involves a fun scenario with a guy and a penguin figuring out who is taller.
Save as: TTL1 How Tall Are You
Name: Teaching Characters to Walk: Learning Methods, Part 1 Level: Level I Time: 30-45 minutes
Prerequisites: Any Essentials Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on the fundamentals of writing methods in Alice. You’ll learn to program a turtle to walk and a kangaroo to hop, then set up a race between them. This is a great introduction to defining custom behaviors for objects in your Alice worlds, a key skill for game development.
NOTE: The tutorial mentions a file “MethodStart.a2w”. This file is typically located in the Alice 2.2 Files folder.
Save as: TTL1 Learning Methods Pt 1
Name: Using Parameters to Simplify Your Methods: Learning Methods, Part 2 Level: Level I Time: 20 minutes
Prerequisites: Learning Methods Part 1 Description: Building upon “Learning Methods, Part 1,” this Alice tutorial teaches you how to enhance your methods using parameters for greater flexibility and reusability. Continuing with the turtle and kangaroo scenario, you’ll also learn to save and reuse your custom characters in different Alice projects and explore the “isShowing” property to control object visibility.
Save as: TTL1 Learning Methods Pt 2
Name: Buttons and Birds: Introduction to Events Level: Level I Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: Learning Methods or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial introduces basic interactive events, allowing users to engage with your Alice world through keyboard presses and mouse clicks. You’ll learn to implement both keyboard and mouse click events, making your Alice creations more interactive. This tutorial builds on the method creation skills learned in earlier lessons.
Save as: TTL1 Intro to Events
Name: Lights Camera Action! Part 1: Camera Control Level: Level I Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on camera manipulation, a vital aspect of directing the user’s view in your Alice games or stories. You’ll learn how to move and control the camera both during scene setup and dynamically during animation using dummy cameras, enhancing your storytelling and game presentation. It also reinforces object positioning skills.
Save as: TTL1 Lights Camera Action Pt 1
Level II Topic Tutorials
Choose two Level II tutorials or focus on “Headshots in Alice” for a deeper dive into specific Alice functionalities.
Name: Headshots in Alice Level: Level II Time: 1 Hour
Prerequisites: Any Essentials Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial teaches you how to integrate custom images into your Alice worlds by placing faces on billboards. You’ll learn to use billboards to display images, control camera movement to focus on these images, and utilize the ‘invisible’ property for creative effects. Resources including pre-made “headshot” images are often provided to enhance the learning experience.
Indeed, that’s Mr. Platten himself, integrated into an Alice 2.2 world using the techniques taught in the tutorial!
Using .png files for images is recommended over .jpg files as .png files support transparency, allowing for better visual integration without backgrounds. Remember to ask permission before using someone’s likeness in your Alice projects. Requests for specific headshots can often be made to tutorial providers.
Save as: TTL2 Headshots
Name: Making Objects Move in Unison: Using Lists Level: Level II Time: 30 minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial explores the use of lists to coordinate object movements. You’ll learn how to make groups of objects perform actions simultaneously or sequentially, demonstrated with a scenario involving a group of ninja characters. Lists are powerful for managing collections of objects in game environments.
Save as: TTL2 Objects move in unison
Name: Creating a Fancier Chicken – Inheritance Level: Level II Time: 45 minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Parameters Description: This Alice tutorial delves into object customization using inheritance. You’ll modify an existing Alice class (the chicken) to create a new, enhanced version. This involves inheriting properties and methods from the original class and adding or modifying them to create unique behaviors and appearances.
Save as: TTL2 Fancy Chicken
Name: Scene Change Level: Level II Time: Approx. 30 minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on creating dynamic scene transitions. You’ll learn to animate camera movements to smoothly transition between different views and import special objects that provide access to Alice’s template ground environments, enabling seamless scene changes in your stories or games.
Note: The ground file needed for this tutorial can usually be found in the Alice 2.2 Files folder.
Save as: TTL2 Scene Change
Name: Lights, Camera, Action! Part 2: Light Level: Intermediate Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: Expanding on visual effects, this Alice tutorial teaches you to use Light objects to enhance your scenes. You’ll learn to add and manipulate lights to create dramatic scenes, like one inspired by the Nutcracker. The tutorial also covers adjusting atmosphere color and fog to achieve effects like sunrise, and introduces concepts like the vehicle property, loops, and object opacity.
Save as: TTL2 Lights Camera Action Pt 2
Name: Lights Camera Action! Part 3: BDE Events Level: Level II Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Bunny Eat Broccoli Loop tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial introduces Behavior-Driven Event (BDE) events, a more advanced type of event in Alice. You’ll learn to create and understand the components of a BDE, which allows for more complex and reactive game interactions. Functions and methods are integral to utilizing BDEs effectively.
Save as: TTL2 Lights Camera Action Pt 3
Name: Simple Quiz Level: Level II
Time: Approx. 30 minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Introduction to Functions, Variables Description: This Alice tutorial guides you through creating interactive quizzes within Alice. You’ll learn to use the three different “ask user” functions to gather input from the user and create simple question-and-answer scenarios, adding an interactive element to your Alice projects.
Save as: TTL2 Simple Quiz
Name: Shark vs. TRex: Understanding AsSeenBy Level: Level II
Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial explains the concept of asSeenBy, which is crucial for relative positioning and movements in Alice. Using a scenario with a shark and a T-Rex interacting over a coconut, you’ll learn how objects perceive each other in the Alice world. The tutorial also touches on methods, sound integration, animation styles, and event handling.
Sound File (This is the Jaws sound file. Right-click and choose “Save Target As…” to download it.)
Save as: TTL2 Shark vs TRex
Name: Let’s Play Catch: Keeping Score in Alice Level: Level II Time: 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial guides you in creating a simple game with scoring mechanics. You’ll build a catch game where the player must catch a ball, learning about collision detection to determine successful catches, implementing scorekeeping, and using dummy objects to track positions within the game.
Save as: TTL2 Keeping Score
Name: What can burn in the Junkyard? Creating Functions Level: Level II Time: 30 – 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on creating custom functions to add interactivity to your Alice worlds. You’ll build an interactive scenario in a junkyard where you restrict which objects can be burned, emphasizing the use of functions, parameters, and nested IF/ELSE statements for complex decision-making within your Alice programs.
Save as: TTL2 What can burn
Name: Checking for Collisions Level: Level II Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Introduction to Functions Description: This Alice tutorial specifically explains how to create and use functions to detect collisions between objects. You’ll learn to write functions that test for overlaps between objects, a fundamental technique for creating interactive games and simulations in Alice.
Save as: TTL2 Collisions
Name: Restricting Events Level: Level II Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables Description: This Alice tutorial addresses how to manage game progression by restricting events based on game state. Using a chicken game example, you’ll learn to fix a common issue where players could advance prematurely by implementing conditional events that ensure tasks are completed in the correct order, enhancing game logic and flow.
Note: The tutorial refers to a starting Alice world file named “Restricting Events Setup.a2w,” usually found in the Alice 2.2 Files folder.
Save as: TTL2 Restricting Events
Name: Animating Objects in Groups: Using Arrays and Lists Level: Level II Time: 30 minute
Prerequisites: 1 Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This Alice tutorial explores the use of arrays and lists to animate groups of objects efficiently. You’ll learn to control animations of multiple objects simultaneously, sequentially, or in subgroups, using chickens as example characters to demonstrate these techniques.
Note: The tutorial mentions a starting world file named “Animating Objects starting world.a2w,” typically found in the Alice 2.2 Files folder.
Save as: TTL2 Animating Objects in Groups
Level III Topic Tutorials
Complete Level III tutorials totaling at least 2 hours of work based on the listed times to further advance your Alice skills.
Name: Kangaroo Visits Friends: Making Methods More Flexible with Parameters Level: Level III Time: 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial Description: This advanced Alice tutorial teaches you to create more versatile methods using parameters. You’ll program a kangaroo to visit multiple friends using a single, parameterized method, making your code more efficient and adaptable. This method will use parameters as placeholders for different animals and phrases, showcasing the power of parameterized methods in Alice.
Save as: TTL3 Kangaroo visit
Name: Changing Color: Advanced Functions Level: Level III Time: 45 Minutes Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Using Functions Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on advanced function creation, including the use of variables and random numbers. You’ll learn to create functions that introduce variability into your Alice worlds, such as randomly changing an object’s color or cycling through a set of colors when a chicken or snowman is clicked.
Save as: TTL3 Changing Color
Name: Bunny Eat Broccoli: Repetition – Simple loops and Conditional loops Level: Level III Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Kangaroo Visits Friends (parameters) Description: This Alice tutorial introduces repetition using loops. You’ll program a bunny to eat broccoli using both simple loops and conditional loops (while loops). You’ll learn to move the bunny repeatedly towards broccoli using a simple loop and then refine the movement with a while loop that stops the bunny once it’s close enough to the broccoli, demonstrating efficient object interaction using loops and parameters.
Save as: TTL3 Bunny Broccoli
Name: Repetition Everywhere – comparing while in a method and as an event Level: Level III Time: 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial and Lights, Camera, Action Part 3 BDE tutorial Description: Building on the BDE events tutorial, this Alice tutorial clarifies the use of while loops both within methods and as events. It compares while events to if statements and when events, and demonstrates how to use guards on BDEs to control when they are active, providing a deeper understanding of event management and conditional execution in Alice.
Save as: TTL3 Repetition
Name: Timer Tutorial Level: Level III Time: 30 Minutes
Prerequisites: 1-Hour or 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables, Parameters, Functions Description: This Alice tutorial guides you through creating a reusable timer in Alice. You’ll learn to implement a countdown timer that can be used in game development projects, utilizing variables, while loops for time progression, parameters for timer customization, and functions to encapsulate timer logic.
Save as: TTL3 Timer Tutorial
Name: Alice Pong Level: Level III Time: 1.5 Hours
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables, BDE Event, Parameters Description: This tutorial aims to guide you through creating a two-player Pong game in Alice. You will explore different methods for collision detection in Alice, learn two approaches to using keyboard input for game control, and use variables to manage game state. BDE events are used to orchestrate game logic and integrate different game components. This is a comprehensive project for learning game development in Alice.
Save as: TTL3 Alice Pong
Name: Creating a Boat Racing Game in Alice Level: Level III Time: 1.5 Hours
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables, Lists. Description: This Alice tutorial guides you in developing a boat racing game. You’ll learn to steer a boat through arches, implement scoring for each successful pass-through, and incorporate a timer to challenge players to beat the clock. This tutorial utilizes lists for managing game elements and variables for tracking game progress and score. While not directly a car game, the principles of game mechanics, scoring, and time-based challenges are transferable to car game development.
Save as: TTL3 Boat Racing
Name: Treasure Hunt: A Click Adventure Game Level: Level III Time: 1.5 Hours
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Variables, Parameters, Scene Change Description: This Alice tutorial shows you how to create a point-and-click adventure game, similar to early adventure games. You’ll develop a treasure hunt game where players navigate an island environment to find treasure. The tutorial covers scene changes for location transitions, parameters for interactive elements, and variables to manage game state and player progress.
Save as: TTL3 Treasure Hunt
Name: Piñata Game: Keeping Score in Alice Level: Level III Time: 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Timer, BDE Event Description: This Alice tutorial focuses on implementing scoring within a game context. You’ll create a piñata hitting game where players swing a bat to hit a swinging piñata. You’ll learn to track scores, use timers to manage game duration or events, and integrate BDE events to manage game actions and scoring logic.
Save as: TTL3 Piñata Game
Name: Wizard Game: Class Level Variables Level: Level III Time: 45 Minutes
Prerequisites: 4-Part Introduction Tutorial, Introduction to Functions Description: In this Alice tutorial, you’ll create a game where a wizard collects gems. You’ll learn to use class-level variables to manage game-wide states and restrictions. The wizard game involves teleportation and gem finding, and you’ll use functions and if/else statements to control game logic and display game information dynamically.
Save as: TTL3 Wizard Game
Name: Cooking Show Level: Level III Time: 1 hour
Description: This Alice tutorial guides you through creating a cooking show game. Players will interact by clicking and dragging ingredients into a bowl in a specific order. You’ll utilize collision detection for ingredient interaction, restrict events to enforce correct order, use parameters for ingredient properties, and manage game state with variables, integrating various Alice programming concepts into a cohesive game.
Prerequisites: 4 part beginner tutorial, parameters
Save as: TTL3 Cooking Show
FINAL PROJECT
Design and create your own Alice project—whether it’s a story or a game—that reflects what you’ve learned. Aim for something fun and personally engaging. Save your final creation as “My Final Project”.
Download Alice 2.2 for free here. (Please download to your home computer.)
All lessons from Duke University are credited to: Susan Rodger and the Alice Team at Duke University. License terms for Duke University content can be found here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
