← Back to All Camp Reviews

Retro Arcade Coding

How to Access Projects

Your Ninja coded real arcade-style games in MakeCode Arcade this week — and brought home a handheld game console (Meowbit, PyBadge, or PyGamer) loaded with their games. Every Ninja's project is also published to our class Padlet so you can play and edit at home in three steps:

  1. Open the Padlet board for your ninja's week. Every Ninja in the class has a tile with their published game.
    Jun 29 AM Padlet → Jul 27 PM Padlet →
  2. Find your ninja's tile and click the share link. The link opens your ninja's project in MakeCode Arcade (free, runs in any browser, no install).
  3. Play, edit, or load onto the console. Hit the green Play button in the editor to play in the browser. Or plug the handheld console into a USB port and drag the game over to load it. From here your Ninja can keep tinkering, adding sprites, tweaking gameplay, and building new levels.

What We Covered This Week

Throughout the camp, Ninjas coded seven real arcade-style games in MakeCode Arcade — learning the same concepts professional game developers use: coordinates, velocity, gravity, functions, arrays, and conditionals. It's block-based to start, with a one-toggle bridge to real JavaScript or Python. Click any topic to expand.

MakeCode Basics: Sprites & Pixel Art Selfie
  • Met MakeCode Arcade — built their first project, toured the simulator, code blocks, and coding area
  • Built Bring Sprites to Life — added a sprite, moved it with buttons, kept it on screen, gave it speech, added a background
  • Met their personal handheld console (Meowbit, PyBadge, or PyGamer) and uploaded their first game to the device
  • Held Arcade Playtesting — swapped consoles and gave each other "Glow" and "Grow" feedback (real game-designer practice)
  • Built a Pixel Art Selfie — designed a custom character in the sprite editor and saved to assets
Maze Games & Tilemaps
  • Played Robot Maze in real life — one ninja becomes the "robot," the rest verbally code them through an obstacle course (intro to sequence)
  • Talked about what makes a great maze game — walls, start, end, obstacles, timer
  • Built a Scrolling Maze Game with a tilemap, marked walls, a start tile, and an end tile
  • Coded the win condition — sprite-overlap on the END tile triggers game-over WIN with a visual effect
  • Customized with sounds, a splash title, "oof" speech bubbles when hitting a wall, and a score tracker
Physics & Functions: Jumping Game & Retro Pong
  • Learned coordinates, velocity, and acceleration — the math that makes games feel alive
  • Built a Jumping Game (Donkey Kong / Star Wars style) — player sprite jumps with negative velocity, falls with positive acceleration (gravity!), score updates each laser, game-over on overlap
  • Met functions — reusable named blocks of code like createBall, createLeftPaddle, createRightPaddle
  • Built Retro Pong (the original 1972 arcade game) — ball bounces off walls and paddles, computer paddle follows the ball's y-position (AI opponent!)
  • Star Challenge: turned Retro Pong into a 2-player game
Image Arrays: Space Invaders & Robot Attack
  • Learned image arrays — storing multiple sprites in a list so the game can cycle through them
  • Built Space Invaders — rows of enemy sprites, sprite overlaps, lives, score
  • Started Robot Attack (Part 1) — designed a custom tilemap and laid out the world
Robot Attack Finale & Arcade Celebration
  • Finished Robot Attack — added text arrays for dialogue, win/lose conditions, a countdown, and multi-level design
  • Customized their game with personal sprites, music, and difficulty tuning
  • Loaded the final game onto their handheld console
  • Wrapped with the Arcade Party & Camp Celebration — parents and community came in to play every Ninja's game

What's Next?

Camp week is over, but the coding doesn't have to stop. Join us for our next FREE workshop on August 22 — 90 minutes of hands-on coding and AI.

Workshops

GRADES 2-8

One-Time
90 min

Try coding and AI through beginner-friendly, hands-on projects. Workshops are a great way for kids to explore STEM and see what Code Ninjas is all about.

Enroll Now

Or come in for a free 30-minute trial →

Moments in the Dojo

Links
Student Hours
  • Monday: 5 PM - 7 PM
    Tuesday: 5 PM - 7 PM
    Wednesday: 5 PM - 7 PM
    Thursday: Closed
    Friday: Closed
    Saturday: 9 AM - 1 PM
Follow Us

Feel free to call or text us during business hours. Please note: our doors open only when classes are in session.

Copyright © 2026, Code Ninjas West Katy.
All rights reserved.