Make Your First Scratch Game — A Kids' Step-by-Step Guide

Your child already plays games all the time, and just asked: "Can I make my own game?" The answer is yes, it's free, and it can be finished in one afternoon.

This guide covers six steps from empty to a game someone else can actually play. Written so a child can follow it alone, and so you understand what they're actually doing.

What Is Scratch

Scratch is a free program from MIT Media Lab for building games, animations, and interactive stories without typing any code — kids snap together colorful blocks like a puzzle.

Three things to know before starting:

• Completely free. Runs directly in the browser at scratch.mit.edu, nothing to install.
• Works on a laptop or tablet. Unlike Roblox Studio, which only runs on a computer, Scratch just needs a modern browser.
• No fluent reading required. Full Scratch (age 7+) uses short-text blocks; ScratchJr for ages 5-6 uses no text at all.