Obby Maker: Build a Fair Obby

Before you start: try it once yourself

Build a stage yourself once before you start, about ten minutes. You will see exactly what the app tells your child.

1. Open the lesson. Go to mytekdev.com/try/obby?lesson=build-a-fair-obby&ref=fam-obby-1. The starter course has three stages along the bottom, under Stages: First Jumps, Lava Floor and Vanishing Bridge.
2. Play the course. Press Play the course at the top right. Run with the arrow keys or W A S D, jump with Space, and press Esc to stop.
3. Add a stage. Press + stage at the bottom. The box under Can it be finished? turns red: Nothing reaches the finish. From the start it is 20 across. A running jump clears 4 across, or 2 up.
4. Place a platform. Pick Platform on the left and click near the start pad. While you place it, the jump arc is blue if the runner can land and red if it cannot.
5. Find the edge. Drag the platform away from the start; it moves half a block at a time. The arc stays blue up to a gap of 4 and turns red past it.
6. Finish it. Keep adding pieces until the box says The finish can be reached, add a Checkpoint before your hardest jump, then press Play and run to the finish. The stage's button in the Stages strip now says done.

What you will see after pressing + stage.

The ideas, in plain words

An obby, short for obstacle course, is a game where a runner jumps from piece to piece to reach a finish. Game designers separate two kinds of hard. Fair hard is a jump the player can make with practice, so missing it feels like the player's own mistake and trying again feels worth it. Broken hard is a jump nobody can make, however many tries. In this app, with double jump off, a running jump between platforms at the same height clears 4 blocks across or 2 blocks up, so a level gap of 5 is never hard, only broken. Jumping down from a higher platform carries the runner farther: 2 blocks down, a gap of 5 can be made.

A checkpoint is the pad the runner goes back to after a fall. Where it goes decides how much a mistake costs. One placed just before a hard jump means a fall sends the runner back a short way, so the player gets many tries at the hard part without replaying everything before it. The app also checks every stage and says in a sentence whether the finish can be reached, but it cannot tell whether a stage is fun. Only a playtest, watching someone else play it, shows that.

Do it together

1. Open mytekdev.com/try/obby?lesson=build-a-fair-obby&ref=fam-obby-1. A short guide opens over the app; follow it together. It starts with Play the course at the top right: run with the arrow keys or W A S D, jump with Space, and press Esc to stop. Take turns until you have both finished all three stages.

   You'll know it worked when: Your child reaches the finish of First Jumps, Lava Floor and Vanishing Bridge.

2. Talk about the hardest jump. Was it possible? What would make it impossible? Then the rule: a running jump clears 4 blocks across or 2 blocks up, so a gap of 5 never works.

   You'll know it worked when: Your child can say the rule without looking: 4 across or 2 up.

3. The guide has your child press + stage at the bottom of the screen. Read the red box under Can it be finished? together.

   If you get stuck: If the guide already made a new stage, keep it and do not press + stage again, or you will have an extra empty one.

   You'll know it worked when: The box says nothing reaches the finish, which is 20 across from the start.

4. Your child picks Platform on the left and clicks near the start pad. While the platform is being placed, the jump arc is blue if the runner can land and red if it cannot. Drag it away from the start to find where blue turns red.

   If you get stuck: If the whole course disappears, New was pressed, which replaces the course. Undo brings it back.

   You'll know it worked when: The arc stays blue up to a gap of 4 and turns red past it.

5. Keep adding pieces until the box says the finish can be reached, then add a Checkpoint just before the hardest jump.

   You'll know it worked when: The box under Can it be finished? says the finish can be reached.

6. Press Play and run the stage from the start pad to the finish.

   If you get stuck: Play from here does not count. Use Play and run from the start pad.

   You'll know it worked when: The stage's button in the Stages strip says done.

7. Trade seats: you play your child's stage while they watch without helping. Then ask which jump they made hard on purpose, and whether that is where you got stuck.

   You'll know it worked when: You get stuck at the jump they meant to be hard, and with a few tries you can still make it.

Talk about it

Ask these while you work together. A child who has understood the lesson can answer them without help:

• How far can a running jump go across? How high?
• Why can nobody make a gap of 5 blocks?
• Show me the jump arc. What does its color tell you?
• Where is your checkpoint, and why there?
• Make this jump harder without breaking it.

Bring it into other subjects

• Math: make a table of every jump in your stage, with blocks across and blocks up. Which jump is closest to the rule, 4 across or 2 up? Is it the one you made hard on purpose? (Answers depend on the stage.)
• English: write the rules of your obby for a player who has never played, in three sentences or fewer.
• Art: use the Scenery tab (trees, arrows, lamps) to show the player where to go without any words.
• Computer science: pick a lava piece, then under Program, find When the runner meets it and click Open. Read the line that sends the runner back.

Quick check

Name: ______________________________

1. A running jump clears 4 blocks across. A gap of 5 blocks is: (A) hard but fair, (B) easy, (C) impossible: nobody can make it.

2. Why put a checkpoint just before a hard jump? (A) it makes the jump shorter, (B) a fall at the jump sends the runner back a short way, not to the start, (C) it makes the runner jump higher.

3. Someone's stage has a gap of 5 blocks between two platforms. Name one change that makes the jump fair but still hard.

Answers