Game Dev Club this week - JetPack Jumper!

By The Code Zone team 25 June 2023 2 min read

Another week, another Scratch game for our GameDev Club members - this time we are playing Jetpack Jumper!

This game of the week is another space themed one (definitely a favourite amongst our mentors and members!) where we control a jetpack wielding Zonebot traversing through the night sky. Using your spacebar to keep him airborne, you need to help Zonebot collect as many coins as possible as he flies whilst also avoiding any UFOs that get in his way... alongside some missiles once they are coded in!

The Guided Hack for Jetpack Jumper involves creating a deadly missile which randomly shoots across the screen every 5 to 8 seconds. This is created by using clone generation coding along with some of our favourite randomisation code - however we decided to mix it up this week by also adding in some warning animation. To give Zonebot a warning about the missile, we first switch the sprite's costumes to a warning symbol for 2 seconds - then we set the x position to off screen before changing the costume to a missile and moving it across the screen with a repeat block. Visual and functional!

My members didn't think it was fair that the game got extra obstacles and weapons to take Zonebot down so of course we had to combat this by giving Zonebot some ammunition of his own. Armed with rockets, arrows or even lasers, our young coders hacked the game to make sure Zonebot got a fair chance. We also added some other cool hacks such as a coin magnent that made the coins gravitate to Zonebot the closer he got to themm as well as a shield to protect him against the missiles.

We have had a fantastic day here at The Code Zone and I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store for us

Cheers,

Jaz x

What a week in the clubs looks like

Posts like this one are what actually happens in a session, written by the mentors who ran it. A Game Dev Club session is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same mentor every week, online or at one of our in-person clubs.

That cap is deliberate: it is what makes it possible for a mentor to notice when a child has gone quiet, or has rebuilt the same game four weeks running because they are avoiding something harder.

Children build their own games rather than working through a set course. Levels move down as readily as up, so the work always fits, and staying where you are is a perfectly good outcome. Every mentor is DBS-checked and STEM-certified.

Most children start in Scratch or MakeCode and move to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up, and it is why a child who has gone quiet for three weeks does not simply go unnoticed.

More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join. Children can keep the camera off, type instead of speaking, take a break without it disrupting anyone, and step away and come back.

In 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society, and in 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers.

The blog is in two halves. Guides are the evergreen explainers written by the mentors who teach the clubs, covering the questions parents actually ask: what comes after Scratch, how to support a coding-mad child when you cannot code yourself, and what works for autistic and ADHD children.

Club news is the other half, and it is where posts like this one live: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups, written up by whoever ran the session. Neither is marketing. If you want to know what an hour actually looks like before you book anything, club news is the more honest read of the two.

The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details. Book a free taster session, see what it costs, or read about support for neurodivergent children.

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Game Dev Club this week - JetPack Jumper!

What a week in the clubs looks like

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