The cursor blinked and Angela typed in a line of code. She was writing the game logic for Curse of the Dust Bunnies 2. She texted Marcus. <Got the sketches yet?>

<Yep,> he typed back. <Sending them now.>

Marcus’s files popped up on her screen. He had drawn the dust bunny characters and the evil Boss Vacuum. The bunnies had little ears peeking out of their messy bodies. The Boss Vacuum looked mean.

<What about the vehicles?> Angela asked.

<Coming right up.> Marcus sent over another batch of files. These were the sketches for the slippers that the bunnies rode around in. They were pink and blue and fuzzy. He’d also included designs for the lint balls that the bunnies threw at Boss Vacuum and the other bad guys. The flying feather duster bad guys were the best. They had huge wings and dropped feathers on the bunnies from above.

<These are awesome,> texted Angela. <They look just like we discussed.>

Marcus and Angela had been planning out their video game for months. They had worked together to develop the game’s concept. Then, Marcus worked on the game’s visuals while Angela wrote the game logic. She had decided to use Python to code Curse of the Dust Bunnies 2, and so far it was working pretty well.

<When do you think it will be ready to test?> asked Marcus.

<Hopefully on Friday,> replied Angela. <I invited Lizzie and Patrick over to play it with us.>

Lizzie and Patrick had helped them test their first version of the game, Curse of the Dust Bunnies 1. That was a simpler game that Angela had coded with Scratch. In that version, you played as a good vacuum cleaner that moved around the house sucking up dust bunnies. The more bunnies you collected the higher your score. It was pretty basic. The only levels were the different rooms of the house.

Marcus had drawn the good vacuum, but the bunnies were just balls. And Angela had used a game engine to generate the rooms. Even though it was simple, Marcus and Angela were proud of their first attempt.

This second version was much more complicated. It was a lot of work, but if they pulled it off it would be epic. With Angela’s computer coding knowledge and Marcus’s computer art skills, it was sure to be great.