As someone who is not really a programmer, and casting myself to the time before I started to learn how to program, I have to share one thing:
I would not watch/read those tutorials.
I mean, right now I am super hyped for those, but when I was starting - no so much. Sure, they all cover essential building blocks of how to program, but it is just that. They have no end goal that a beginner can strive towards. I only got into programming because I followed a pretty good tutorial from PICO-8 zine that walked me trough making a breakout.
I think you should follow basically the same structure as you have now, but frame it in a game. Even a top down shooter where you have a guy walking and shooting bad guys will be much more interesting to follow than just simple “rules learning.” Even walking and avoiding enemies would be better, anything that has an end goal. This gives both, a reference on how to use those newly found skills, and a great sense of achivement!
With that in mind, this is how I would approach it (with some Berzerk clone for instance)
Lessons 1-9 would stay the same
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- The program main function and game loop – pretty much the same, but thinking of establishing variables suitable for the game, thinking of IF functions for IF hit, die, etc.
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- Basic drawing functions (pixel, line, rectangle, bitmap, print) – display a premade character on the screen, draw some level will rect, line and display score and lives with print
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- Making your own bitmaps and importing them to Pokitto sourcecode – pretty much the same, but now making a Player, Enemies, Bullet? and explaining stuff like transparent colors
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- Getting input (Buttons) – same, but now you can move your character! Explaining a simple walk animation (2-4frames) and how to play it when button is pressed.
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- Making & importing sounds - same, but this time you get walk sound, shoot sound and death sound.
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- By this point, have a playable game: Create a level with solid walls. Spawn enemies, give them super basic AI, make them killable.
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- Load/save from the SD card - maybe level layouts, maybe some backgrounds?
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- How to use EEPROM to save game state - pretty much stays the same, but now we actually save a game state!
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- Using the I/O pins of the Pokitto PEX – no idea here
- 19 Compile and push the game to your Pokitto!