When comparing Scratch vs ImpactJS, the Slant community recommends Scratch for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Scratch is ranked 42nd while ImpactJS is ranked 57th. The most important reason people chose Scratch is:
Code is represented as [visual building blocks](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-use-Scratch/) that makes it easy to understand how a program is put together.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Visual
Code is represented as visual building blocks that makes it easy to understand how a program is put together.
Pro Great starting point for kids
Scratch was developed specifically for kids ages 8 and up as an exciting way to introduce them to technology. It's designed to be easy to learn, but still provides good depth in computational thinking.
Pro Easy to learn
Scratch is designed to teach computational thinking rather than focus on specific syntax. It was designed specifically to be easy to learn for anyone over the age of 8.
Pro Highly structured
The language is highly structured. Therefore, it gives you the essentials of how to think like a programmer and teaches you good programming practices from early on, so you could write clean, working and readable code in the future.
Pro No need to be able to type
Pro Can be used to create games
Pro Extensive documentation available to support development
ImpactJS has an active user community that busily produces tremendous resources including videos, books, tutorials, walkthroughs and more. There are also comprehensive class documentation available.
Pro Excellent collision detection system
Impact provides 2 types of collision detection; static and dynamic collisions. Both of which are easily integrated into game development.
Pro Extendable
Many plugins are available, including one called Impact++ which adds features like pathfinding and dynamic lighting.
Pro Level editor
Built-in map editor with support for tiling, collision layers, and actors.
Pro Optimized
Works with Box2d physics library, comes with all worthwhile elements for actors built in.
Pro Truly cross-platform allowing developers to build for anything
Extending the reach of a game developed with ImpactJS is easy due to the cross-platform nature the framework. There are Considerations around performance, resolution and audio, however all can be appropriately addressed when in development. Works in the browser via Canvas, even on mobile. Easily translatable into a packaged app.
Cons
Con For kids
For kids.
Con Won't get you a job
Scratch is not a language used in the workplace. Instead it teaches computational thinking, helping to create a foundation to aid in learning other languages.
Con Does not teach you programming
Learning Scratch might help you if you have high difficulty with logical thinking. However, starting with a proper programming language, especially an easy one, will give you the benefits of starting with something like Scratch and everything else.
Con Strange OOP
Scratch has a very strange implementation of OOP that is sprite based, and will become very confusing when you move to other languages.
Con Weird
It's straight up weird.
Con Inactive
The last update was in 2014.
Con Cost of $99
While most HTML5 frameworks are offered as free open source projects, ImpactJS has a one time cost and no free option.