Learning to Code with a Boardgame

markmcb writes "While some of us cling tight to our memories of Apple-filled classrooms playing The Oregon Trail and driving our Turtle around in Logo, children today have many other ways to learn about the inner-working of computers and the code that drives them. Wired.com is running an interesting article about a boardgame in which players must use simple logic similar to that used in programming to get their skier down the mountain. From the article: 'Using basic math, players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line. The trick, however, is learning which paths are open to you using only programmer jargon like 'if (X==1)' then you can take the green path or 'while (X4) you can take the orange path,' where X is the roll of the die.'"

Comments

Actual squares from the game

[Radres]

"Job outsourced to India! Go directly to trade school, do not buy a house, do not get laid."

"High school reunion time! The same guy who kicked your ass every day in high school and barely passed wood shop laughs at you because he makes more than you as a plumber while you wasted 4 years at college. Go back 3 spaces."

SkiFree!

[sonixtwo]

Maybe some kid will figure out how to finally get past that damn monster!!

Looks boring

[LordNimon]

I tried reading the rules, but they're hard to understand just by reading the web page (and yes, I'm a programmer). From what I gather, there are no real decisions that the player makes. That is, you roll the dice and your move is based solely on that dice roll and whatever square you happen to be on.

What would be cooler is if while playing the game, you had to build a "program" of sorts, and you can't win the game until your program produces a specific output. You could then compete against other players for resources needed to finish your program. This would allow you multiple ways to win based mostly on your ability to understand programming concepts.

I see this game as a cool idea, but it's really just a first step.