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Code Combat: Free, Open Source, Multiplayer Programming Lessons

Posted by Soulskill on from the ninjas-versus-rock-stars dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Looking for something to do this weekend? Code Combat recently released the first of their multi-player levels for the general public. Their goal is to enable users to learn JavaScript it a fun, game-structured way. There are a bunch of levels to teach programming basics and JavaScript syntax, showing users how to code the AI and send humans against Orcs. It ranges from simple, single-player movement problems all the way to complex, multiplayer, Warcraft-styled battles featuring multiple troop types and heroes. Best of all, the entire project is up on Github (MIT license) and it welcomes new submissions."

30 comments

  1. Look Great, I'm Gonna Give This a Try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish them the best!

  2. Quite Enjoyable by Fusspawn · · Score: 1

    Ive been enjoying this all afternoon. Good fun :)

    1. Re:Quite Enjoyable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad you like, I'm one of the cofounders, if you have any suggestions for us, would love to hear them, you can message me at george@codecombat.com

    2. Re:Quite Enjoyable by blackicye · · Score: 1

      Glad you like, I'm one of the cofounders, if you have any suggestions for us, would love to hear them, you can message me at george@codecombat.com

      Cute game, when's will be be seeing the Kickstarter? ;D

    3. Re:Quite Enjoyable by nemesisrocks · · Score: 1

      Glad you like, I'm one of the cofounders, if you have any suggestions for us, would love to hear them, you can message me at george@codecombat.com

      I'm gonna get pounded for this -- but it doesn't work in IE.

      Regardless of how much people like or dislike IE here, websites need to be cross-platform, and work across a wide range of browsers, not just Chrome/Firefox. Not to mention, the computers at most schools will be running Windows+IE.

    4. Re:Quite Enjoyable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The help text for this.say(...) needs a listing of all the strings it can contain. I can't seem to get the casing for "over here!" correct.

    5. Re:Quite Enjoyable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried this game out in IE11 just now and it worked fine for me, was able to play through a few levels.

      Pity you didnt include some details in your post instead of making assumptions and giving a useless speech.

    6. Re:Quite Enjoyable by gsaines · · Score: 2

      Thanks for mentioning this, we've tested the site back to IE10, but the JS support before that is so spotty that we could literally spend several months working to fix it and made the choice early on that it wouldn't be worth it, schools or no. With the time that it would take to support earlier versions of IE, we could produce an entirely new beginner campaign, which we're thinking we'll do in the near future.

    7. Re:Quite Enjoyable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you have work to do?

  3. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds fun. Well except for the Javascript part.

    1. Re:Hmmm by Fusspawn · · Score: 1

      could be worse, could be vb or something of equal horror

  4. warcraft style battles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you mean like killing mobs, doing quests and trying to level to 58 to go through the Dark Portal? Just kidding. Nice idea. thanks for sharing the link

  5. Cofounder Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If anyone has questions, would be happy to answer them!

    1. Re:Cofounder Here by radoni · · Score: 2

      If anyone has questions, would be happy to answer them!

      Timed out frequently (script not responding) and not exactly playable on my 2.2GHz core2duo 2GB ram laptop with Firefox 28.0 on Ubuntu Linux 14.04

      What are system requirements?

      --
      SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
    2. Re:Cofounder Here by bistromath007 · · Score: 1

      Is it alright if I appreciate the irony of a game that's supposed to teach people coding whose website does not seem to display properly in Firefox?

      Your big huge Youtube video is set to always-on-top, meaning that the page full of text explaining the game scrolls behind it, making it mostly unreadable without fiddling with two different scroll bars. See here, I've taken a pair of screenshots.

    3. Re:Cofounder Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hey Radoni, the game has pretty intense system requirements. We recommend Chrome on Windows/Mac with at least 4Gb of RAM. I've seen it run on slower laptops, but it seems to be hit or miss depending on the graphics card and CPU load. Linux is especially weak right now, unfortunately. Do you see the slowness all the time, or just when loading the levels?

    4. Re:Cofounder Here by gsaines · · Score: 1

      Sorry about that, irony indeed! We were working a bit too hard the other evening get it pushed and I fear our cross-browser testing was a bit shoddy. We have a github ticket for that and should get it pushed to the live site very soon. Thanks for the screenshots!

    5. Re:Cofounder Here by CaptQuark · · Score: 1

      It was fun playing. I was able to add a few blank lines then drag the commands from the "Available Spells" area to make the coding faster.

      ~~

  6. Retro by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those with a taste for low level and retro:

    Corewars

    FAQ

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:Retro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are a bunch of other coding games that we know of, not sure if people are interested, but here's a partial list:
      Hakitzu: http://www.kuatostudios.com/games/hakitzu/
      Kodable: http://www.surfscore.com/
      Robo Logic: https://itunes.apple.com/app/robo-logic/id300025550?mt=8
      Fightcode Game: http://fightcodegame.com/
      Nodewars: http://nodewar.com/
      Ruby Warrior: https://www.bloc.io/ruby-warrior#/
      Codemancer: http://importantlittlegames.com/
      Botlogic: http://BotLogic.us
      CodingPirates: http://constructingkids.com/codingpirates/
      Algobot: http://seriousgaming.fishingcactus.com/en/Projets/Algo-Bot/algo-bot_programming_technobel.html
      JS Dares: http://jsdares.com/

    2. Re:Retro by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 1

      Corewars was fun when I was a kid in the 80s. I even wrote a Red Code simulator for the Apple //e, using the low res graphics to show the status of the battle "ground". (Had to a delay in the main interpreter so people could watch watch the battle.)

      --
      Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
    3. Re:Retro by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 1

      There also was "Robot War" and "Droid Arena" (after RSL was added to the game) My girlfriend used to be one of the top players on DA.

      --
      Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
  7. This looks GREAT! by SethJohnson · · Score: 1

    Awesome work here.

    I used to play the old Robot Wars game on my Apple II+ as a kid. Super fun and that was basically requiring us to write in assembly. Glad to see someone has brought this type of competition back to the public. Major kudos!!

    I'm curious about the choice of javascript. I personally don't have a criticism against javascript, but I've recently been working with beanshell and python, so I'm wondering what's driving the javascript decision. Plans to support python or other languages later?

    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
    1. Re:This looks GREAT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Re: JS, it's a widely used language and the easiest one to start off with for a browser-based game. But oh yes, other languages are certainly on the docket and being worked on by the awesome open source community, check it out: https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/issues/72

      For the record, Python is mine and Nick's (the founder-devs) favorite language.

  8. Come a long way! by BronsCon · · Score: 1

    I'm glad to see this project has kept on since I learned about it at the first Node Colony meetup a few months back. Looks great, guys! Great work!

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  9. Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Interesting title, I read right up to the word JavaScript. Good one.

  10. Nice polish! by HycoWhit · · Score: 1

    Been working on getting my nephews away from playing games and instead learning how to make them. The Hour of Code was a great start. (The Steam prize was enough a motivator.) Hopefully this will catch their interest and give them a little more exposure to how computers work with the side benefit of becoming better thinkers.

    Thanks for the work. (looked for a place to donate--contribute seems more about participation than donation.)

  11. Missing something by scottnix · · Score: 2

    Programming is fun. Being able to wield the power to create whatever is on my mind is fun; I can't imagine needing a game to make it more so.
    These programming games all make me think they're encouraging people who have no business programming to program.

    It's almost like they're saying "Hey, you, kid, this is just like a video game! Come play it. Programming is like a video game."
    It's not like a video game. It's something so very much more. I think true programmers, the ones we want writing code for the next 30 years, wouldn't need this shit to get interested.

    1. Re:Missing something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got into programming as a desire to create worlds. I wanted to create something with my hands and thoughts that could be interactive. A game is not specifically what I want, but it works as a good middle ground as a game would have more than I want.

      Think of it as a new age puzzle game, where the answer is not to find a correct answer, but a better one.