

CheckIO is a videogame you play by writing Python. - brownbat
http://www.checkio.org

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orjan
Previous submissions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4700799>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4756263>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4819394>

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ramayac
15 days ago, 30 days ago, 43 days ago... oh well, at least they wait a while.

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CoffeeDregs
I tried it and really wanted to like it. The graphics are great, the polish
(aside from English) is high. Dive in!

Then I got to the first task. And it's annoyingly complicated for a first task
(which should be Hello World).

I'd propose something like the following for the first two tasks:

* 1) Message : you get a message, but you can't see what it is... It's stuck in a variable! Perhaps you should print out the message? "print checkio()"

* 2) 2 Messages : it looks as though you have a message, but it seems to be broken in two and stuffed into two variables! Print them out, but compose them first. "print checkio(1) + checkio(2)"

Then step through all the annoying things like "if-then" and "for".

Or something really simple. I'm an experienced Python developer, so, although
I wouldn't learn anything about Python, I _would_ learn about how to work
within your learning system. As it is, I won't invest time in reading some
confusing ATM instructions/story if I don't know how to work with the system.

In addition, it'd be great if you would move the registration to after early
interactions. e.g. "You've completed the first two challenges, so please
register now so that we can save your work!"

But it's damned lovely and exhibits a lot of hard work. Focusing back on the
early interactions and on the early puzzles will be more valuable than
polishing the app further.

~~~
oduvan
It is about practice more then about learning.

I think it is not a problem ti find in internet something about you told (
codecademy ).

We are trying to get practice in real world tasks and to find unusual
solutions.

What do you think about this&

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VSerge
CheckIO guys, the very first task (ATM) is annoyingly unclear. One shouldn't
need to try to understand what you meant. You might want to look at the way
problems and objectives are laid out in Rice's excellent interactive python
class on Coursera : <https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython>

Also, from a pure "story" game design standpoint : there's no initial hook,
and the story is fairly bland (I came in curious and 2 lines were enough to
bore me). I believe you shouldn't try to do a backstory for the sake of it.
Either think it through and do something good, or keep it very very very
short.

Hope this helps, I know this kind of playtest feedback is always hard to
listen to, but if you're gonna do something great, you need to pay
attention... Plus I'm a business/product cofounder type of guy, currently
learning Python, so I imagine I'm pretty damn close to your target audience.

Anyway, this is interesting and I'll be back to try it more and see if it gets
better. Good luck and lots of courage on this!

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xiaoma
The artwork is beautiful and I love the concept, but the English is atrocious!
In a case like this, it might make sense to make the story portions editable
or have some kind of crowd-sourced assistance.

~~~
DeepDuh
I've ran into similar troubles as a foreigner developing an English app. I've
looked into Amazon Mechanical Turk for spell checking but unfortunately they
only accept US customers (money laundering laws - I'm sad not even a big corp
like Amazon can put a legal framework in place to cover at least _some_
European market - I'd even get a UK address and CC for that matter).

There's also Soylent[1] in the pipeline for which I hope they'll release an
API such that you can integrate it into apps other than word. It's also based
on mechanical turk but I hope they'll accept non-US customers as an
intermediary.

~~~
Evbn
Does Soylent actually offer multiple levels, from red to green?

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geetarista
I wish I had something like this 10 years ago.

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oduvan
)) believe me it is fun for all ages :)

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oduvan
Hi, Guys!

We are still working on this game. :) SO if you will find some problem with
working with it please contact with us using live help button or email.

Thanks all you :) For your support and feedback! It really helps to keep
working and making this service better

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zephjc
Kind of cute, a game-oriented Python koan/exercise site. There's a lot of
broken english though.

~~~
oduvan
Yes. Thank you for your feedback. We are working on better English now. We
also have opportunity for user to feedback about text mistakes. Select wrong
text, then ctrl+enter, and propose your version. Thanks again

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pbreit
Hate, hate, hate the UI. Gave up after looking at a few completely unhelpful
screens.

~~~
oduvan
Thank you for your replay

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ciderpunx
I am waiting for the time that I can write python by shooting baddies in the
head.

~~~
mikeash
I think this is as close as you can get for the moment:
<http://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/>

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Luyt
The goes my weekend ;-) Level 7 already

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alexakarpov
thanks, never saw that before. what a beautiful idea

