
Show HN: Squally – A Game to Teach Low Level Computer Science - zcanann
After many months of development, we are releasing Squally as early-access on Steam! This game teaches low-level computer science; topics such as data types, data structures, bin&#x2F;dec&#x2F;hex, and x86 assembly are gradually introduced through puzzles and gameplay.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;770200&#x2F;Squally&#x2F;<p>It&#x27;s still very early in development, we currently have only released a card mini-game that teaches binary operations:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.gyazo.com&#x2F;0a33bbac5bbb5421f7eb120edd3ff6bb.gif
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contingencies
With kids stuff, it's generally conventional marketing to put "ages x-y" or
"ages x+" front and center. I think this attracts parents, who are a time-
starved lot.

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setr
I feel like the attraction isn't that it saves time, so much as it saves
thinking. At least for me (kid-less), it's really hard to imagine the
difference between something appropriate for a 5 year old and an 8 year old;
particularly things that straddle the line

Things are a lot easier if the producer just tells me the intended audience,
which I can take with a grain of salt and decide from there

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madhadron
The gap between what is appropriate for a 5 year old and what is appropriate
for an 8 year old is surprisingly large if you don't have kids or otherwise
deal with them day in and day out.

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jvvw
Agree - I have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, and yes, enormous difference
even though only 2.5 years apart. Suggested age range is definitely helpful
for parents even though I often take them with a pinch of salt. Also if a
developer hasn't tested enough to know what is a good suggested age range,
then they haven't tested enough full stop!

I'm certainly happy with idea of a game teaching low-level cs concepts,
although I don't tend to spend too much money on kids' games unless they have
really good recommendations/reviews (or they have enjoyed other games from the
same developer e.g. we have all the DragonBox games) as I can't guarantee what
my kids will decide is interesting. I also don't think I'd get early-release
stuff for kids as their tolerance for non-finished products tends to be
limited.

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remlov
I'd love to try this out. However I see Linux isn't supported. Will there be
Linux support in the future? I wonder if this game would work through Proton.

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zcanann
Yes! Linux support should come by the end of this week.

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remlov
Thank you for the update. Looking forward to it!

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zcanann
Linux support was added :^)

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hsolatges
Hey! I love the idea but I just registered to HN to tell you that my 5yo would
actually be too scared of your caracters to enjoy!

Also the universe feels strongly masculine and won't bring girls in CS.

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zcanann
I don't think we anticpated people wanting younger children to try this game,
originally we were thinking 12+. Clearly we were wrong based on the posts in
this thread, so we'll have to think about a path forward.

The storymode of this game was intended to have RPG elements, which tend to be
branded as masculine. I wish more girls were encouraged to play RPGs, but I
get that this isn't the world we currently live in. However, the game will
have good representation as far as NPC gender/race breakdown.

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baud147258
> RPG elements, which tend to be branded as masculine

It seems weird that RPGs tend to be branded as masculine, since, if I remember
right, there's more female players (in proportion) than sport and FPS games

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korla
Is it really any wierder than gaming (almost) exclusively targeting men?
There's some data here on what kind of numbers we are talking about.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Genre_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Genre_preferences)

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Akshat412
Are you planning on working on the visuals at all? The graphics look nice, but
the aesthetic seems off: the main character seems a little, well, out of place
in some of the scenes. The concept is pretty cool though, and I can see myself
picking the game up.

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zcanann
Yeah, we actually don't have a full-time artist yet, so there are quite a
temporary pieces of art dropped in right now

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packetpirate
This game should really be Linux supported so all the kids learning Comp Sci
through the Raspberry Pi can try it out.

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zcanann
It is now :)

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lquist
Honest question: why? Why is low level computing the right thing to teach
kids? Most people take the exact opposite approach to the extent they create
very high level languages

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pitzips
For what it's worth, I struggled for so many years understanding what higher
level programming actually is, while simultaneously doing it. It never felt
complete.

I went through Crash Course Computer Science (from John Green / PBS...) and it
really helped me feel grounded.

Maybe this is attempting the same, just starting at one end of the
abstractions.

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gnulinux
High level, low level formally refers to the level of abstraction of the
virtual machine of the programming language with respect to the "target" model
of computation. We say assemblers are "low level" since it adds very little
abstraction to the von neumann machine it's intended to run on, on the other
hand, python programs compile to a long set of instructions. One can formalize
this concept using Kolmogorov complexity. (i.e. what's the size of smallest
assembler program implementing python)

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lostmsu
> card mini-game that teaches binary operations

[https://esolangs.org/wiki/Lambda:_the_Gathering](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Lambda:_the_Gathering)

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lokopodium
That had nothing to do with binary, wasn't a mini-game and was generally "out
there" in terms of complexity. Definitely a good tool to scare children away
from programming.

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lostmsu
I guess that depends on age.

I just linked it, because it's also a low-level computer science in a
different sense.

