

LightBot - Flash game teaches procedural programming in face of memory constraints - pc
http://www.addictinggames.com/lightbot.html

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bockris
I've got my son (he just turned 7) hooked on this.

The big problem that I have is that you can't skip levels and the levels get
too hard too quickly for his brain.

I know it's just Logo with a different interface but he really enjoys the fact
that it's a robot (a more interesting protagonist than a turtle) and the
isometric view.

I've been kicking around rewriting this as a game with a more gradual
progression of difficulty, a level editor, more goals and a larger instruction
set.

While researching similar programs, I was reminded of 'Guido van Robot'. It's
view is top down rather than isometric and it's character is a triangle
'turtle'. It has a much larger instruction set and you type your program
rather than using icons. I guess what I'm looking for is something in the
middle.

It's definitely fun though.

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avibryant
I've been trying it with my 12 year old niece with similar results. It's one
of the most compelling "learn to program" games I've seen - I'd love to see a
rewrite as you describe, and would pitch in if you've got some code started.

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xiaoma
Ha, I got way into this game. It's all about the recursion! At least for me.
Here are the videos of my solutions (132 commands, total):

<http://toshuo.com/2008/light-bot/>

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avibryant
Nice. I somehow had it in my head that the programs had to terminate, but
apparently not.

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pc
It gets more interesting after you pass a few easy levels.

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avibryant
Patrick, what's your score? :)

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pc
I'm gonna have to start again -- wish you could save games.

