It seems that vacancies for programmers are only increasing every day: today, knowing the basics of some Python is gradually becoming the same norm as knowing basic English. At the same time, learning to program is still not such an easy task, and I want to start it somehow easier – for example, in the format of a video game. Cybersport.ru offers ten titles, which are based on learning how to write code in a playful way: the real syntax and nuances, of course, will still have to be tightened up, but in the algorithm, the proposed options can be great to train.
In the story, the player travels to 1984 and begins to write programs on a machine similar to the Commodore 64. The local language is similar to assembly, but is a simplified version of it. By tradition, for the genre, extended documentation is found both in the game itself and is available for printing. The total number of puzzles exceeds 50, and additional puzzles built on different principles are a bonus. For those who do not have enough challenge, there is an online table of records, and you can compete in several categories at once.
Exapunks
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Another game from the authors of 7 Billion Humans. As in the previous title, users will have to program office workers, and the key difference will be the fact that instead of many employees, you will have to manage one. Accordingly, we are not talking about multithreading, but you have to learn more concise code and use fewer operations. At later levels, however, it will still not be possible to complete the task in less than a hundred operations. And like the other studio game on the list, it has a lot of humor and weird, sarcastic videos about office work.
MHRD
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On a distant planet, a robot is forced to perform simple tasks. Manage it, of course, the player has to do, and for this purpose only the code, which is constantly becoming more complicated. As in most similar games, detailed statistics are provided where you can compare your results with other players, as well as try to optimize existing code. Difficulty can become uneven input of several new mechanics at once, due to which the complexity curve rises quite sharply. Perhaps you shouldn’t start with it, but after getting acquainted with other games from the list, it is quite enough to turn to it.
Shenzhen I / O
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A simulator for creating various devices, conceptually similar to the aforementioned MHRD. In contrast, there is a graphical interface here, but the process of writing code is reduced to the required minimum – instead of it, you need to manage logical operators and ready-made modules to perform various tasks. The principle, however, is similar precisely to coding – except that instead of creating a program using commands, here you have to manage ready-made modules. For those who master the main campaign (it talks about a startup in Silicon Valley in the 1960s), a complicated mode is offered with the introduction of new conditions, which are really difficult to deal with.
TIS-100
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The player takes on the role of a programmer studying neural networks. Suddenly he finds out that his cat can debug much better than himself, and now it becomes an important task to develop an interface that will allow him to communicate with the cat. In the process, you will have to learn neural networks, understand the intricacies of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Of course, in a playful and simplified form, but getting a general idea of the processes is quite realistic. The developers separately note that the title is based on real problems solved with the help of neural networks. A bonus is, in fact, the cat that is present in the game, as well as the ability to customize the workplace – you can, for example, put an aloe bush or an anime figure in front of the PC.
