Best programming based games [closed]

Question

Back when I was at school, I remember tinkering with a Mac game where you programmed little robots in a sort of pseudo-assembler language which could then battle each other. They could move themselves around the arena, look for opponents in different directions, and fire some sort of weapon. Pretty basic stuff, but I remember it quite fondly, even if I can't remember the name.

Are there any good modern day equivalents?

Answer 1

The game in question was definitely Robowar for the Mac. My son had a lot of fun with it and went on to program real robots.

As mentioned earlier by Proud, there is a wiki page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboWar

Although there has not been a lot of activity surrounding the game over the last few years, there was a tournament held recently, and there is a yahoo email group.

Answer 2

I used to have a lot of fun coding my own robot with Robocode in college.

It is Java based, the API is detailled and it's pretty easy to get a challenging robot up and running.

Here is an example :

 public class MyFirstRobot extends Robot {
     public void run() {
         while (true) {
             ahead(100);
             turnGunRight(360);
             back(100);
             turnGunRight(360);
         }
     }

     public void onScannedRobot(ScannedRobotEvent e) {
         fire(1);
     }
 }

Answer 3

Just found Light Bot. Program your robot to move around and perform tasks to complete a puzzle. Even includes subroutines. Program the bot by dragging tiles into slots. The game is very polished.

Update Lightbot is now the most recent version of the game, and has versions specifically designed for kids ages 4-8 or ages 9+ (with no upper limit) and also features kind of an if

screen of lightbot 1 http://www.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/light-bot.jpg

Answer 4

I think the original game was called Core Wars (this Wikipedia article contains a lot of interesting links); there still seem to be programs and competitions around, for example at corewars.org. I never had the time to look into these games, but they seem like great fun.

Answer 5

In the flash game Manufactoria you "program" a factory by laying out the conveyor belts and switches in a way that's very similar to a FSM, but more powerful. This game is really great. Give it a try, especially if you're into formal languages and automata!

Manufactoria screen shot http://www.tomdalling.com/wp-content/uploads/manufactoria-bubble-sort.png

Answer 6

A game in which you have to graphically construct and train artificial neural networks in order to control a bug is Bug Brain.

Bug Brain screen shot http://www.infionline.net/~wtnewton/oldcomp/bugbrain.jpg

Answer 7

If you want to step away from your keyboard, Wizards of the Coast relased a game called RoboRally that is a combative programming board game.

http://www.wizards.com/roborally/

Answer 8

http://www.pythonchallenge.com/

highly addictive, and a great way to learn python

Answer 9

I'm surprised that Space Chem isn't mentioned yet. Programming with symbols, but programming nevertheless.

http://spacechemthegame.com/

Answer 10

Another good one is CEEBot. It teaches C / Java style programming in a fun, robot-programming kind of game. It is aimed at 10-15 year olds, but it is a good one.

Answer 11

Colobot

It's usually easy for new programmers to pick up on languages like C++ when you have a strong understanding of Java basics. Colobot allows you to program automated craft using a language almost identical to Java and to move, sense, and manipulate their environment in order to accomplish missions on a dangerous planet.

Answer 12

I was also keen on these kind of games. One modern example which I have used is http://www.robotbattle.com/. There are various others - for example the ones listed at http://www.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Simulation/Programming_Games/Robotics/

Answer 13

Core Wars is the classic, of course. But Rocky's Boots is another one. Imagine! There was a time (1982) when you could sell a commercial game based on logic gates!

Answer 14

If you are willing to look at single player games like Light Bot and Manufactoria then I highly recommend RoboZZle. It has conditional commands which include function calls. This allows for complex stack manipulation. There are thousands of user created puzzles from pathetically obvious to mind blowing enigmas. They have recently added support for smartphones.

I also think The Codex of Alchemical Engineering is worth a look.

Answer 15

I think .NET Terrarium is one of the best 'learn-to-program' games for the .NET platform.

Answer 16

I like Ruby Warrior. It is still somewhat under development, but it is a great game with a clever interface.

Answer 17

Core Wars

Answer 18

There's also mySQLgame, I found it pretty amusing (shortly after finding out I suck).

Here's what Casual Gameplay has to say about it.

Answer 19

Kara is about programming a bug(!) coming up in various versions, e.g. Finite State Machine, Java, Turing Machine, Multithreading

Kara http://www.swisseduc.ch/compscience/karatojava/kara/icons/kara-worldeditor.gif

Answer 20

Planetwars is a game specifically written for Google Ai Contest, bots are controlling fleets for conquering planets, they support many languages

Answer 21

I'd say the most famous programming game there has been is the core wars. I don't know if you can still find active "rings" although there was a lot when I tried it some time ago (4 or 5 years).

Answer 22

I've never heard or Core Wars before, but it looks interesting. I do have to vouch for RoboCode, though. That's fun and challenging, especially if you have a group of people competing against either other.

Answer 23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_2

There is also a great hacking game the name of which I simply cannot remember. Hrm.

Answer 24

Matt, I think the game you're referring to is CRobots (or one of its clones, perhaps -- my first contact was with PRobots, in Pascal, if I remember correctly). It was a lot of fun.

Answer 25

While it was more logic than programming per se, one I really enjoyed back in elementary school was Rocky's Boots. It had sensors, AND gates, OR gates, NOT gates, wires, timers, and all sorts of other stuff. Fantastic program for teaching a kid logic.

Go to the link and you can still play it!

Answer 26

Carnage Heart for PlayStation was fun. It would let you program little mechs to do battle using a flow diagram.

Answer 27

I have to give a shout out to RobotWar which was the first programming "game" that I played way back in the Apple II days. It was written by Silas Warner of Castle Wolfenstein fame.

Answer 28

I got myself addicted to uplink a few months ago. It's not really coding based, more hacking. It's still fun and super geeky.

Answer 29

Although not strictly programming-based, I enjoyed a lot Robot Odyssey, a game where you wired logic gates to sensors and motors in a robot, to make it move and react to environment, to get out of a city, escaping obstacles. I played in on Apple //e, it was one of the best games on this computer (with Lode Runner! :-)).

Answer 30

You must be thinking of RoboWar. Oh how lovely it is.

Still exists, though the community is slowly dying.

http://robowar.sourceforge.net/RoboWar5/index.html http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robowar/