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For those who love their puzzles and their programming, Robo Instructus from developer Big AB Games was just announced.

Gameplay involves using a simple programming language to manoeuvre a robot around. The puzzles themselves have multiple ways to solve them, so those who can master the scripting can probably find some interesting solutions. As you progress through it, you will unlock more functions to help solve new puzzles.

Have a look at their announcement trailer:

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You can sign up to get a copy of the beta on the official site, copies are limited though but hopefully they will do more than one run of it. The beta, as well as the full release fully support Linux which is awesome.

I was actually sent a copy ahead of the announcement (thanks "Game If You Are") and so I've had a little play with the beta. It works well, very well. Quite interesting too, with levels that have multiple stages that you need to program your little robot friend to progress through. For those who don't know any programming, it's not really an educational game but it could serve as a simple (at least at the start) introduction to it.

Liked what I played quite a lot, will be interesting to see the full game.

It already has a Steam page, so go ahead and wishlist it if you think you might enjoy it.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

lucinos Mar 5, 2019
QuoteMinimum:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Arch Linux, Ubuntu 18.04
Graphics: OpenGL 3.3 compatible graphics


Arch Linux is there :O
alexbigab Mar 5, 2019
Hello, I develop Robo Instructus on Linux so I'd be delighted to see more Linux beta testers giving me feedback across a larger range of distros & DEs etc. Maybe a programming game will appeal to more Linux gamers too? I'm not sure, but hopefully it will appeal to some of you regardless!
Gobo Mar 5, 2019
*rubs eyes*
A programming game without three diagrams showing your performance at the end of a level? Blasphemous!

Honestly, bring on the code instead of lightbot clones. And I'm interested in your stats about the operating system ratio of the players of programming game.
Skiski Mar 5, 2019
I really love programming games. I'm eager to try it.
alexbigab Mar 6, 2019
Quoting: Gobo*rubs eyes*
A programming game without three diagrams showing your performance at the end of a level? Blasphemous!

Honestly, bring on the code instead of lightbot clones. And I'm interested in your stats about the operating system ratio of the players of programming game.

The game has an interpreted language that isn't drag and drop symbols or assembly-like. It's more reminiscent of higher level programming but very stripped down. So I don't think there is a game quite like it around at the moment.

And there absolutely is three graphs showing your performance at the end of each level :). We have time to exit, solution size (which is the number of unique evaluated expressions) and run size (total number of evaluated expressions). These are basically how long the solution took, how little code you wrote, etc.


Last edited by alexbigab on 6 March 2019 at 9:58 am UTC
Ehvis Mar 6, 2019
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I'm always up for new programming games. Because it's not like I don't have all but one Zachtronics games to finish. :D

And developed on Linux. That explains why it said "Windows & Linux" instead of using the dreaded "PC & Linux". ^_^
Gobo Mar 6, 2019
Quoting: alexbigab
Quoting: Gobo*rubs eyes*
A programming game without three diagrams showing your performance at the end of a level? Blasphemous!

Honestly, bring on the code instead of lightbot clones. And I'm interested in your stats about the operating system ratio of the players of programming game.

The game has an interpreted language that isn't drag and drop symbols or assembly-like. It's more reminiscent of higher level programming but very stripped down. So I don't think there is a game quite like it around at the moment.

And there absolutely is three graphs showing your performance at the end of each level :). We have time to exit, solution size (which is the number of unique evaluated expressions) and run size (total number of evaluated expressions). These are basically how long the solution took, how little code you wrote, etc.

Thanks a lot for the additional info! Wishlisted and joined the mailinglist ;)

I enjoyed TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O, as well as codecombat.com and the likes and absolutely *loved* Else Heart.Break(), so I guess this game will scratch my itch. I would have bought Screeps as well if it weren't for that subscription fee, which has that high level language tie-in as well.
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