In CeeBot you learn programming concepts and whole languages by writing instructions for virtual robots. You can see how they move around and perform different tasks. (Actually Mehran Sahami from Stanford teaches the programming methodology course with a little virtual robot named Karel with exactly the same principle).
The player in my game would be a spacecraft captain. But unlike in other games, where you just press a button and the vessel goes to any direction, this ship had been hit by a meteoroid and its main computer is broken. Therefore all the commands have to be done manually and any computation is performed on a piece of paper and just put into the command line.
There could be no graphics at all. Just the roar of your enginges.
In the beginning the tasks are simple, but the more you play the more complicated the calculations become. It begins with simple arithmetics and trade. Later you need trigonometry to fire a "torpedo". It would be great if you could progress it even further, with advanced math and phisics, and also chemistry - you need to combine different substances in order to burn them as fuel or to produce oxygen to breathe or combine nitrogen and carbondiaxide in order to grow food in the farm.
It would be great if instead of taking tests the teacher would just say: "John, you are still on level 8, you should go to Alpha Centauri and fight with pirates. Play more!" - which would mean - learn to solve problems with two unknowns and calculate volume of spheres.
And imagine a multiplayer with students on the same level who have to make accurate calclulations fast because without it they would just float in the dark and cold outerspace.
I will never make it - I don't know math and programming that well - but I'd play the game!
In CeeBot you learn programming concepts and whole languages by writing instructions for virtual robots. You can see how they move around and perform different tasks. (Actually Mehran Sahami from Stanford teaches the programming methodology course with a little virtual robot named Karel with exactly the same principle).
The player in my game would be a spacecraft captain. But unlike in other games, where you just press a button and the vessel goes to any direction, this ship had been hit by a meteoroid and its main computer is broken. Therefore all the commands have to be done manually and any computation is performed on a piece of paper and just put into the command line.
There could be no graphics at all. Just the roar of your enginges.
In the beginning the tasks are simple, but the more you play the more complicated the calculations become. It begins with simple arithmetics and trade. Later you need trigonometry to fire a "torpedo". It would be great if you could progress it even further, with advanced math and phisics, and also chemistry - you need to combine different substances in order to burn them as fuel or to produce oxygen to breathe or combine nitrogen and carbondiaxide in order to grow food in the farm.
It would be great if instead of taking tests the teacher would just say: "John, you are still on level 8, you should go to Alpha Centauri and fight with pirates. Play more!" - which would mean - learn to solve problems with two unknowns and calculate volume of spheres.
And imagine a multiplayer with students on the same level who have to make accurate calclulations fast because without it they would just float in the dark and cold outerspace.
I will never make it - I don't know math and programming that well - but I'd play the game!