If you were one of those kids who spent hours programming your virtual robot for battle in the Apple II’s RobotWar program of the 1980s, you may get a kick out of Robocode. For the uninitiated, RobotWar was a game that introduced a lot of kids to the logic of programming by letting players use a BASIC-like program language to inform the actions of robots in a virtual battle mode. By today’s standards, the graphics and sounds were minimal, but they were still battling robots, man. That was cool enough to motivate me and others like me to tinker with logical loops for hours on end. A quarter-century later, Robocode allows people to do the same, (with spiffier graphics and sounds of course) in the programming language Java. I’d like to say I’m in it to provide me with an incentive to learn how to program in Java, but no, really I still like to let a virtual robot loose and watch it wreak mayhem. Boom, boom!
If you have a teenaged child, she or he may find Robocode to be a great introduction to programming. For slightly younger kids, consider Incredibots, which has no formal programming involved but instead allows players to combine very basic elements (3 shapes and 3 kinds of joints) to create a variety of moving forms both gangly and elegant. Consider it an introduction to the logic that will later introduce your kid to programming. Or consider it a cool robot game.
Both Incredibots and Robocode are free. Incredibots features annoying advertisements. Robocode does not.
sorry, jim, i’m still learning e-mail. well, maybe i could try incredibots. i played mario bros. with my kids way back when, didn’t improve my p.c. skills at all. i get discouraged easily when losing to 8 year olds.
RobotWar is one of the most incredible games of all time. I haven’t tried Robocode yet, but I’m bound to give it a go at some point.