For context: I’m currently employed as a software engineer, I do consultancy on the side and I previously was a technical lead. Around 15 years of professional experience which includes a lot of mentoring/training.

It’s a cool idea - there are quite a few little things kicking around with some similarities - “advent of code” is the closest thing I can think of. I’m sure it could be very fun and educational.

Personally, and I’m going to be completely honest and frank with you, I don’t think I would play it, (though I’m definitely not the target market), but also, it’s not likely that I would recommend it to someone who wants to learn to code either.

Usually when people want to learn to code, it’s because they have some end goal in mind - they want to make an app, game, website, they want to get a job as a developer, data analyst, QA, etc. or they have something in particular which interests them - such as machine learning, embedded design, blockchain (yes, I know it’s a scam), digital music/art, etc. - and based on what they want to do, I’d recommend them some very different pathways, and it’s very unlikely that your game would be the best use of their time, to be honest.

I think, personally, this kind of learning device is only really good as a starting point for people who want to learn for the sake of learning, people who want to learn programming but have no real idea about what they want to program - this tends to be quite rare, though, because we all interact with technology from such a young age, by the time people are capable of learning programming, there would be something that gets them excited and that they would enjoy working towards.

I think what I would like to suggest to you instead, is something that I think would be - in my opinion - really cool, genuinely helpful as an educational tool, and with a lot more potential for monetisation:

The exact game you described, but rather than the game being the end goal, instead, you focus on the foundations that the game is built upon, and have the game be a tech demo for an educational, learn-to-code driven game engine.

Prioritise all of the game design tools for building the game such as the world/quest editors and make sure you have some way of supporting different languages, allowing custom assets to be easily imported, etc.

Make it nice and easy for people to build on top of - in an ideal world, it should be possible for someone to decide to make a module for an esoteric conlang and whip up a simple proof of concept adventure with your framework in an evening or two.

Then you can provide it as a subscription based online platform with some sort of limited free trial, a selection of pre-made official modules for individuals and organisations who pay, a “module marketplace” where people can design, share, and sell new adventures (where you take a cut, of course) and self-hosted (or separate) instances for schools, colleges, boot camps, and so on. who want to provide a series of adventures as supplementary learning material for classes.

I think if you put some effort into this you could make something really cool and successful. But it’s definitely a huge undertaking. If you want to take on the challenge, let me know, maybe it’s something we can work on together if you’re interested.

I think your idea sounds neat! Have you ever played any Zachtronics games? Those games have kind of a "programmer" logic to them, and might be useful to you in getting ideas on how to dress up programming concepts as game mechanics. I could see Zachtronics fans really digging your game idea. One of their games, Exapunks, is literally about being hacker and doing actual (simplified) programming to beat levels. Another called Opus Magnum dresses up the concept as a "transmutation machine" that you must program to create alchemical creations.

It's a zachtronics-like, but in a side-scroller? I like coding games but am not sure the combination works just like that. Personally, I'd expect the coding to be relevant to the world, not an unrelated theoretical exercise. Project Euler randomly tacked onto Mario would be a nope for me, but using coding as a meaningful part of the game, so it does visible, tangible, useful or just cool things? Sign me the fuck up.

If you haven't tried playing Zachtronics games, I'd give them a try. They're a major subniche of "coding games" and could be good for some inspiration. They're all basically coding either in spirit (SpaceChem, Magnum Opus) or directly (TIS-100, Shenzhen IO, Exapunks...), usually with some twist. Their languages tend to be "fake assembly", simplified and stylized.

Personally I've rarely had as much fun coding as in my early ComputerCraft days (computers/robots in Minecraft) because it... did stuff. I was already a coder, but was not used to seeing it translated into "physical" actions. Like the difference of learning/teaching Python with text-based UIs and exercises, vs a "robot" that drives around in the room and does things.

I've had some ideas along these lines myself, borrowing a lot of Zachlike inspiration, but I was going to go topdown or just omit the "overworld" entirely.

Have you played other programming related games?

Here's a search result from Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Programming/?flavor=contenthub_toprated

A few that stick out to me, mostly because I've played them and they're pretty good, are Human Resource Machine, While True: Learn(), Opus Magnum, and Shenzhen I/O. I would say Bitburner too but that's more-so literally programming.

I think your idea is interesting, but based on the examples I've listed, which I must admit is not a huge sample, most of them are played in a sort of GUI experience sort of way. I think it would be very, very difficult to translate the core concepts of programming to a side scroller.

However, as I said, I think it's a really cool idea, just thought I'd point out some similar games in case you had never heard of them.

I think there's something like it someone suggested to me once, but something like an RTS where you code up your units with different behaviors seems to me like something that could be fun for novices and more experienced coders alike if done correctly. You probably wouldn't want to support a full coding language, but taking something like Python or another scripting language that supports objects and providing a small set of legal commands to include in your unit code would be interesting to me. If the base was a campaign that encouraged creative problem solving to use your hand coded unit behavior, and you added a simple way for players to share code with each other, pit their unassisted bots against each other, and maybe even added the ability to write/pin commands to change behavior patterns for an actual real time head to head, I might play the hell out of it.

I also might play for 5 minutes and never touch it again though.

Wow! This sounds really interesting. I am definitely intrigued by your idea. If this was an existing game today I would for sure give it a chance.

It's not quite similar but you might like to gain inspiration from Else heart.break() on steam

I don't see how the gameplay helps with the programming tasks, and I don't see how the programming tasks enhance the gameplay. Let's assume the game is already finished, I think the game part would be improved by replacing the programming part with a simpler, more rewarding mechanic. And the programming part could be improved by getting rid of the gameplay, as it would remove distractions. Pulling off educational games that people actually want to play is notoriously hard because of conflicting goals. IMO you should aim for a more integrated experience with in-game "coding" and direct feedback.

This reminds me of Hack 'n' Slash, except it's less about programming and more about changing in-game objects on the fly