Games for Programmers

By Abel Soares Siqueira

Ever since I can remember I liked puzzles. My father had a book on puzzles, and there were also puzzle magazines. I liked it much I also liked gaming very much. I don’t remember where it started, but I played a lot. Well, today I’ll talk about games that have programming involved, albeit indirectly.

Light-Bot

This is a very simple game at first. It scales after some levels, but a programmer shouldn’t have much trouble completing it. For a non-programmer, it is a great starting point. It really is made for beginners.

There is also a Light-Bot 2.0, which you can continue after.

They also made Light-Bot Rewired, but that is only the first game again to get money from you.

Tile Factory

This is a good continuation. It is very big, but it starts easy enough. After some levels you will get some headache with timing and “crossing lanes”, but it still very good. The source was opened some time ago, so maybe a continuation can be made from interest people. Tell me it that’s the case.

Manufactoria

Now things get ugly (or beautiful). This game really increases the difficulty. You must use conditionals and loops from the early game. This is easily my favorite of the list, althought it is very hard. I can’t even remember if I finished all levels (in part because I eventually have to change computers and start again).

If you already are a programmer, you have to try it.

Other games

Some other games I must mention:

  • KOHCTPYKTOP: A game in which you design integrated circuits. It involves a little more knowledge of circuits than I have, so it became quite hard to do anything.
  • The Codex of Alchemical Engineering: This is similar to lightbot, but a little more difficult. For some reason, I didn’t enjoyed this enough.

All these games were played on Kongregate because I spent a lot of time on that, but most can be played on other sites too.