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====== Review: Codemancer (2019) ======
Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/4807.html

**[[https://importantlittlegames.itch.io/codemancer-ch-1|Codemancer]] (2019)** is an educational puzzle game aimed at teaching children (ages 6-12) how to code! It's set in a fantasy world where you play as Aurora, a wizard student learning magic. Her spells are built through compiling different runes, and as the game progresses the spells get more complex. 

The runes are, of course, the backbone of the code you're building to navigate through the different levels. It's very similar to [[https://learn.grasshopper.app/|Google's Grasshopper coding game]], but with a more interesting and developed world setting.

Codes and storylines get more complex the further you go, and the story develops as well-- your father gets kidnapped and you need to rescue him! And to rescue him, you need to develop coding skills. According to the dev, in Codemancer you'll learn: sequential algorithms, debugging, function arguments, scope, looping constructs, concurrent programming, computation thinking, planning and problem solving, and not giving up because your code doesn't work the first few times.

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Also, the game dev is trying to be as inclusive of different learning styles as possible. The font is in [[https://www.opendyslexic.org/|open dyslexic font]], there's voiceovers and brightly colored symbols so you technically don't have to read instructions, and the runes use pips instead of numerals. Also, there's four language options (English, Spanish, French, German). 

Honestly, this reminds me of some educational games I played in elementary school, and I can totally see this on a school computer (or iPad) somewhere for kids to play today.</cut>

I played about an hour before moving on to something else. Codemancer is still in development, but this first chapter is a good-sized chunk if you wanted to try it out or gift it to a child. 

Price: $10.00, but currently free through July 6, 2020.

Available for Windows, Mac, Android. I played the Mac OS version.