Defense of Plainswood is one of our newly created levels and we would love to get your feedback about how fun/interesting it is. Bugs? Usability issues? Post 'em here. If you’ve already played it a bit prior to our recent email, please do check it out again since we’ve been tweaking and changing it.
I was able to get through the beginner campaign in a short sitting. I’m trying to figure out if this is something I’d be able to use with my students.
Everything on this level seemed to work well, but are there more levels? The characters had a lot more equipment to get to and there were a lot of locked characters. How do I gain access to those? I can see my students really enjoying this, but right now it seems like there are only a handful of levels in that dungeon? Are there other levels/worlds I can access?
We have been building the infrastructure for this new beginner campaign for a long time, and now it’s basically all done and we’re in massive level-creation mode. The items and heroes you see are the tip of the iceberg, and we have levels planned to get you through earning/using all of them, with a ton of new programming methods, concepts, and skills to go with them.
That said, building levels takes the longest. We’re shooting for five new levels a week. At around three minutes per level (hopefully), most of these early levels aren’t really replayable, so that’s fifteen minutes of added playtime per week. The beginner-oriented multiplayer arenas can be played a lot more, though. The first two are basically ready and will be unlockable after levels ~10 and ~30.
Hope this helps. Would love to hear any more feedback you or your students have.
Looks good I think, although compared to some of the previous levels in the beginner campaign it seems fairly simple?
Just to ask regarding the beginner campaign, is this going to be locked for a while? We had a few of the kids at a Coder Dojo session start on it the other week, it would be great if they could continue this weekend?
That’s a good point that it seems easier than the Kithgard Gates level. Maybe we can even out the pacing a bit. Any ideas on what would make a better progression for this level?
We are planning on unlocking at least five levels a week, so it depends on how far the kids got in the last Coder Dojo session. Certainly we can’t make them as fast as the kids can play them, but if they want to take a crack at the older level set, there’s a bunch more content there: http://codecombat.com/play-old
I wonder if it would help to have to create more fences than just two in this level? If it was a whole set then maybe that would drive towards using a loop?
I think what happened with the levels is that we hit them at a point where all the levels in the beginner campaign were unlocked. So the kids probably got through about 4 or 5 of them. It may be that we suggest they do something different for this week. If there are things I can do (time permitting) to help you get to the point of unlocking them then let me know.
I do think this is a great resource for teaching/learning to program, and certainly grabs the kids (and adults 
) attention.
Three or four fences might do the trick. (We want them to get some good practice with buildXY in this one, not necessarily loops–combining building with loops comes soon.)
If they only did 4 or 5, there should be more to play. The levels should unlock in order as you play through them. These are the ones that are unlockable now:
Dungeons of Kithgard
Gems in the Deep
Forgetful Gemsmith
Shadow Guard
True Names
The Raised Sword
The First Kithmaze
The Second Kithmaze
New Sight
Lowly Kithmen
Closing the Distance
The Final Kithmaze
Kithgard Gates
Defense of Plainswood
Winding Trail
Thornbush Farm
Ah ok - maybe its because I’d gone through them before. Currently they are showing as locked, but when you hover over them they say complete.
I’ll have a little more of a dig this evening - maybe if I redo the first level they will start unlocking from there.
Ok, all sorted. I went through the first level again, and they all unlocked. Thanks.