Hi,
I found this “game” today. I’m also a developer and my friend want also to start developing. So this game looks fine. He has birthday in a few days and I think about a present. So is CodeCombat for free? I found a premium lifetime access for 99 Euro and dont understand if it is needed. It says you get more heroes. But what does it mean? More skills? Hope somebody can help. I dont want to throw my money away. Or is it worth the money?
thx
Norman
Hi. Free account has some limitations: only free levels to play (but lots of them), several heroes to choose (thus, only their equipment and abilities), less possibilities in tech support. Here is description of all premium ac advantages: https://codecombat.com/premium
I’m not programmer and still play on free account, so can’t say anything about premium account. But I’m going to have it once)
@Medienopfer98 More skills means more coding skills that you get to learn. And more heros mean that you could get more heros to use to help you pass levels.
Premium is NOT just to get heroes and gems. It’s actually also for extending your learning, so you can learn web dev and new skills not available to free accounts. @maka can give you more info about premium.
Premium provides more levels and more coding. This really helps to drive the lessons home and receive a deep understanding of the concepts. The additional heroes and equipment offer a wider range of abilities to develop more strategies and write code that isn’t possible without it. Also, it provides greater access to assistance from the staff when you’re stuck. I can’t imagine not having premium.
Started this game on 2 february 2018, did a lot of levels. Loved the game a lot
Subcribed on the 20th with premium.
This game has developped my love for computer science so much that on
March 15. I made an admission for a university and got accepted.
And since then i’ve finished 3 courses in computer science
This game was my start. So I really believe the content inside it is valuable and worth the 99$
Thing is you’ll get used to problem solving here, since You will code A LOT
That’s really cool, I’m doing a computer science course as well (only quite basic, it’s a GSCE course; for any americans it’s about a high school diploma (I just Googled that, don’t hold me to it XD)) and I’m really enjoying it, but I don’t think I’d be able to do it that well if I hadn’t done a year of CodeCombat (with premium), because all the coding part of the exam would be really hard but because of CoCo I can already do it. So it’s been a great help for me as well.
And Gabriel, I just wanted to ask you if your university courses are good, would you recommend it as a subject for anyone else who might be thinking about pursuing Computer Science as a career?
Oh, and I would recommend premium to you Norman, I think it’s really good, unless you’re already good at programming and then it might just be a waste of time,… . . . . . . but the items you get are really cool, 
So far all the courses I made are very good and is complety linked to what is asked on the marketplace. I’ve checked what companies ask for in their job application. You also learn a lot faster. But it is also very hard.
Others have pretty much covered it already, but yes, premium means more levels, more heroes, and some additional goodies.
More levels and different types of heroes gives you more opportunities to practice, which will make you better at problem solving, critical thinking, and creative solutions. All three will make you a better programmer and help you in many other skills as well.
Different heroes means you have to think about how to solve the same problem differently – for example, if you use a Wizard hero, you can’t use Cleave, so you’ll have to come up with another solution!
A lot of answers … THX. My friend and I decided to buy this as birthday present. It seems it is a perfect gift for someone who likes games, but also started developing. Thx 
I would buy it if your friend is looking into learning AI and machine learning as it adds AI and Neural network classes.
Coco unfortunately doesn’t cover AI and machine learning yet. Although I’m suspecting that the volcano world will be covering it, I can’t be sure.