As far as I can tell after some unnecessary amount of research this website only offers 5 lvls for free which are basically the intro to every youtube coding course available on youtube.
At least make it clear on your website that you only get 5 lvls without premium. Alone because I had to manually google it and research the topic myself I’m not recommending this website to anyone.
If there are so many other FREE options to learn coding on the internet, at least give enough levels to get a better feeling on what your selling point in the game is. Like after 5 lvls which had nearly 0 information, I’m not sure that even 5000 levels would be worth the money I 'd need to spend in a subscription because of the amount of time it would take to finish them.
The subscription madness … The main issue with this website. WHY IS THIS A SUBSCRIPTION PRODUCT? Just sell the dungeons as complete products and make an additional subriction based daily/weekly/monthly whatever … Nothing can justify the amount of money I’m supposed to pay for something I’m going to do one time and only one time. And if I don’t have enough time to play this game often or for long periods of time, it’s just a waste of money. Just a money-grab.
Please think about at least selling the first dungeon or so in a seperate pack to give people the opportunity to see if the abo is worth it or not.
1 ok i do think they should make it clear what is free and what is not. but it is a small team and they just have not had time to update it.
2. i can say that is amount of levels is very good and they are very educational
3. the 10 dollars per month is a very fair price because of the value i learned python with it and i am now quite proficiant with the syntext
just spend the 10 dollars if you want to try it out the first world is easy it only really gets more difficult in the 2 world but slowly so its not overwhelming
In the first place, I would like to point out that this endeavor appears to resemble a recreational pursuit more akin to a game rather than a serious coding endeavor. Moreover, the cost of ten dollars a month seems disproportionately high for what essentially amounts to a coding game. It is my belief that the developers may have profit-seeking motivations that could be considered excessive. Furthermore, CodeCombat is making it more like a game, the gears, the heroes, and more unfair upper advantages from different heroes in multiplayer, which is defeating the purpose of learning to code
Should one claim to have acquired a substantial amount of knowledge from this experience, I am inclined to inquire whether they possess the capacity to develop a genuine Python-based game.
It is important to consider that within this context, a considerable number of participants harbor a perception that they have acquired a significant degree of knowledge. However, upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that they are unduly reliant on the methods and functions provided within this game. This excessive reliance results in a deficiency of fundamental syntax knowledge in actual Python programming. It is evident that the command hero.attack(enemy) does not constitute a genuine code structure. Would you concur?
i would agree that it is not for project-based coding but for learning especial knowledge like loops and if statements i would say Code Combat is an amazing product
These observed behaviors appear to represent a fundamental understanding of Python programming principles, which are, indeed, rudimentary in nature. From my observations within the game, it is evident that a significant portion of the player base does not engage with these core programming functions. Instead, they opt to acquire in-game equipment to gain an upper hand and exploit the game’s levels. The approach of wizards consistently employing spell spamming or more powerful heroes overpowering their lower-tier counterparts does not align with the conventional notion of coding. It appears that a substantial portion of the gameplay revolves around strategic decisions and resource management rather than the application of genuine coding principles.
Furthermore, it is quite likely that a significant portion of the player base relies on external code repositories such as GitHub to source solutions for completing game levels and acquiring gems, thereby diminishing the emphasis on coding skills within the game’s framework.
I would also like to point out the fundamental differences between coding and programming. Programing is make things with code so like a game and coding is the language you write it it. Codecombat teaches coding not programming. It’s just like learning a language you need to know the words and structure before you can practically use the language you are learning
When it comes to CodeCombat, it’s important to clarify that while you engage with coding-like methods within the game, the primary focus is on gamified learning rather than real-world coding. The methods used, such as hero.attack(enemy) , are tailored for gameplay, and the game doesn’t provide a direct translation to real coding practices, nothing of those exists in real code. CodeCombat serves as an introductory tool to make coding concepts more engaging and accessible, which can be valuable for beginners looking to get started with coding in an interactive way, but we should know the differences.
The functions introduced within the CodeCombat platform predominantly encompass fundamental coding concepts. Notably, various methods employed in the game, such as moveXY() and cast() do not align with typical coding practices in real-world scenarios. As a result, it can be observed that a significant proportion of the levels offered within CodeCombat may impart knowledge that is, in essence, rudimentary and not readily applicable to real coding tasks. This characteristic prompts one to consider the extent to which time spent on these particular exercises may be deemed a somewhat a waste of learning resources, and most of your time spent on this is more towards to an addiction to game.
Most players who define themselves “advanced” in this game, probably can’t even code a snippet of function in real coding, as they spent way too much time in some unnecessary terms that aren’t even helpful. And from what I noticed, most of your code in the later levels are from GitHub, is that your definitions of “learned a lot”?
The truth is, most players are taking this like a game, and not even trying to understand the concepts (even most of them are waste and doesn’t exist in real coding), they are just trying to get rewards to satisfy themselves, which is resulting them stuck in a vicious circle. For this game itself, I don’t really think it teaches a lot in the points of coding, I would love to see this game adding more real coding functions/concepts, rather then just making items with made up functions, just to make the player spend more money (premium/gems) to get them, that just defeats the purpose of actually ‘teaching’ code. @nick@TheCodingCrusader22
Before I start, I can only talk about Python here. I’ve not completed nor have I attempted CodeCombat in any other language.
“Your” is referring to who? With all due respect, TheCodingCrusader’s most recent two Level Help posts didn’t return a GitHub result, and the third most recent could easily have been a coincidence since the chances of two people writing the same code for the same level is quite high. I think the same applies to the overwhelming majority of other level-help posts here too.
I do agree that the players aren’t all motivated by code, and instead play the game for rewards. The simplest way to get around this (for the CoCo team) would be to assign an equipment reward to some levels and maybe also find a way to get rid of flags? Flags provide an easy option, for a lot of levels, to get to the goal in an unintended manner.
As for the ‘not real’ coding functions, the Web Development levels use HTML functions, and none (as far as I can remember) are CodeCombat-specific. And enough of the fundamentals of Python are taught quite well, in my opinion. All the fundamentals are taught surprisingly effectively, considering that I’ve learnt a significant amount of it up to about halfway through the mountain. The fundamentals are in the drop-down menu below:
Python basics
Syntax: The set of rules and conventions that govern the structure of Python code, including the use of indentation, comments, and the order of statements.
Comments: Explanatory notes within code, preceded by the # symbol. Comments are ignored by the Python interpreter and are used to document code for clarity.
Indentation: The use of spaces or tabs to define code blocks, such as within functions or loops. Proper indentation is essential for code readability and execution.
Lists: Ordered collections of items enclosed in square brackets []. Lists can contain elements of any data type and are often used for storing multiple values.
Tuples: Similar to lists, but immutable. Tuples are enclosed in parentheses () and their elements cannot be changed once defined.
Dictionaries: Collections of key-value pairs enclosed in curly braces {}. Dictionaries allow you to associate keys with corresponding values for efficient data retrieval.
Loops: Control structures used for repetitive tasks. Python offers for and while loops to iterate over sequences or execute code while a condition is true.
Conditional Statements: Used for decision-making in code. Python uses if, elif, and else statements to execute different code blocks based on conditions.
String Concatenation: The process of combining strings using the + operator. It allows you to create new strings by joining existing ones.
Input and Output: Interaction with the user and display of information. The input function is used to receive user input, while the print function is used to display output.
It’s important to take into consideration the fact that a lot of CodeCombat is reinforcing what you’ve already learnt. The Dungeon levels at the start are, I think, intended to be more of a ‘hook’ to make people want to play CodeCombat, since the target demographic appears to be kids and young teens, and those groups also happen to like videogames.
Continuing the ‘game’ idea, CodeCombat is also designed to be an ‘educational game’ in a manner of speaking. A lot of services use this format now, in which they incorporate educational features into a game-style activity. The point of this is to, as stated in the previous paragraph, encourage children to learn how to code, and to make them actively want to be in coding classes at their school. Unfortunately, this comes with the downside of people treating it too much like a game, removing the educational element entirely.
I think that once the CodeCombat team has found the right balance between learning and what is commonly associated with ‘fun’, more people will create accounts and join their subscription service.
That is only half the issue in my opinion. You can’t just give about 10 minutes of trial for a game that’s charging MONTHLY straight away without giving you the opportunity to actually get a feeling for the game and what they’re supposed to pay for.
The other half is the subsciption. Why? Just why? I don’t see ANY reason for this to be a subsciption based product. It’s just money grabbing. Ok, let’s say the game is targeted at kids that actually have time to play the game in contrast to a majority of adults that have 9 to 5 jobs. Most of them don’t have the attention span or motivation to keep on playing the same game for more than a month especially when it’s not an action based game. Forcing parents to subscribe to this monthly payments just abuses this short attention span. Most parents don’t have the actual time to keep track of which games their kids are actually playing so they won’t just unsubscribe but instead will pay for a long time.
That is just money grabbing. They don’t care for the educational factor of the game anymore. I truly believe that that was the main goal of the game at one point. But know it just seems that the greed of the management won other the good purpose.
It’s sad but still none of these comments provided me with any reason why the subscription is necessary. I’m still 100% sure that just selling the dungeons for a few dollars and offering subscription based multiplayer options or events would be way better.
It’s simply not worth subscribing to this game. Not for a huge majority of people interested in this kind of game.
Unfortunately too many educational resources are just money-grabbing now (Duolingo being a good example). All the red levels in CodeCombat used to be free, and you’d need a subscription for the blue levels.
I found this thread that may ‘answer’ your original question (really their excuse is “We have big plans for the home version content” and “The [removal of free content] was dictated by data”)
Well yeah. I didn’t expect any other answer than ‘buhu we can’t pay our bills otherwise’… It’s the same everywhere. And the explanation with future plans is just a nice way to say:
‘Yeah we don’t want to risk investing our own money or cut on pay-raises for the management so please pay us in advance for things that might or might not be ever released. What? You are asking what benefits that will bring? Haha their going to be great, you’ll love them!! What? One example? I’m sorry but that is currently still a companie secret, but you’ll love it!’
So yeah basicaly my opinion on this game is set. It seems that the companie gives around 0 Fs on transparency or fairness in trials.
Thanks for the great answers from all community members! I’m really sad that I won’t be a part of this. Have a wonderful life and enjoy the game for all it’s not really testable benefits.
I’m pretty sure that CodeCombat has good marketing managers and they know what they are doing. I think it’s quite obvious that it’s expensive to host the websites, run infinite simulations in the arenas and so on.
Probably some other options to get money exist but subscription is the option that was chosen by CodeCombat.
I agree I would not consider codecombat a money grab at all compared to many other learning programs with a subscription module coughcough prodigy math cough cough* Duolingo
Also all the people who run code combat are people who want to teach kids coding not just make a quick buck if that where the case A.I league would not exist it is free to enter and they give away prizes that does not make them money
Duolingo is not a money grab at all. Free base product that you can use indefinitely while there is the option to subscribe to make your progress easier and more effective. Not like this game. No free base-product for free learning, instead instant subscription force.
