Hi GameJolt! I have no idea what brought you to a Devlog about an educational computer science game about functional programming (FP), but I'm happy you're here.

My goal with this project is to make an approachable and interactive tool for playing around with and understanding scary-looking LISP-style languages.

I started working on this almost a year ago after completing my entry for Ludum Dare 45: Magic Shepherd. A game jam was a good place to convince myself that a FP game was possible.

However, it also revealed how difficult doing it properly would be. Almost everybody who tried my game said it was really hard to play, even those who were already familiar with LISP-style languages.

My game-jam tunnel vision meant the game was extremely difficult and unapproachable, which is NOT what I wanted for a game like this.

My hope is to make a game that's useful for either self-study or in a CS classroom which makes confusing functional programming concepts more approachable for the current and next generation of programmers.

Currently, it’s 12345% not completed, but enough of the main features are in that I feel comfortable putting it out to the world and starting a Devlog about it.

Right now the “language” of the game supports executing functions, defining variables, and user-defined functions with the lambda and lambda-dot. There are levels where the player must make the list evaluate to some goal, a sandbox mode, and a level editor. Each feature also comes packed with bugs

I am hoping a Devlog will help the project gain a few followers, facilitate feedback, and motivate me to continue working.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out! I would really appreciate it if you followed.

#education #computerscience #cs