09-18-2016, 02:47 PM
I've only skimmed over portions of this thread and I haven't tried the latest game versions yet so I don't really know what the current problems are but in regards to making coding challenges less frustrating (for beginners) I can share my experience with Ceebot4 when I was a (barely) novice programmer myself.
The first third of the challenges were rather enjoyable and pretty rewarding, mainly because everything was well documented and described in the SatCom at the start of each challenge (with useful hints here and there) so that was pretty much on spot imo.
However after a certain point this drastically changed (I can't remember what challenge/mission, it's been years since I last played it). The mission desccriptions barely contained any info/hints and in later missions/challenges pretty much just consisted of "This is your mission, figure it out yourself" which as you might imagine led pretty quickly to lots of frustration after a few unsuccessful tries (especially as someone who is in the starting stages of learning programming).
So my suggestion would be to simply add as much helpful info to the SatCom for each challenge/mission as possible. Ideally protected by some kind of hints system that gradually reveals more info/help everytime you activate the hints to still keep it challenging for more experienced players (similar to how its done in the puzzle game "Realmyst Masterpiece Edition" where the hints start off pretty cryptic down to flat out tell you the solution to a puzzle).
PS: Somewhat off topic but are there any news in regards to the licensing of Ceebot4 (and Buzzing Cars) and its integration in Colobot?
The first third of the challenges were rather enjoyable and pretty rewarding, mainly because everything was well documented and described in the SatCom at the start of each challenge (with useful hints here and there) so that was pretty much on spot imo.
However after a certain point this drastically changed (I can't remember what challenge/mission, it's been years since I last played it). The mission desccriptions barely contained any info/hints and in later missions/challenges pretty much just consisted of "This is your mission, figure it out yourself" which as you might imagine led pretty quickly to lots of frustration after a few unsuccessful tries (especially as someone who is in the starting stages of learning programming).
So my suggestion would be to simply add as much helpful info to the SatCom for each challenge/mission as possible. Ideally protected by some kind of hints system that gradually reveals more info/help everytime you activate the hints to still keep it challenging for more experienced players (similar to how its done in the puzzle game "Realmyst Masterpiece Edition" where the hints start off pretty cryptic down to flat out tell you the solution to a puzzle).
PS: Somewhat off topic but are there any news in regards to the licensing of Ceebot4 (and Buzzing Cars) and its integration in Colobot?