Have you ever had an app show you how to program your own app? How about while you’re having a fun time? Robot School is a new game that allows you to learn Swift, a language used in iOS and OS X development, while having a good time.
Your job is to help get R-obbie the Robot home. In order to accomplish this important mission, you must guide R-obbie through a series of LEGO-inspired mazes, past obstacles, and to batteries that help R-obbie further on his journey. Along the way, you’ll pick up robotic parts that will help R-obbie navigate the mazes keeping him from home and learn coding shortcuts that will streamline your code and use less of R-obbie’s energy, which is important because R-obbie only gets a limited amount of energy (equal to a small number of commands) to finish a level.
The programming is all drag and drop with additional input through command variables. As the game progresses, the puzzles get progressively more difficult. You get more tools as you progress, but energy (allowed commands) becomes scarce as you are expected to do more with fewer commands. It’s a good lesson for keeping code concise.
If you remember a subroutine you set up on an earlier level, you go back and take a look at it so you can replicate it in your current level. And all levels can be revisited to grab the actual Swift code so you can examine your work (or you can email or text it to a friend or share via social media).
If you are still stuck, there’s help–just click the question mark and R-obbie will give you a hint about which command to use and how. There’s plenty of opportunity to get stuck too. The game boasts a whopping 45 levels of fun and will take more than a couple afternoons to finish.
I’m not saying you’ll be ready to create the next Crossy Road when you’re done with Robot School, but you should be armed with the tools and understanding of how Swift works. The rest is up to you.
Robot School is available at Google Play and the App store (for both iOS and Desktop play).
GeekDad was sent a sample of this app for review purposes.
