awesome-programming-games

Use a custom C-like programming language to implement various math functions, but there's a catch: (almost) everything is in binary.

Find out what happened to your spouse by solving algorithmic puzzles using what looks like an extremely stripped-down APL using only three commands.

The sequel to Human Resource Machine , but with parallel computing! Haven't played this one yet.

"A programming puzzle game with only one instruction: , which means replacing with ." Unlike most minimalist approaches this one deals with string handling rather than any sort of assembly variant.

Indie MMORPG with optional automation of tedious grinding by programming player characters with JavaScript. (Appears to be abandoned.)

Kind of self-explanatory, but the game concerns creating and training neural networks with evolutionary computing in order to make a car that cannot merely drive but beat all other opponents on the racing track.

See above for description.

Program the titular android, named Auto, to work in a factory using a C-like syntax.

Sequel to CHRONOS I that takes you through various secured systems, even including a Cold War satellite.

Hacking escape room that takes you from PDP-11 Unix to Linux in the present day.

See above for description.

See above for description.

See above for description.

See above for description.

See above for description.

Turn-based tactics game where you command a team of mechas using flowcharts in order to reclaim Jupiter's moons from an evil corporation called Drakken.

Another one where robots duke it out on a shared battleground. The language appears to be a fairly pure assembly language without too many other influences.

Tank battle royale using 8086 assembly. Documentation is fairly scant but several pre-built robots are available. The available primitives include a random number generator, reminding me of how science fiction author Fred Saberhagen's fictional killing machines known as " Berserkers " use random numbers based on radioactive decay to make their behavior unpredictable.

Tank battler using assembly-like language with a few interesting nuances in addition to the standard milieu, such as the need to manage heat. Website includes the results of past tournaments and the source code of robot tanks entered into said tournaments.

Another, perhaps lesser-known tank battler using BASIC. The documentation seems quite excellent.

A programming game originally released on Macintosh (1984), and later ported to Commodore 64 and Apple II (1985), written by Doug Sharp and Mike Johnston. The player uses a visual programming language called IBOL to teach a virtual robot how to navigate various environments of varying difficulty. The game straddles the line between entertainment and programming education. The original versions are easily playable via in-browser emulation on the game's official website . The FORTH source code for the game was recovered and released for the game's 40th anniversary. The game has a modern reboot on Steam. (See below.)

A game with a similar premise as RobotWar , though competing robots are now armed with missiles as well as a laser gun. In addition, the language created for this game appears to be partially inspired by Logo. The retrocomputing site Color Computer Archive hosts the original TRS-80 binary as well as a PDF of the original manual .

MMORPG where you control your characters using a language-neutral JSON API.

"MIT's premier programming competition"! An annual compeition held each January where teams of programmed virtual robots face off 1v1 with the possibility of cash prizes. (See website for further details and conditions.)

Cyberpunk incremental game where the player writes asynchronous JavaScript code to profit and progress through a variety of different means, hacking of course being a very important one.

Online educational games using the visual programming engine underlying the famous Scratch language (since version 3.0).

Write in a very minimalistic assembly language in order to pass graphical display tests.

Hop from one island to another while playing coding games in Python or TypeScript to advance your journey.