When it comes to playing video games there are many skills you can learn from them and that much has been proven by science years ago. Video games are also a very good educational tool when it comes to learning particular skills that require more studies and practice overall. This is why over the years we have seen many games be developed to help the learning of second languages or math for example. One trend that has become more and more popular though is the arrival of games that teach you a code and out to understand computers in general. So let’s take a look at some of the best games that exist that can help you learn computing and all that you need to know about programming machines. Let’s jump into it and see all the options available.

Minecraft

While many people play Minecraft to build small houses or fight zombies and Dragons the reality is that the possibilities within this game are near unlimited. Whether you choose to play around with Redstone or code one of the many SMP Minecraft servers you will be faced with a learning curve that can be quite difficult but very rewarding. To learn how to truly set up a Minecraft server you will need to learn how to code plugins as well as server text docs that are needed to run the server itself. While in the game you can use Redstone to build complex machines that are even akin to computers that run on binary systems in real life it only goes to show that Minecraft has a lot to offer especially as a learning tool. If you are looking to start your learning experience within video games Minecraft is the place to start.

Hacknet

Putting you in the shoes of a hacker in a cyberpunk kind of world this game will ask you to learn the basics of code to be able to resolve mysteries as well as break down the defenses of your enemies. While it won’t teach you to code exactly it will introduce you to the basics and force you to understand how computer programs and cyber security work which a great way is to learn about these aspects of computer science. While still more of a game than a learning tool it is a great way to introduce yourself to coding while following an interesting narrative and feeling immersed into a wild story filled with twists and turns that can be art to predict. It will please both your sense of curiosity and learning as well as your gamer side. So definitely do not overlook this game.

Baba is you

Now for something a little bit more lighthearted and completely different from the other two games mentioned. This game is going to appeal to you for computing skills not in the same way or practical way that you might expect. While it does not teach you to code or to understand machines itself it will train you to understand things from different perspectives and work on your logic skills. The game is all about tackling puzzles in different ways and changing your perspective to resolve sequences of actions with the tools available which is something that is often the case when dealing with computers and coding. It’s all about understanding the puzzles and taking them apart piece by piece to make sense of them. It is also a very fun game that is available on many platforms so even if you are playing on mobile devices you will have access to it.

Code monkey

This game is all about working with functions that are constructed the same way coding is. The game is all about helping a little monkey reach his banana. This might seem silly but the idea is to build a challenge by making it more and more difficult for you to build the path required for this monkey to reach its banana. The game is well built in a way that will allow you to learn everything that you need to achieve those goals. The end game of this game is to introduce you to pseudocode to eventually teach you the basics and the basics of the real language of Python. Python is a coding language that is used currently in many industries and is very useful for learning to code. So as you can see games can be useful for your introduction to computing.

Untrusted

Now for something a little bit more challenging let’s talk about untrusted. The way untrusted works is that you have to create a path between two rectangles. On one side you have the visual representation and on the other side, you have access to the old code that presents the screen that you can see. Part of the code is locked which means that you cannot change it but you can use it as a reference to change the other parts that are open to modification. This pushes you to look for patterns and learn to understand what terms mean and what they create so that you can change the faulty code to fit what you need. What’s great about this is that this game does not use pseudocode instead it uses real JavaScript. While it can be a challenging exercise it will help you understand the basics of JavaScript and eventually build your knowledge as you progress to the levels that get increasingly difficult.

As you can imagine these are not the only games that are available on the market to help you learn about computing as there are a large number of them that are always growing. If you want to learn coding for gaming you should keep looking for the best game that is suited to your needs as there are plenty out there that do all sorts of things for all sorts of coding languages. Learning code is the same thing as learning Spanish or French. Code is a way to be used as a real language because it works the same way with grammar and vocabulary. So definitely explore in game your way into learning new skills with the games we mentioned and so many more.