Fun with programming puzzles: while True: learn()

As a Web Developer, I was of course curious to try this game when I saw it pop up as an Epic Games free title. The premise of the game is that your cat seemingly understands programming better than you do. You embark on a mission to learn about Machine Learning in order to develop a cat speech recognition program and solve various visual programming puzzles.

The puzzles

You’re given a particular input of coloured shapes. You connect a series of black-box functions in order to sort said coloured shapes into their respective output streams. These output streams accept certain shapes/colors and have thresholds for quantity and accuracy. You’re racing against a clock, and have a limited amount of nodes (the black-box functions) available for a given solution. Not only this but different puzzles have different sets of nodes available for a given problem! Needless to say, some of the problems really do present quite the challenge!

He needs your clothes, your boots, and catocycle

If you complete puzzles you’ll earn cash. You can use this to purchase upgrades and various cool cosmetics. Naturally, I had to purchase the Cyborg Cat immediately!

Optimization

Simply solving puzzles is one thing, optimization is another. This requires some clever thinking as well as an understanding of the mechanics. Optimizing some puzzles is optional, for others it’s the goal. This is a game that whilst the premise sounds simple you’ll certainly need to exercise your brain in order to solve these puzzles in an efficient manner. As with programming, there’s often more than one way to solve a problem, some nodes process faster than others but may result in a more complex chain. Therefore the player must consider multiple approaches and learn which patterns are most efficient.

It teaches as much or as little as you like

One aspect of the game which I really liked was that each new concept introduced has a foundation in actual computer science. The game introduces new nodes both in the context of the game and their real-world basis. It provides educational links often linking to an article, video, and course. I was highly impressed by this as it means the player can learn as much or as little as they wish. Furthermore, they can do so in a manner of their choosing.

Conclusion

I found while True: learn() to be a challenging and stimulating puzzle game. Those curious about programming and computer science likely will enjoy this game or those who like a challenge and want a very different type of puzzle game. Visual programming can be a good introduction to programming and the tidbits of knowledge dropped throughout the game are interesting even for someone with quite a bit of programming experience. If you’re interested in programming and want a game that will make you think, enjoy a bit of cheesy humor, with the odd pop-culture reference thrown in, and want to learn whilst solving puzzles then I think you’ll enjoy this game!