Kingdom.py

You don't click to build. You write Python.

You start on a small island with one hero, a town hall and a file called main.py:

Press Run. The hero walks to the plot and builds, one line at a time, while the editor lights up the line being run. If a line is wrong, the game points at it and says why in plain words.

A town builder whose economy runs on your scripts

Houses pay taxes, but only when someone comes to collect. Lumberyards stop when their groves run out. Fields have to be sown, then harvested before the grain rots. Bakeries turn grain and wood into bread, mines eat bread, smithies turn iron into tools. Bandits row in and rob homes unless a guard gets there first, and merchant ships sail off if your goods aren't on the pier in time.

Each of these is a small program, and the story walks you through them. Its chapters open Python step by step, the way the tree opens buildings: variables, while loops, if, for, lists and dicts, functions, modules. One collect() becomes a loop, the loop learns to check the stock, the check becomes a function, and one day four heroes run four programs that split the work through a shared database.

Then the townsfolk move in

They take jobs at your workplaces, get paid, shop at the market and pay taxes. They chat on street corners, fall in love, marry, have children and grow old. Some of them steal, and some of the watch take bribes. The dead wander the streets as friendly ghosts until you build a graveyard.

You can script them too:

• Every trade follows a shift program you write. shifts/farmer.py tells the farmers where to help, when to carry and when to rest. Run two versions on alternate shifts and compare the reports.
  
• town.people() reads the whole town. Arrest a suspect, play matchmaker with town.match(), issue decrees.
  
• Each person's personality is six small Python functions: love, work, hands, conscience, warmth and temper. Children take each one from their mother or their father, and now and then something new turns up. Write a rule of your own, have the Ministry of Propaganda announce it, and watch it spread through the generations.

Six islands, one market

Build the Trade Guild and trade with six neighbouring islands at live prices. Storms, strikes and festivals move the market. Sell by hand with market.sell(Wood, 50), or write a trading bot that reads the news wire. The islands also send commissions and, if you turn git on, pull requests to your scripts. Read the diff before you merge.

A real coding desk

• Code windows float over the island or tile like an IDE, with highlighting, autocomplete, snippets and a Python console that answers questions about the town.
  
• ps, top, kill and cron in the console. Every program in the kingdom is a process, even the crabs'.
  
• Git with commits, branches, merges and tests that run before every commit.
  
• The real numpy, pandas, matplotlib and requests. The requests are carried by pigeons.
  
• An algorithms room where ten algorithms run step by step next to your own version.
  
• Your scripts are plain .py files. Edit them in VS Code and the game picks up the change.

Never coded? The story is written for you.

Short chapters, a Code School with examples you can run, hints, and a reference solution for every chapter. A newcomer needs about eight hours for the story. After it come the grand projects: a lighthouse, an observatory, a great granary, a cathedral and a royal palace, each costing a small fortune.