Really, really cool concept. I'm a sucker for in-browser coding, and wrapping it in a little game with 'AI' is a great idea.
But as someone who knows other languages and doesn't know Ruby, it does a pretty poor job of teaching the language. Take, for example, level 3, where you need two if statements (check health, then check for an enemy): it took me ten minutes to realize that ruby uses 'elsif' instead of 'else if' or 'elif' because the error thrown by the in-browser compiler was vague at best ("Oops, looks like we found a syntax error in your code. Try again and click "Grade it!" does not exactly illuminate any issues.)
I echo other commenters re: animation but I think in terms of actual didactic potential you need to add more actual coding documentation so newbies aren't lost. Still, huge amount of potential and I'm excited to see this develop.
But as someone who knows other languages and doesn't know Ruby, it does a pretty poor job of teaching the language. Take, for example, level 3, where you need two if statements (check health, then check for an enemy): it took me ten minutes to realize that ruby uses 'elsif' instead of 'else if' or 'elif' because the error thrown by the in-browser compiler was vague at best ("Oops, looks like we found a syntax error in your code. Try again and click "Grade it!" does not exactly illuminate any issues.)
I echo other commenters re: animation but I think in terms of actual didactic potential you need to add more actual coding documentation so newbies aren't lost. Still, huge amount of potential and I'm excited to see this develop.