Hackley School Computer Science Education Resources

INTRODUCING HACK ‘N’ SLASH

Howdy!

I’m Brandon Dillon, the project lead on Hack ‘n’ Slash, Double Fine’s upcoming puzzle adventure game about hacking and reverse engineering.

When I was a kid, I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on betamax over and over and over again. I still think there’s more romanticism in the occupation of “treasure hunter” than just about anything else.

I’ve always loved games with lots of secrets in them, and when I first discovered a hex editor in an emulator, it dawned on me that I could be a kind of digital treasure hunter – no game could keep even its deepest secrets from me if I adventured log enough in its code and memory.

Hack ‘n’ Slash is a game about that mystery and romanticism. It’s rich in secrets, but with a bit of cleverness, you’ll be able to hack and slash your way to the heart of all of them.

Developing the full version of the game has been very rewarding because we’ve been able to take the hacking mechanics and make them real. You’ll mess with the game’s actual variables and dismantle the game’s actual code. We can’t wait to put it in your hands and see where you take it.

via Hack ‘n’ Slash.

Year of Code is an independent, non-profit campaign to encourage people across the country to get coding for the first time in 2014. Through code people can discover the power of computer science, changing the way they think about, and get the most out of, the world around them.We will be banging the drum for all the fantastic coding initiatives taking place over the course of year and want to help many more people engage with technology and access important training opportunities.Over the course of the year we will signpost national and community tech events, crowdsource funding to help parents, pupils and educational organisations. We will commission detailed polling and analysis on how we can take coding far and wide.

via Year of Code.

Four years ago, a friend lent me his Rails book and I took it with me on a family vacation and learned Rails. I was happy to discover that programming itself was fun, but also realized it was power. Anything I could imagine, I could build. Suddenly I was having new ideas about every problem I encountered, and the ability to act on them. It changed the way I thought.

Don’t believe people who say that learning to code is easy. Better to go in knowing that it’s hard and frustrating and that most of the time you will feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. There are a lot of people who will help you, at Meetups or on StackOverflow. But if you don’t know where to start, I made this site for you.

Have fun.

via teach yourself to code.