Artificial Intelligence in a board game? Who would have though a game like CoderBunnyz could teach coding, but it did and does! Now, CoderMindz continues in the tradition of CoderBunnyz and delivers a fun gaming experience for young and old while teaching principles of artificial intelligence. Like CoderBunnyz, this game can be modified to be very basic (get from start to finish, no obstacles) to a quite challenging game of designing a program (using the playing card decks and function cards) to help train your robot to move from start to end. The very basic levels can be played by younger audiences (the age 6 recommendation) but the advanced levels do require a somewhat older mind approach. The nice thing is this means the game can grow with your learner.
I used CoderBunnyz with my 5th grade students with much success and student enthusiasm. I bought a class set and for many months, it was our Tuesday morning warmup activity. I'm now teaching 6th grade and do not have the flexibility of being able to modify a daily schedule. When I heard about the game I was anxious to check it out. I hoped it would be at least as fun as CoderBunnyz. When I received my order, I opened it up and it, like CoderBunnyz, is very professionally designed with quality game pieces, game board and cards. I invited four kids to try it out. I used the online videos to introduce the game play, and turned them loose! They loved it. There was laughter, there was thinking, and the time was over for the kids before it had barely begun. In the middle of the game, one boy said, "I definitely would play this at home!"
The way the game is structured, anything is possible, meaning, the "obvious" winner, may not be the one who finishes if they get "zapped" back to their start position. This happened twice in the first game. In the second game I utilized the recognition tokens that have to be gathered. Students enjoyed the strategy of placing their neighbor's markers. (See rules!) Though the rule book doesn't suggest this, like CoderBunnyz, I believe you could have both advanced and beginner players play together at the same time using the appropriate obstacles and challenges to their individual levels. (I did not try this though!)
All in all, I would recommend this game. If you have played CoderBunnyz, this game will make sense more quickly with some of the same concept of token movement. But, if you haven't, that's fine, too. The games really do stand alone from each other. I would encourage you to give CoderMindz a try. Even if your children/students are not that interested in coding, the game play is still fun and challenging! (This review is personal in nature, and not sponsored or paid for.)
