CoderMarz Game for Space and AI Learners! NBC Featured: First Ever Board Game for Boys and Girls Age 6+. Teaches About Mars, AI and Computer Programming Through Fun Astronaut and Neural Adventure!

This is the third game from the inventor/creator of the original CoderBunnyz board game for teaching coding. Teach coding doing it with a board game? Yes, it can be done! (Check out CoderBunnyz and CoderMindz available on Amazon as well or you can also buy or get more information the CoderBunnyz website.)What I like about CoderMarz (and the other Coderz games) is that they are pre-built to be played at an easy level or a hard level. If your child has ever done the Code.org "Hour of Code" that's how these games start out--with basic moves forwards and turns. The player gets to build their code and do it their way. But, there are also cards that can be added to use more advanced coding skills such as loops and functions.Once again, the game is made of very quality and solid pieces. In CoderMarz, the astronauts are made out of solid wood and should last for many years. The storyline is very contemporary: collect the necessary items (water, air, minerals, etc.) in order to survive on Mars. Once you have all of your items, then you head to your Mars House for the win! But, to make the game interesting, there are some elements of chance. You start your turn by rolling a die for a 1, 2, or 3 that determines just how any coding cards you get for that tur. Or you may run into a hidden volcano token that erupts and sends back to your start. You may end up blocked by other players' resources or other players themselves.In addition, the game board is a nice reproduction of a Martian hemisphere, complete with accurate names of significant Mars landmarks. I would highly recommend this game for both children and adults. If you like game playing, you should find this game fairly quick and enjoyable to play. If you have wanted to learn to code, whether child or adult, this is a great way to start. And, if you like playing board games AND computer coding, then you have yourself a real winner. And if you have a unique interest in space or Mars...what could be better!I can't wait for this Covid season to pass so I can play it some more with friends and even my students! (Yes, I am a public school teacher.) I really think you will enjoy this game for yourself or kids you may know.

CoderMarz is a set collection game for 1-4 players where your astronaut is exploring Mars, collecting resources and making your way to your home base. A reimplementation of the 2018 game CoderMindz, it’s an educational game aimed at primary school-age children but designer Samaira Matha hasn’t let that get in the way of it being fun to play.Players have their own wooden astronaut meeple who is positioned on its own start location and who always faces in the cardinal direction of its home base. This is important because movement is directional based on the meeple’s current position (ie: facing left, right, forward, etc). The game is played on a map of Mars where, in set up, the resources to be collected (food, water, oxygen) are shuffled along with ‘volcano’ tiles and placed out face down. You’ll need to collect one of each of the resources, plus the two minerals that are coloured so that they are uniquely available to your astronaut. The rules refer to the volcano tiles as an ‘anti-resource’: it doesn’t give you any benefit and unless you have the card that allows you to ‘defuse’ it then encountering it will send your astronaut back to their start location.The nub of the game, both in terms of game play and educational content, is in the use of cards for movement. Each player has their own deck of basic and advanced movement cards. The basic cards specify movement (forward, left, right; and there are cards that allow movement in any direction). The advanced cards introduce and apply the concepts underlying basic computer coding; so, for example, there are Conditional cards that use ‘If...Else’ instructions and Loop cards that permit continuing movement as long as your astronaut’s route is unblocked. The advanced decks also include Function cards. When you first draw one of them, you draw two more basic movement cards and these then define the Function for your astronaut whenever any subsequent Function cards are drawn.On your turn, you roll a custom six-sided die (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3) to determine how many cards you draw, tho’ your total can never include more than one advanced card. If you have two or more cards, you can activate them in any order. Players also have a Peek card that allows them to look at any two face-down tokens and a Shuffle card that allows them to move any two tokens. If you use Peek or Shuffle tho’, then that comprises your entire turn (you don’t get to draw any movement cards that turn). Finally, a (single use) Defuse card allows you to ignore the negative (back to start) effect of encountering a volcano and to relocate the token.The relocation of tokens and being able to block a rival astronaut’s movement provide for a small amount of interaction, but in the main this is a game where players are all doing their own thing. That’s likely to be a particular plus if you’re playing with younger children.The components for CoderMarz are good, tho’, given that the rules expect these two decks to always be kept separate, we were surprised that the basic and advanced cards weren’t distinguishable from their card backs. In our Board’s Eye View (www.facebook.com/boardseye) plays of CoderMarz, however, members of our team came up with ideas for variants that might involve shuffling them together – so arguably it adds flexibility that the card backs are the same. We were less keen on the luck factor of the 1/2/3 die. Instead we experimented with house rules that dispensed with the die altogether. We played games where players always drew two cards on their turn, and we tried a variant where players always drew three cards but could only use two of them. Both worked for us, and we’d recommend them as options to try for if players feel frustrated by the luck of the die.Youngsters certainly learned from playing the game. They learnt about Mars from the descriptive details on the board and set-up cards, and the advanced cards delivered the goods in introducing and reinforcing core elements of basic coding. There was just a bit of puzzlement tho’ over why Mars is spelt with a z in the title of the game. We also found it counter-educational to be ‘defusing’ and indeed moving volcanoes. It would feel more appropriate if the trap tokens were bombs rather than volcanoes. But the designer was probably seeking a less martial Martian landscape.

There are so many things that I like from this game. First, it is the production quality. The meeples are solid and printed. They are really stand out. In addition to that, the tokens are very durable, which can last for lots of plays.Another thing I like from this game is how accessible it is. The game is very simple for players at all age and experience. You don’t have to be a hard-core gamer to learn and play the game. Thanks to different game levels with different difficulty, players can select the one they are most comfortable with. The more they play, the more comfortable they will be with the game and the code. Moreover, the designer put a lot of thoughts in making the rulebook. It comes with lots of explanation, as well as detailed instructions. These are very helpful in helping players on board with the game. Moreover, the game play is relatively short. A 4-player game won’t last more than an hour. In addition to that, each turn is quick as well. Players will have at most three actions to perform in their turn. Besides the accessible gameplay, CoderMarz is excellent at introducing the players to simple coding or programing concept. I really like the separation between the basic and advanced deck. This prevents new players from being overwhelmed with all the new concepts. Moreover, these advanced cards offer players more interesting choices each turn. Based on the card they draw; players must figure out the most optimal way to make use of the card. This pushes players to be out of their comfort zone. They need to play the cards in the right order to get the most out of it. CoderMarz was a real surprise for our gaming group. Thanks to its simple rules and concepts, we can introduce the game to a lot of different groups. Moreover, with a lot of facts about Mars, this game will also provide lots of educational value to the junior scientists as well.

I ordered this game to play with my 7 year old son. He's learning coding in his STEM class in elementary school. When I got the game out, the first thing I noticed was the high quality components and punch outs. The insert is well designed and doesn't seem like it was made to fill a large box but hold the components neatly and without making a mess no matter how you store the game!The game play can be a bit complicated to understand for the first game, I do recommend watching the how to play videos at least twice, first time to just get the general idea, the second to set up and follow along for a bit until you completely understand what you are doing.Either way, if you want to learn coding in a fun way with your kids? I recommend this game to do just that. I am now learning to code with my son thanks to this game, we can't wait to play the more advance game play soon! It has 3 modes of play as well! We have played once on the basic game play but I'm already wanting to play again but on the more challenging ones!

We are really enjoying this game!It is educational, and lots of fun to play.All of the game pieces are great quality and the box has an insert that organizes the pieces well.There are multiple levels of play which help you learn the game and also increase the replay value. (They also have lots of how-to videos on the website.)I love that it is introducing my kids to coding and other STEM topics in an easy to understand and enjoyable way!