Code Spells - Create spells with code

There's a new Kickstarter project on the scene and it looks rather cool. Best of all it's about teaching kids programming. It's called Code Spells and the idea is that you play a wizard and your spells are something you create using code. It's a wonderfully simple idea that I think could spark a kids imagination. The programming language is block based like blockly or scratch and kids will be able to share their creations. The developers are working, initially, on a single player sandbox version. After that they plan to make it multiplayer. And after that they'll add creatures, NPCs and life of all kinds.

It looks like it'll be a long development cycle. The beta isn't expected to launch until November 2015 - yep, more than a year away. That's a shame but it does look like a worthy idea and their early demos are very promising. If it takes your fancy then head over to the Code Spells kickstarter page to back the project. By the way, this might be a good place to mention that I'm a gamer and I've backed a few games on Kickstarter. I've decided that I don't like this idea of giving people money to develop the game. I think that once they've got your money it removes their incentive to get it finished. So for the most part I don't back games on Kickstarter any more and I rarely buy early access games on Steam. But for Code Spells I might be tempted to make an exception.