Review: CoderMarz

In the year 2090 you find yourself on the red planet, Mars. The four captains that have all landed on Mars are setting out to collect supplies and bring them back to their new homes here on Mars. The twist here is that each player will program the astronauts to move about the board and collect the items. This is CoderMarz by Samaira Matha the follow up to the 2018 CoderMindz.

CoderMarz has some easy mechanics to it that enable the players to pickup on the basics of coding and fundamental AI concepts. Use your code cards and advanced code cards to move your astronaut around and collect the required supplies and then head home. The first captain back to their home first will one of each supply wins.

This game explores a lot of concepts of coding and programming through the game. It presents these concepts in a way that is easy to under stand for kids and non programmers alike. There are four different kinds of cards in use in the game and several scenarios to take you through learning all the concepts while gradually introducing the new cards and concepts. I play tested this game with an 8 year old and he understood the game right away and even wanted to play it several more times that day.

It presents these concepts in a way that is easy to under stand for kids and non programmers alike.

As players work through the six scenarios presented in the rule book programing concepts will be layered on giving the players good conceptual base of how programming works. The first couple of scenarios have you working through order of operation as you progress the latter scenarios have the players working through If/else logic, while loops and functions.

This game is great for giving the players the base language and ideas of programming. Its also quick and easy to learn to engage the younger players. If you want to introduce your younger children into programming this is a great place to start. My 8 year old play tester kept bringing the game back to the table wanting to play it multiple times.

Players: 2-4

Year Published: 2021

Recommended Ages: 6+

Time to Play: 15-30

Transparency Statement

A sample copy of Codermarz was provided to Bert's Tabletop Games for review purposes.