Learn Python by playing a game

Python Space Mission — eight planets, one ship. Answer Python to keep flying.

Most ways to learn Python ask you to sit still for forty minutes. This one gives you ten seconds. A ship flies a route of eight planets, one Python topic each, and every few seconds something goes wrong — an asteroid field, a fuel leak, a black hole. Each of those is one question with four answers. Answer it and the ship refuels, the shield knits, the distance climbs. Miss it and whatever that event was threatening takes the damage.

Play Python Space Mission →

Free, and no account needed — play as a guest. Runs in the browser — nothing to install.

What it teaches

A planet teaches one topic and asks about nothing else — that is the promise the topic makes, so a pilot at the first planet never meets a question about classes. The route is the syllabus:

#PlanetPython topicBoss
1KyroVariablesIon Sentinel
2VethData typesType Wraith
3OrixConditionsBranch Titan
4LumeLoopsLoop Devourer
5SerraFunctionsCall Stack
6DravaListsIndex Hydra
7MyrrDictionariesKey Leviathan
8ZenthClassesThe Instance

Which planets are open is not a setting — it is read from the badges you have earned. Planet one is always open, and every planet you clear opens the one after it.

How a mission works

Twenty events in, the planet's boss comes up: five correct answers on one clock, or the mission ends short of the badge. Clear it and the next planet opens.

Nothing is typed. Four large buttons, and a thumb. The ship carries five numbers — hull, fuel, shield, distance and combo — and each event declares which of them it threatens. That is what makes the events a rule rather than a picture: the same question is a different gamble depending on what the ship is already short of. Fuel drains at every event because the drive is always running, so standing still is not an option either.

Why a game and not a course

Ten seconds is long enough to recognise a piece of Python you understand and far too short to work out one you do not. That is the whole design. A question you can answer in the time costs you nothing; one you cannot, you find out about immediately rather than three chapters later. The combo multiplier means a run of right answers pays more and a single wrong one resets it — which is a sharper signal than a score out of ten at the end of a quiz.

Questions and answers

Is it free?

Yes. Every game on SULULU is free and there is nothing to buy.

Do I need to know any Python already?

No. Planet one is variables, and it is the only planet open when you start.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It runs in the browser, wherever there is one.

Is the answer checked on my device?

No — the server holds which option is right until the event is over, so the answer is never sitting in the page waiting to be read.

The other games on SULULU