Not only that, but the reduction in frustration when transforming a bunch of text (say, using macros) will compensate even more than the actual time spent. There's a joy to be had when doing menial tasks with vim, a joy from wizardry.
I personally think it is a wonderful idea and love how it is implemented(got very excited the first time I saw it). But I can not justify $ 25 for a game I can only use for 6 months, but I will pay $ 25 once off.
Then again one need to take hosting costs, and the time it took the creator to make the game in to account; and lastly it is his product so he can set the price point to whatever.
It will just not bring the joy of vim to African kids in Uganda.
In defense of the fee, you likely won't be playing it for more than six months anyways—once you've mastered vim, you probably won't keep playing it.
However, my response really adds more weight to your idea: since we probably won't be playing the game very long anyways, why not just offer it in perpetuum for the same fee? I bet the author will get many more sales with that arrangement, and their expenses won't really change (if someone does become an avid long-term Vim Adventures player, even extensive usage costs mere pennies in server time and tech support).
Only 6 months access is a big turn off for me. Even if I use it for less than 6 months, I like the feeling that I could go back to the site and practice, if I wanted to. I'm guessing over 90% of users would not use it for the whole time, so server costs would seem like a non-issue.
EDIT: I spent so long typing this that organsnyder had the same response.
In addition, I feel that the price point is off a little here. I think that dropping the price (or at least adding unlimited access) would increase the amount of people buying the game at a higher percent.
I wonder if the license actually deactivates after 6 months, or if the creator simply added this term to limit his liability. Per jtreminio, he purchased two years ago and continues to have access. I bring this up because you could flip this and rather appreciate his transparency, letting his customers know that they'll have at least 6 months access if and when he decides to shut the game down.
Yup, it looks very nice, but I doubt that I'd get full usage out of it in 6 months. I'd have to time buying it very carefully. So most likely won't buy.
I bought the game with 6 months access one and a half years ago. After the 6-months period was over, I still was able to replay the whole game from start to finish. And even now, after 18 months the login is still working. I can play the game just fine.
That's no guarantee, but it seems the 6 months policy isn't really enforced.
Probably just a safeguard in case popularity and server load takes off.
For the game itself: I can highly recommend it. You will get a decent grip of vim. However, it doesn't get into advanced topics like macros, plugins etc. It won't make you a vim wizard. But for a beginner, it's excellent.
I have been a beginner for 18 months. I played until I got the first key, drove over the first chest, and apparently have nothing to show for it. Am I missing something?
The thing is, you can afford it, and you'd get great value out of it. And getting even slightly proficient with vim is a massive boost, since you can use it everywhere (I use it inside VS and Firefox). I agree it's probably just really bad marketing for him to limit access, since most people are going to have a negligible load. So from a business point, it's almost certainly wrong. The 6 month thing is only a problem if you really procrastinate. After you learn it there's no need to replay. But still, bad marketing.
From a personal point, vim is amazing and will significantly improve your text editing life and getting these skills is worth far far more than $25. (I'd pay at least $1000 to have vim proficiency loaded into me Matrix-style.)
I started to get tired of comments like "but that's less than X!!1".
It just seems like you want to tell somebody they can't appreciate the value of money or that they can't put an amount in relation to some other amount.
Really? I'm right-handed, but don't have any trouble making any kind of key combinations at any speed with my left hand. Aren't most people (in tech, at least) ambidextrous when it comes to typing?
Wot? The whole point of vim is that it is 100% customizable and non opinionated about what keys do what. The default mapping are what they are...but they really expect you to remap most of them even if you are a right hander.
That seems crazy to me. A huge fraction of the value of something like vim (vi-clones specifically) is that I can find it on any machine and use it as-is... that isn't going to be true if I expect different keymappings. Even in emacs, I try to use the default mappings for standard things and just supplement them with added features.
TBH, I'll almost never use vim without my configuration files. The only times i might do this is if I need to do a very quick edit to a config file, in which case typing at 50% efficiency isn't going to hurt that much.
Lefty here, I never really felt that way. When it comes to typing, I feel like I'm not either-handed - both hands get a full workout, pretty much whatever I'm doing.
About vim: There is one thing that always has bothered me a lot, and it is that I am lefty, and I tend to think that at the left I have the "arrow up".
Naturally I always expect the "arrow up" at the left, but it is hjkl.
It's broken for me as I have "start searching as soon as you start typing" feature on in my browser. It's searching instead of moving. Latest Firefox on GNU/Linux.
there is also vimgolf[1] for a free and more challenging alternative, in which you solve
various text editing problems with least number of keystrokes. it has a nice cli[2]
that retrieves problems to the real vim editor, and submits scores. it is
interesting to see how other players in the leaderboard solve the same problems
differently, and you learn a few useful tricks along the way.
I eventually tried using the arrow keys and it pops up a message saying that hjkl is the vim way, but vim lets you use the arrow keys, so they'll let you make the decision yourself. I'm glad they did that, because I'm comfortable with the arrow keys and the other aspects of the game are a lot more fun and interesting without having to re-train muscle memory.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in vim. Vim-adventures is how I got into using vim as my main editor.
Also for the people complaining about the 6 month access, I get your point but I think this is meant to be just an easy introduction to vim, not a tool for mastering it. I played this for only like a month or two and after I knew enough to start using vim as my main editor I hardly ever touched it again. I haven't even finished the game.
The Vimium extension for Chrome is a decent way to get used to the 'hjkl' movement key bindings. I also love being able to yank/put URLs as well as navigate through tabs using VIM-esque key bindings.
I bought this game a few years ago. I learned quite a few things about vim. Unfortunately the puzzles in the later levels aren't very clear. I spent hours trying to figure out what on earth they wanted me to do. To me this was counter productive and got less and less fun. I ended up leaving the last few levels unfinished as I felt I got very minimal returns for time invested.
If you're interested in picking up vim, I love it for the first 5 or so levels. After that, not so much. (I currently still use sublime text but do occasionally use vim on servers)
I'd love to be able to reassign some keys. I use colemak and for example h,j,k,l need to be reassigned to actually be usable (otherwise, the layout hardly makes sense).
FWIW, I learned the vi cursor keystrokes playing rogue in 1982. I also learned C studying the source, while staring at lines like
while (j++=i++);
which was a pretty strange construct to a Pascal programmer.
76 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] thread> - 13 fun and engaging levels
> - More than 60 commands and motions
> - Covers most of the keyboard
> - Now for only $25
I personally think it is a wonderful idea and love how it is implemented(got very excited the first time I saw it). But I can not justify $ 25 for a game I can only use for 6 months, but I will pay $ 25 once off.
Then again one need to take hosting costs, and the time it took the creator to make the game in to account; and lastly it is his product so he can set the price point to whatever.
It will just not bring the joy of vim to African kids in Uganda.
However, my response really adds more weight to your idea: since we probably won't be playing the game very long anyways, why not just offer it in perpetuum for the same fee? I bet the author will get many more sales with that arrangement, and their expenses won't really change (if someone does become an avid long-term Vim Adventures player, even extensive usage costs mere pennies in server time and tech support).
EDIT: I spent so long typing this that organsnyder had the same response.
In addition, I feel that the price point is off a little here. I think that dropping the price (or at least adding unlimited access) would increase the amount of people buying the game at a higher percent.
Here's hoping this isn't retroactive.
For the game itself: I can highly recommend it. You will get a decent grip of vim. However, it doesn't get into advanced topics like macros, plugins etc. It won't make you a vim wizard. But for a beginner, it's excellent.
From a personal point, vim is amazing and will significantly improve your text editing life and getting these skills is worth far far more than $25. (I'd pay at least $1000 to have vim proficiency loaded into me Matrix-style.)
just to play devil's advocate, that's less than the price of a grande latte at starbucks every day for a week
More helpful would be something like "This is not correct. Anecdotally I've found ..." or "It is unfair to expect that everyone can ..."
1: http://vimgolf.com/
2: https://github.com/igrigorik/vimgolf
Also for the people complaining about the 6 month access, I get your point but I think this is meant to be just an easy introduction to vim, not a tool for mastering it. I played this for only like a month or two and after I knew enough to start using vim as my main editor I hardly ever touched it again. I haven't even finished the game.
If you are learning I'd advise you to check stuff like this: http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial...
They show you a few shortcuts on a keyboard layout and they keep on adding shortcuts to the pictures so you can learn at a nice pace.
If you're interested in picking up vim, I love it for the first 5 or so levels. After that, not so much. (I currently still use sublime text but do occasionally use vim on servers)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689971
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877880