Microsoft Research’s Code Hunt Online Game Makes Coding More Fun Than Ever

Microsoft’s research division has launched a new game that makes Java and C# coding more fun and addictive than ever. The online browser based game called Code Hunt asks players to find out the secret solution of a piece of code by presenting a few test cases that show the functional behaviour of the code. At the start of every level there is a fragment of code and two test cases, out of which presents the correct behaviour and the other presents the incorrect results. The player now has to alter the code on the left hand side to match the desired results. The best part of the game is that there are multiple solutions to the puzzle and more points are awarded for finding the optimum code. In the Code Hunt game your start off with the tutorial and go on to solve questions related to arithmetic, loops, conditionals, strings, nested loops, one dimensional arrays, jagged arrays, searching, sorting, ciphers and puzzles. Since the game is based on Microsoft Azure, you can keep track of your progress and see where you stand in the leader board.


The game was developed by a team at Microsoft Research led by Nikolai Tillmann and Peli de Halleux. The game is based on Pex which is a Power Tool in Microsoft Visual Studio that performs dynamic symbolic execution. The Code Hunt made a debut at the Microsoft Research Asia’s Beauty of Programming event in China. Previously, at the Beauty of Programming event there is used to be a test suite and students were asked to solve the code as fast as possible. With the launch of Code Hunt the organisers did not have to pit the students against each other as it used a set of constantly changing test cases for every user. Students on an average could solve 55.7% of the puzzles and the best of them could arrive at a solution within 8 tries.

We would like to call out to all the programming minds on CE to head over to the #-Link-Snipped-# website and start playing the game and also do not forget to post your scores on the CE forum.

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