Best programming based games [closed]

Question

I used to have a lot of fun coding my own robot with Robocode in college.

It is Java based, the API is detailled and it's pretty easy to get a challenging robot up and running.

Here is an example :

 public class MyFirstRobot extends Robot {
     public void run() {
         while (true) {
             ahead(100);
             turnGunRight(360);
             back(100);
             turnGunRight(360);
         }
     }

     public void onScannedRobot(ScannedRobotEvent e) {
         fire(1);
     }
 }

Just found Light Bot. Program your robot to move around and perform tasks to complete a puzzle. Even includes subroutines. Program the bot by dragging tiles into slots. The game is very polished.

Update Lightbot is now the most recent version of the game, and has versions specifically designed for kids ages 4-8 or ages 9+ (with no upper limit) and also features kind of an if

screen of lightbot 1 http://www.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/light-bot.jpg

I think the original game was called Core Wars (this Wikipedia article contains a lot of interesting links); there still seem to be programs and competitions around, for example at corewars.org. I never had the time to look into these games, but they seem like great fun.

In the flash game Manufactoria you "program" a factory by laying out the conveyor belts and switches in a way that's very similar to a FSM, but more powerful. This game is really great. Give it a try, especially if you're into formal languages and automata!

Manufactoria screen shot http://www.tomdalling.com/wp-content/uploads/manufactoria-bubble-sort.png