When I think about educational games over the years, more often than not the memories aren’t positive ones. Sure, when you’re talking about titles aimed at much younger kids there can be some elements of fun and whimsy to them, so there are cases where I’ve seen games that do a good job of helping kids learn while they’re having some fun. The problem is that as children get older, and what they need to learn is a bit more complex, it typically isn’t as easy to make any attempt to hide the educational components. Some I’ve seen have fared better than others, but for the most part it’s hard to miss math formulas or vocabulary words being thrown in with some thin framing of a game.

In the case of Glitch Hero, I think it fares a little better than most of its brethren at trying to fold the concepts it is trying to teach into the gameplay, but you could also argue that programming concepts actually pair well with gaming. Whether people know it or not, it isn’t unusual for basic programming concepts to appear in games when dealing with puzzles, it’s all just about how the problems and your means of a solution are framed. In this case the coding logic shows up in the form of dungeon puzzles most of the time, requiring you to learn new concepts and then apply them in increasingly complicated ways in order to proceed. Since I’m a programmer by trade, I’ll admit that it is harder for me to assess how effective the instructions are to help people understand how to make use of some constructs like loops, but at least in principle I appreciate how it not only throws some of these concepts at the player, but also bakes in a provision to make the degree of challenge scale by the player’s age… a feature that’s thoughtful even if depending on the player the scale may or may not feel terribly accurate.

Beyond the coding elements there is a fair amount of typical action-adventure running around, some combat, traps to avoid, and acquiring new skills as you go. Make no mistake, these elements aren’t as strong as their typical brethren on the dedicated gaming side of the fence, but I’ll admit that up against the other “edutainment” games I’ve played this at least does a better job than most. I can see where criticisms also could be leveled at the overall look of everything, which feels sort of old-school Flash game-like in many ways, but it serves its purpose and at least aspects like the game’s performance work well. I don’t know that I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a solid game, as there are many in this space that are obviously deeper and more satisfying, but if you put this up against the pack of other educational games on Switch it fares a bit better than most.