I think "board game to teach kids programming" is a misdescription. This is a board game that teaches kids to think like programmers --- it teaches elementary logic skills and makes them familiar with programming concepts. It doesn't teach them anything about actual programming, though it makes them better potential programmers. I think this game is worthwhile as a general learning exercise, i.e. to develop structured thinking, but with regard to programming, it is a misdirection of efforts.<p>To elaborate: there's a certain magic moment when you write your first program. You realize that you can make the computer <i>do things</i>. First, you just have it print a test message. <i>WOW</i>. Then you have it add two numbers. It works, and you feel a surge of emotion: with this tool, <i>anything</i> is possible. It's an incredibly powerful and liberating feeling. It is very persuasive, and often gives rise to an immediate fascination.<p>The way to "teach kids programming" is to give them that experience, to let them feel that Eureka!-moment. Teaching kids about logical statements, loops, etc. is neat stuff, and will certainly make them into better thinkers, but <i>it does not make them (significantly) likelier to open up a REPL and type in "print 'Hello World'".</i><p>And that is the critical point: if a parent wants their child to pick up programming, they'll have to get them to actually program. Playing games about conditional statements and basic logic is only very tangentially related to getting children to write and run code. (The same complaint goes for other products in this space: picture-books, games, etc. to bring children closer to programming have been released in great number recently.)<p>Perhaps there is some sort of general fear that actually opening up a terminal, notepad, etc. is somehow an intrinsically difficult task (likely because most parents have no idea how it works, either), so parents try to edge closer to programming with these educational toys, but the problem is that "learning to code" is not something that can be done by gradual immersion. A child can learn to swim by dipping their toes into the water and then slowly wading into the pool while moving their arms --- a couple hours of this, and they'll learn to swim. However, with coding, the process is not as gradual: at some point, the child has to open up an editor and start typing. An effective educational tool that "teaches kids programming" really must do only one thing: help them make this step.