For context: I’m currently employed as a software engineer, I do consultancy on the side and I previously was a technical lead. Around 15 years of professional experience which includes a lot of mentoring/training.
It’s a cool idea - there are quite a few little things kicking around with some similarities - “advent of code” is the closest thing I can think of. I’m sure it could be very fun and educational.
Personally, and I’m going to be completely honest and frank with you, I don’t think I would play it, (though I’m definitely not the target market), but also, it’s not likely that I would recommend it to someone who wants to learn to code either.
Usually when people want to learn to code, it’s because they have some end goal in mind - they want to make an app, game, website, they want to get a job as a developer, data analyst, QA, etc. or they have something in particular which interests them - such as machine learning, embedded design, blockchain (yes, I know it’s a scam), digital music/art, etc. - and based on what they want to do, I’d recommend them some very different pathways, and it’s very unlikely that your game would be the best use of their time, to be honest.
I think, personally, this kind of learning device is only really good as a starting point for people who want to learn for the sake of learning, people who want to learn programming but have no real idea about what they want to program - this tends to be quite rare, though, because we all interact with technology from such a young age, by the time people are capable of learning programming, there would be something that gets them excited and that they would enjoy working towards.
I think what I would like to suggest to you instead, is something that I think would be - in my opinion - really cool, genuinely helpful as an educational tool, and with a lot more potential for monetisation:
The exact game you described, but rather than the game being the end goal, instead, you focus on the foundations that the game is built upon, and have the game be a tech demo for an educational, learn-to-code driven game engine.
Prioritise all of the game design tools for building the game such as the world/quest editors and make sure you have some way of supporting different languages, allowing custom assets to be easily imported, etc.
Make it nice and easy for people to build on top of - in an ideal world, it should be possible for someone to decide to make a module for an esoteric conlang and whip up a simple proof of concept adventure with your framework in an evening or two.
Then you can provide it as a subscription based online platform with some sort of limited free trial, a selection of pre-made official modules for individuals and organisations who pay, a “module marketplace” where people can design, share, and sell new adventures (where you take a cut, of course) and self-hosted (or separate) instances for schools, colleges, boot camps, and so on. who want to provide a series of adventures as supplementary learning material for classes.
I think if you put some effort into this you could make something really cool and successful. But it’s definitely a huge undertaking. If you want to take on the challenge, let me know, maybe it’s something we can work on together if you’re interested.
Releasing what is essentially two different consoles at the same time was such a bad idea. I can’t imagine that anyone in the engineering team thought it was a good idea. It seems like the kind of decision that is made in a board meeting that gets handed to the engineers with the caveat, “you don’t have to agree with the idea; just make it work!”