🦑 West Coves

Lessons

1. 1

   Shout into the Void: print/log debugging

   Student can instrument any Verse script with Print statements and read the output log to trace game flow and diagnose bugs.
2. 2

   Readable Code Is Debuggable Code: naming conventions

   Student can apply Verse naming conventions (PascalCase functions, descriptive vars, _device suffixes) so bugs are visible on read.
3. 3

   Crow's Nest Constants: immutable bindings

   Student can declare constants and immutable data bindings and explain why config values should never be mutable.
4. 4

   Maybe Treasure, Maybe Nothing: returning and unwrapping option types

   Student can return ?t from a function and safely unwrap it with if-then binding and the ? operator.
5. 5

   The Skull Brig: failure contexts and the <decides> operator

   Student can write failable functions with <decides><transacts> and call them inside if-contexts so failures roll back instead of crashing.
6. 6

   Sunken Deck Salvage: array indexing is failable

   Student can index arrays inside failure contexts and never write an out-of-bounds crash again.
7. 7

   Racer Roster: adding and removing from arrays

   Student can grow, shrink, and rebuild arrays (concat, slice-around-index) to maintain a live roster.
8. 8

   Sea-Stack Pillars: your shared helper module

   Student can extract reusable functions into a module and import it from any file — the SOLID layering habit every later zone uses.
9. 9

   Async 101: Sleep, loop, and the countdown

   Student can write <suspends> functions using Sleep() in loops to build countdowns and repeating timers without blocking the game.
10. 10

    Marooned Town: fire-and-forget with spawn

    Student can launch independent async tasks with spawn{} and knows when spawn is right vs. awaiting inline.
11. 11

    All Boats Together: sync waits for everyone

    Student can run tasks in parallel with sync{} and use all results once every branch completes.
12. 12

    Kraken's Cove: race — first task wins, losers cancelled

    Student can use race{} to run competing tasks where the first to finish cancels the rest — the timeout pattern.
13. 13

    First Across the Line: rush keeps the losers running

    Student can choose between race and rush — rush returns the first result but lets remaining tasks continue.
14. 14

    The Timing Toolbox: spawn/sync/race/loop together

    Student can combine all four concurrency primitives into one game-timing structure and pick the right tool per job.
15. 15

    Mermaid Lagoon: await events, never poll

    Student can subscribe to and await device/custom events instead of loop-polling state, and can define a custom event(t) signal.
16. 16

    Mangrove Channel Gates: trigger_device as checkpoint sensor

    Student can wire trigger_device TriggeredEvent into Verse with agent payloads to detect exactly who passed a gate.
17. 17

    Firefly Cove at Dusk: PlayerAddedEvent and the join lifecycle

    Student can handle players joining mid-session (PlayerAddedEvent + GetPlayspace().GetPlayers()) and initialize per-player state.
18. 18

    Hidden Cove Ambush: elimination_result and EliminatedEvent

    Student can subscribe to fort_character EliminatedEvent, read elimination_result (who/by-whom), and drive game logic from eliminations.
19. 19

    Treasure Cove Phases: the game state machine

    Student can model game flow as an enum-state machine with async phase functions and event-driven transitions (Lobby→Countdown→Racing→Podium→Reset).
20. 20

    The Rusty Barnacle: Inkbeard's NPC behaviour state machine

    Student can author npc_behavior Verse with an internal state machine (idle/patrol/chase) and attach it to an NPC spawner.
21. 21

    Crystal Grotto Lens: first-person camera for spectators

    Student can push/pop a gameplay_camera_first_person_device onto an agent's camera stack from Verse to change perspective at runtime.
22. 22

    Checkpoint Gate Prefab: async behaviour in Scene Graph components

    Student can write a custom component whose OnSimulate runs async logic (pulse animation + trigger await) and package the gate entity as a reusable prefab.
23. 23

    CAPSTONE — Coastal Race: ship it

    Student assembles all 22 lessons into a complete playable boat-race mode with lobby, synced start, checkpoints, storm timeout, eliminations, kraken NPC, podium, and persistent win tracking.