An open source game about learning Git!
Oh My Git! is an open source game that introduces players to the popular version control system "Git". It is highly interactive, and aims at building intuition for operations like "merging" or "rebasing" branches. Players are guided through the features of Git step by step – each level tells a little story where the player can use their new-found powers to solve problems or help others.
Oh My Git! is available for all major operating systems on itch.io, and has been downloaded over 2000 times as of February 2021.
| Developers | bleeptrack and blinry, a creative duo from Germany |
| In development since | September 2020 |
| Latest release | February 2021 (version 0.6.0) |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Price | Free! Open source, made with the Godot Engine <3 |
| Website | https://ohmygit.org |
| Contact | bb@morr.cc |
| @bleeptrack @blinry |
“This game is a game changer. What a brilliant way to visualise Git concepts and make it playful at the same time!” – @derphilipp
“blinry and bleeptrack did it again! Love this duo for their creative, fun and useful tools!” – @TalkToNa
Oh My Git! visualizes the internal structures of Git repositories in realtime. The player can immediately see the results of their actions:
To accommodate people who are new to Git, the game features a custom-designed playing card interface! The cards help remember newly introduced Git commands, but also contain a short description and an icon. Therefore, they combine both action as well as documentation:
For more advanced or curious players, the game offers a integrated terminal, where they can execute arbitrary Git commands. There's a "real" Git integrated into the game, which allows players to try and learn all of Git's features.
To teach players how to use Git for collaboration in teams, Oh My Git! puts a focus on how to interact with remotes, and which workflows exist when dealing with multiple repositories:
bleeptrack and blinry are frequent collaborators, and have worked on numerous software projects and games together. Seeing that there was no game that allowed people to learn and try Git in-depth, they started working on Oh My Git! in 2020! They applied to the Prototype Fund, an open source funding program of the German Ministry of Education and Research, and were picked among a dozen of other projects to receive funding for six months.
During this time, they iterated the game a lot from the initial idea to a finished prototype, which was released in February 2021. Following a very playtest-driven approach, they expanded the game to accommodate both people who are completely new to Git, as well as more experienced users. Developing the game as open-source from the start allowed interested people to contribute their ideas, fix bugs, and improve the content.
After the funding by the Prototype Fund ended in February 2021, bleeptrack and blinry are now looking for new funding sources and partners. They are also always interested in getting feedback to the game, from people who want to learn Git, and from people who might be interested to use it to teach Git to others.
Yes, Oh My Git! uses real Git repositories for each level. It is important to us that Git beginners have a real-life experience while playing. Also we want to give more experienced Git users all the power they would have when using Git in their productive environment.
Is there a web version?No, currently there is no web version of Oh My Git, because we build upon a real shell and Git. We provide downloadable executables for Linux, Windows and macOS.
Who is your target audience?Oh My Git! focuses on complete beginners. But also more advanced players will learn new helpful tricks about Git, and teachers are able to open prepared repositories in the sandbox mode, to demonstrate certain situations.
Can people build their own levels?Yes, building own levels is super easy. Interested people can find a tutorial in the Oh My Git! repository's README.
What if I want to use Git via the command line?You can do both! We integrated the playing cards to give beginners an easier start, but you can also directly type into the terminal. You will even get a badge if you complete a level without playing a card!
Why are the arrows connecting the commits point in the wrong direction?In "Oh My Git" the arrows between commits do not represent the pointers used by Git internally. Instead, the arrows indicate the time direction. We chose this visualization because we found that it confuses Git beginners less.
The music used in the game has been composed by our friend winniehell, the track is called Gigantic Greasy Giraffe.
The font used in the game is Cabin.
bleeptrack is a generative and AI artist. Her works not only explore generative spaces but also different materials and fabrication methods like CNC milling wood, drawing with pen plotters and generative PCB designs. Her artworks have been presented at several international exhibitions in Shanghai, London or Berlin. She is also a doctoral student at the Institute for Neural Information Processing at Ulm University. In her research, Sabine Wieluch wants to fuse her love for generative art with her interests in Machine Learning.
blinry is a computer scientist, programmer, and designer from Germany. They are enthusiastic about free licenses, food, and minimalism, and they value autonomy, creativity, and curiosity. They have attended a scientific workshop on Origami in the Caribbean, backpacked through Japan, are collecting accidental art and is drawing algorithm assembly instructions. They love their communities – Jugend Hackt, the Recurse Center, the Chaos community.
Write us an email at bb@morr.cc or ping us on Twitter as @bleeptrack and @blinry.
Oh My Git!'s website is https://ohmygit.org.
