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Show HN: ArtisanForge: Learn Laravel through a gamified RPG adventure
by grazulex
Hey HN,
I built ArtisanForge, a free platform to learn PHP and Laravel through a medieval-fantasy RPG. Instead of traditional tutorials, you progress through kingdoms, solve coding exercises in a browser editor, earn XP, join guilds, and fight boss battles.
Tech stack: Laravel 12, Livewire 3, Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js. Code execution runs sandboxed via php-wasm in the browser.
What's in there:
- 12 courses across 11 kingdoms (PHP basics to deployment)
- 100+ interactive exercises with real-time code validation using AST analysis
- AI companion (Pip the Owlox) that uses Socratic method – never gives direct answers
- Full gamification: XP, levels, streaks, achievements, guilds, leaderboard
- Multilingual (EN/FR/NL)
The idea came from seeing too many beginners drop off traditional courses. Wrapping concepts in quests and progression mechanics keeps motivation high without dumbing down the content.
Everything is free, no paywall, no premium tier. Feedback welcome – especially from Laravel devs and educators.
Just after the initial glimpse at the frontpage I really like the copy especially the realms names. Routenburg made me giggle. Good to see an interesting approach to learning in the times when we're at risk that no one might be willing to learn when they can just ask AI chatbot.
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Gave this a go, really well done. There seems to be a bug in the first lesson already; for whatever reason it's telling me to type the response to the troll in french. If you follow the instructions, it throws syntax and typo errors as it wanted the solution in english. "Show the solution" button provides the output in english as well. Some weird language stuff going on.
Submitted a report and the developer replied and has issued a fix for this french/english problem now. (— Henry V, probably.)
Comment was deleted :(
Crafted by Rajat
Source Code