Candy Box 2 -- there is more to this than meets the eye: https://candybox2.github.io/. Source: 12 months ago

Looking as an outsider you will see a bunch of weird-ass ASCII art that doesn't even look that good compared to, say, Candy Box, while as the actual player you're actually wrestling an eldritch beast made of deadly gas into the ground as you pulp it with a dead giant's body. Source: over 1 year ago

Not really like the games you mentioned but Candy Box 2, A Dark Room, and Kittens Game are some of the best browser-based idle games ever. Source: over 1 year ago

Not Candy Box or Candy Box 2, was it? Dubious guess but it does keep coming up. Source: over 1 year ago

I appreciate anyone suggesting CC Classic, but since I'd expect a JS Console minigame to be text-based, then maybe it should be more like Candybox2 (https://candybox2.github.io/ which if I'm not mistaken was part of the inspriation for CC!). Source: over 1 year ago

This is pretty much `assembly language the game`: https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine It's not a useful architecture, but it teaches the thought process really well, and you end up discovering a lot of optimization naturally. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago

Other options have been given in this thread and I'd agree that for this particular situation the Tomorrow Corporation's "Human Resource Machine" is probably the best match. It's a constrained environment in a game that scales up to introduce this and more. Source: about 1 year ago

Not sure if 7 is old enough, I made this card "game" with my daughter when she was 10: https://punkx.org/4917/ which is not really a game but more like a puzzle, you have 54 small programs for a 4 bit made up computer (Richard Buckland's computer) and you have to interpret them in your head or with pen and paper. It's quite interesting to play with her when I change few instructions on a card. Other interesting... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago

We have programming based games like Human Resource Machine and Hacknet. Source: about 1 year ago

The game us actually called Human Resource Machine and it is excellent. I've beaten that one and its sequel. But some people might find it difficult and I would say somebody in the lower grades definitely would. Source: over 1 year ago