I was thinking it might be neat to have a game that centered around programming as its main play-objective. I recall an old game called 'dragonrealms' where people including myself wrote many simple scripts in their specific easy-to-use game specific language, however it was a mixed game mmo where people mostly played manually, and the two styles don't mix well currently!!! This is even a problem in popular MMOs like world of warcraft, where 'bots' are unpopular with the people trying to play the game 'humanly'.

Thus I would suggest making a game where all the players write scripts and then run them in the environment where the scripts compete with each other or against dev-challenges in a tutorial and/or cooperative mode. Virtually any gameplay style could be given a scripting interface or have a scripting language added to it to allow the human to programatically control all the player actions, and also specific unit actions, for example in an rts the player could write scripts for the player controls and also updated unit scripts, then watch in real time as his script/rts team played against another human's script/team in a ranked match....possibly with both a fast, time compressed version that saves a replay to zoom through but goes fast, a real-time version, and maybe one that allows humans to input things into their programs or into the game in real time as the scripts go.

The single player game would teach programming in the scripting language against a bunch of easy->hard challenges, possibly with a high end rating mode that rates the players skill at programming AI for the game in a series of high-end challenges. There might be a speed mode that requires a new script in a set time, although mostly it would be a script-book that the players would sort through and drag around onto units, maybe with a few different script editing options and powerful APIs and datatypes for easy access, also within the official rules of the game..... 'realistic robots' sort of. This could also be done in an MMORTS setting with a large persistent (possibly 2d or not) world, where the player starts a settlement of humans somewhere away from everyone else, and controls things like mining, building, army production, scouting, expansion, everything possible with scripts, then lets them run 24/7 with the player being able to jump in and issue commands and/or update scripts at any time, and also start a new settlement while keeping his old scripts if his settlement dies to pvp, animal attack, starvation, or whatever.

Other game-making tools could be included as well, such as a 3d-modeler and level-editor. A 2D game with tiles in this format might be neat and easier on users too, since 2d is easier, although 2d-terrain logic with a bit of 3d relevance might be good too....although a 2d image editor is easier to use than a 3d modeler! It would be super awesome if 3d modeling could be a game, for example the player could 'design' some recipes for his scripts to build. They would model some 3d farm tools or weapons....possibly by first picking a recipe type (weapon->sword), then picking what materials to use....mining recipes would include tools like pickaxe and whatnot, with a bit of a minecraft theme to the recipes, and mines would get deeper, and deeper = slower and more death to peasant miners, but better tools counter that, built from the deeper resources. Resources would have a type and number, such as metal type, wood type, stone type, and more....and the number would be hardness/density, so pine wood in the game would be wood with a number 50, and oak wood ( a hardwood, pine is a softwood) might be wood 120, (humans are around 100 on average with a soft outer shell), and rare yukka wood from south america might be a 280 and grow slowly while requiring more fertilizer....or model it more abstractly. Note that iron = 5000 and titanium is like 8500, but I just made those numbers up. The peasant hordes mine the minerals and stockpile them in the town, then the player makes recipes using the items, which have a color....maybe make some dye items from plants too and whatnot, also shiny gems are "crystal" type stones, a somewhat similar type...also explosive powder is mined, and has a number, along with water which is fuel with the number 0, get deeper and you get fuel-water that is number 80, then all the way up to the cap, which is very very deep and high. Those materials have colors and textures, then the player's picked recipe defines the basic shape, then the player can reshape it directly via vertex dragging or hammer-like modeled tools that were crafted and physics, (or random and a menu), to affect the stats of the produced item made by the scripted peasants in real time with the mined goods, and can order them via script or directly to produce a quantity over time or total # or whatnot. The model and the numbers may or may not be closely connected, although recipes with higher numbered materials tend to be more effective. There might also be research options to allow your peasants to unlock new recipes.

Other players could be scouted and attacked, and their stores raided and hauled off in carts, and communications and trading would also be diplomatic options, possibly with a calling the cell phone interface that your scripts can trigger.

There are a few games that have programming themes --

RoboRally is one where you play cards describing movement patterns (turn left, turn right, move ahead two spaces, etc) in order to reach a series of check-points while competing against other players. There is also an element of strategy where each player's instructions are played out simultaneously, so two robots might collide.

Another game I recall having, and playing with, was a game where you programmed virtual "tanks" that competed against other tanks in arena-style combat. competitions usually had various "weight" classes by lines of code 1K was lightweight, 2K middleweight, 4K heavyweight. Sometimes the competiton was 1-on-1, other times teams of 5+ were pitted against one another. They were programmed in an assembly-like language, and you had a sort of budget with regard to things you could do (move, fire, expand the range/arc of your radar) -- you could overspend your budget for awhile, which would "overheat" your tank, and then you'd have to take it easy for a time to "cool off". There were quite a few interesting categories of tanks that became popular -- a "sniper" script would typically hang back, do a broad scan with the radar to detect a target, then focus the radar on that one target to pick up on how it was moving so that the proper lead could be taken, and take very accurate shots. "berserkers" would just fire randomly, communicating with other tanks on the team just to avoid friendly-fire. "scouts" would simply drive around the arena with their shields at full, scanning for enemies and transmitting their coordinates back to the team. "Kamikazes" would find an enemy, then charge and intentionally overheat until they exploded, hopefully taking out the enemy with the splash damage. It would be really cool to see a version of that game again.

Instead of just naming the games, could you describe what you remember about them, in particular from a design oriented (or gameplay or whatever you remember) perspective?

Really surprised nobody has mentioned Carnage Heart for the Playstation. Its a turn based strategy war game centering around armies of customizable robots. Think, hex based Front Mission, but the battles themselves are fought in real time with the A.I.s you program into the robots. The programing system used a simple grid/tile system of interconnected "chips", each representing simple program logic. Actions like "move foreword", conditionals like "is weapon X out of ammo?", even simple communication between your different robots was possible. Really deep and fun game. Although it never caught on in the US, there are a number of sequels released in Japan.