ugh what have I done to myself?

Today I started this codingame thing someone mentioned on here, but because I'm stubborn I've played every puzzle or game in bash so far...
So yeah, I'm loosing to all the cool kids using C++ or python even on simple stuff and I'm always struggling with this weird syntax - like "$" or not ... whitespace? parenthesis?

I mean I do like some bash but these games are really not made for it