Learning Through Play
I quite enjoy programming, so as one of my genres that I wanted to mix in my Game and Play Design project was the programming video game genre. In this genre you can find games like Human Resource Machine, Zachtronics’ games, and Hacknet (more of a hacking game, to be fair).
Educational games are often seen to be boring or sub-par when compared to games that are primarily focused on other areas. I want to challenge this idea in DEV-WICK. Arguably, programming games are an evolution of the puzzle game genre, which are technically educational (you’re required to learn new mechanics), although typically have no real-world application, other than say exercising your brain. These games present the player with a problem and the means to solve it—the rest is up to them.
The video I linked above, by the Youtuber Chadunda, discusses how games teach programming, in particular analyzing the game Human Resource Machine, where players create sorting algorithms and other programs. The game teaches basic programming concepts, in addition to teaching the lesson that algorithms have quality. For instance, in the game TIS-100 (Zachtronics, 2015), players are presented with a graph showing how their algorithm compares with the rest of the players that attempted the very same level. Now things get competitive, and for some, they’re hooked after that, trying to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of their work in order to top the leaderboards.
