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Using game design mechanics as metaphors to enhance learning of introductory programming concepts

Published:26 August 2019Publication History

ABSTRACT

There are several educational games and tools that teach programming. However, very few offer a deep understanding of Computer Science concepts such as Abstraction, Modularity, Semantics, and Debugging. We present May's Journey, an educational game that supports learning of basic programming concepts, where players solve puzzles and interact with the environment by typing in a custom programming language. The game design seamlessly integrates learning goals, core mechanics, and narrative elements. We discuss how we integrate the CS concepts mentioned above using game mechanic metaphors.

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        cover image ACM Other conferences
        FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
        August 2019
        822 pages
        ISBN:9781450372176
        DOI:10.1145/3337722

        Copyright © 2019 Owner/Author

        Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 26 August 2019

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        FDG '19 Paper Acceptance Rate46of124submissions,37%Overall Acceptance Rate152of415submissions,37%

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