Experience the Software Development World With a Game

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A game that allows players to experience the process of software development can be an excellent method of teaching coding concepts and programming features, like loops and conditional statement. Games that allow this include Zachtronics’ Shenzhen I/O, which puts players in the shoes of disaffected engineers who work for an ordinary chip manufacturer and have to build computer chips by hand. They are provided with increasingly challenging circuits to create, starting with the making lights flash in a certain pattern.

The game’s interface appears very similar to developer tools found in browsers and also teaches scripting. Another great example is Screeps which incorporates JavaScript coding with massively multiplayer online gameplay to build self-sustaining colonies. Both games do an excellent job of teaching basic concepts while slowly introduce new ones.