A game that allows players to experience the process of software development is a great way to teach programming concepts and coding, such as loops and conditional statements. Zachtronics Shenzhen I/O is one game that accomplishes this. It puts players in the shoes unhappy engineers who work for a non-existent company and must build computer chips by hand. The circuits they’re asked to design become more difficult beginning with making the lights blink in a specific pattern.
The game’s interface is very similar to that found in browsers, and it is a great way to teach scripting. Another excellent example is Screeps which is a game that combines JavaScript programming and massively multiplayer online gaming to create self-sustaining colonies. Both games do a wonderful job of teaching the basics while slowly introduce new ones.
