Teaching coding through games: gamecodization!

We might think that teaching coding is something boring and complicated. But when you base your exercises on games (you gamecodize :-D) then… your students get astonished!

Introducing a new subject can be threatening for some people. Things get worse for those students not in favour of STEM matters.Then, how to make them buy your fabulous lessons about coding? Act as an illusionist.

First of all switch your digital board and open your IDE (I’ve used Basic256). Start speaking about video games: how long they think a game needs to be coded, types of games, etc. Let them express themselves about the topic.

Then start to explain what Tron is: a film by Disney which gave way to several games. Let them go on speaking about different aspects of the game while you start typing code. For sure you’ll listen to the silence (students suddenly shut up hypnotized by what you are doing) as you go on striking your keyboard, but break it to explain what you are doing and how (different aspects of coding, as main loops, debugging, variables, strategies, etc).

Some tips:

1. Use the help window: they should realize they don’t need to know everything by heart. If doubts pop up a helping window can also pop up.
2. Make some mistakes on purpose: that’ll give them a good view of what debuging and trial-and-error are.
3. Show some hesitation and use the expression “let’s try…”
4. Use a scaffolding approach, constructing the main algorithm, and adding new elements around it as you continue.

My basic version of Tron game needs about 10 minutes top to be coded. When you execute the final code and the students see the results they get way surprised by how easily you can make games.

The coding phases go like this:

1. Create a main loop and listen to the keyboard. If ESC is pressed exit the loop.
2. Insert the code for the motorbike (a point) to go down the screen when pressing the down arrow.
3. Do the same for the rest of the keys.
4. Move the point around, with no physical restraints.
5. Make the algorithm detect the walls left by the point, and make them “real”.
6. Let the player win when getting to the bottom right corner.
7. Add random spheres as obstacles.

The lines of code look like this:

For more ideas about what games to code check the following list. MVC stands for model/view/controller, and AI for artificial intelligence. The grades have been given taking in count: that a student has to code them, and Basic’s features.

	Difficulty	Text/graphic	MVC	Sprites	Data	AI
Animal, vegetable,	difficult	text	yes	no	matrix	basic
Arcanoid	difficult	graphic	yes	yes	matrix	no
Asteroids	medium	graphic	no	yes	array	no
Battleship	medium	both	no	no	matrix	no
Bejeweled	difficult	both	yes	yes	matrix	no
Biggest card	easy	both	no	no	array	no
Checkers	difficult	both	yes	no	matrix	yes
Connect four	medium	both	yes	no	matrix	yes
Conversation	easy	text	no	no	variable	no
Dodger	easy	graphic	no	yes	array	no
Escape the maze	easy	graphic	both	both	matrix	no
Guess the number	easy	text	no	no	variable	basic
Hang man	medium	both	no	no	array	no
Land on the moon	medium	graphic	no	yes	variable	no
Life's game	medium	graphic	yes	no	matrix	no
Marble, chips...	easy	text	no	no	variable	no
Master mind	medium	text	no	no	array	no
Math sequences	medium	text	no	no	array	no
Poker	medium	both	yes	no	matrix	medium
Pong	medium	graphic	no	yes	variable	no
Puzzle: match pairs	easy	both	yes	yes	matrix	no
Puzzle: sliding	medium	both	yes	yes	matrix	no
Simon says	easy	both	yes	no	array	no
Snake	difficult	graphic	yes	yes	matrix	no
Space invaders	difficult	graphic	no	yes	array	no
Text adventure	medium	text	yes	no	matrix	no
Three in a row	medium	both	yes	no	matrix	medium
Tic-tac-toe	easy	both	yes	no	matrix	basic
Tron	easy	graphic	no	no	variable	no