Software visualisation through video games

Bradley R. C. Marques, Stephen P. Levitt, Ken J. Nixon

Abstract: A educational computer game, Conveyor, was designed and developed as part of an investigation into the use of games to teach software development at a tertiary level. The puzzle game requires players to sort random input objects of particular shapes and colours into the correct outputs by programming the solution. An integrated analytics system collects data about how players engage with the game, such as the time taken and number of reattempts at each level. The game was tested on a group of 39 electrical engineering and game design students, many of whom had not programmed before. 80% of participants completed all 9 levels of the game. The minimum average time for a level was around 20 seconds with an average of 2 attempts, whilst the most difficult level took an average of 7 minutes over 3 attempts to complete. These results indicate that the game provided a good, but not overwhelming, challenge for the desired audience. A survey was used to collect qualitative feedback from the audience. The game was judged to be both fun and rewarding, but is too instructive and the user interface was deemed confusing. Further work conducted includes a simple test before and after the game is played, to judge the effect of the game on students' understanding.