Designing a Novel Educational Game for Teaching C# Programming

Matthew Hinds, Nilufar Baghaei, Pedrito Ragon, Jonathon Lambert, Tharindu Rajakaruna,

Travers Houghton, Simon Dacey and John Casey

Department of computer science, Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Auckland 1142, New Zealand

Keywords: Game Design, Education, Programming.

Abstract: Learning to code can be a daunting experience for a lot of students. RunJumpCode is a novel 2D platformer

video game, designed and developed in Unity, to teach players the fundamental concepts of C# programming.

The game enhances the player’s programming knowledge by providing a fun range of challenges and puzzles

to solve. We promoted the interaction of programming through a ‘Code Box’, allowing players to enter lines

of predefined code that modifies in-game objects. This tool is essential in completing the challenges and

puzzles we designed. To allow alterations of its properties, we made further manipulation of each object

possible, which would give the player creative freedom to complete each level. Quizzes and journals were

utilized to assess and collate their learnt material for future reference. In addition, we created a mobile

application to track each player’s statistics throughout the game and compare their progress with other users.

The results of a pilot study showed that users enjoyed playing the game and found it valuable for enhancing

their programming knowledge.

1 INTRODUCTION

We are living in a world dominated by software.

Phone calls go over software-controlled networks;

television is delivered over the internet and people use

the web for navigation, news, shopping, social

interaction and entertainment (Crow, 2014).

Technology in the 21

century has evolved in many

ways, helping us to be connected. Through each of

these innovations comes a need to develop and design

new solutions.

Learning to code can be a daunting experience and

has shown to be too overly complex, frustrating and

unenjoyable for many novice students (Lahtinen et al,

2005; Milne and Rowe, 2002). Current easy to access

resources consist of articles and written tutorials.

There has also been attempts in improving teaching

through classes, video and auditorial – being able to

learn through a fun interaction can be a more

enjoyable and knowledge retention experience. Video

games are not a new concept and while they are

popular and generally created for entertainment

purposes, they can be adapted and used for engaging

users with educational materials.

Determining the age group in designing

educational programming video games comes from

identifying the curriculum of which is planned to be

taught. The more complex the content, the higher the

recommended age bracket is. However, current video

games that teach programming generally cater

towards the ages 16 and below. This can be attributed

to the fact that more complex and involved topics

require a dedicated classroom teaching environment

that offers live guidance through a teacher. Current

educational video games, e.g. Code Spell

(https://codespells.org/), Kodu

(www.kodugamelab.com/) and Scratch

(https://scratch.mit.edu/; Maloney, 2010; Sáez-

López, 2016) typically teach the basic fundamentals

and later on expand each topic resulting in a

progressively increasing learning curve of content

difficulty, which in turn can reduce the overall

retention of players and learning speed.

While progressing the content naturally increases

its difficulty, it is important to present the new

material in a way that is easily accessible and

personalise it towards the knowledge of the player. In

this project, we slowed down the progression of new

information and packaged it together with new

gameplay mechanics so that players learn through

naturally completing each level. In addition, after

every three levels we included a quiz that recaps the

previous levels’ content. By doing so, players are

Hinds, M., Baghaei, N., Ragon, P., Lambert, J., Rajakaruna, T., Houghton, T., Dacey, S. and Casey, J.

Designing a Novel Educational Game for Teaching C# Programming.

DOI: 10.5220/0006242000810086

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 2, pages 81-86

ISBN: 978-989-758-240-0

reminded to pay more attention throughout each level

so they can successfully pass the quiz and proceed to

the next level.

The Relevance of Games in Education

Video games first emerged since the successful

proof of concept by Physicist William Higinbotham

in October 1958 using circuitry revolving around the

use of resistors, relays, capacitors and transistors

(“The First Video Game of William Higinbotham,”

n.d.). Since then during the next decade, video games

have seen a radical change as general computing

became more developed and commercially viable.

With the release of the first video game console,

the Magnavox Odyssey the video game industry saw

its first leap towards public interest and the industry

began its capitalization of the at home entertainment

system (Schilling, 2003; Williams, n.d.). Popularity

with video games made its first big break with the

release of the Atari 2600 in 1977 (Bellemare et al,

2012) and the Nintendo 64 in 1996 (Schilling, 2003);

since then video games have caught the attention of

millions of children and families which has strengthen

its status as a must have electronic of the modern

household.

Video game interaction revolves around user

input on a touchscreen, gamepad or keyboard and

mouse to control and perform the appropriated

directed action desired on screen. These repetitious

actions are fundamental in playing and through

studies have shown to help improve motor

functionality and hand eye coordination. The video

game experience in particular allows gamers to

develop perceptual and cognitive skills in many

aspects that exceeds those of their non-gamer

counterparts (Green and Bavelier, 2004).

The educational games genre has yet to see their

popularity boom, as most players tend to use video

games as a form of entertainment rather than

education. However, in more recent times the use of

video games to develop educational tools has

expanded due to the rise of affordable and accessible

technology, especially in smart tablet devices. It

allows them to be an effective classroom tool to help

students learn and reinforce a variety of skills and

knowledge (Rossing et al, 2012).

Rewards should be given out to players for

completing specific tasks that range from easy to

hard. The drive to seek out higher rewards come from

video games tendency to promote competitiveness

amongst players and their peers. Such behavior can be

exploited to promote higher engagement and

retention rates as players are more likely to work to

completing more difficult tasks if they are tempted

with a greater reward for completion. Such rewards

are built around how the game is developed, but

should be meaningful so that they do not feel

worthless. For example, giving new unlocks for

levels, badges, medals, titles or character

customization options are suitable rewards and can

garnish players’ attention.

An educational game designer should first

thoroughly understand the contents and

methodologies of its subject. Without a strong and

accurate background, it would be difficult to have

confidence in the teaching material and curriculum.

One can then decide on the best way to represent that

content in a meaningful way. Each dimensional

environment (2D or 3D) has its own strengths and

weaknesses, one being more immersive through

freedom of a three-dimensional world, but more

heavy on hardware taxing reducing the potential

adoption of low end system players. While the other

is less engaging through a lack of connection that is

brought in from a two-dimensional world, but then

also allows a wider adoption due to less hardware

constraints.

Following a teaching structure that is similar to a

classroom curriculum will help build a path of content

that is easy to grasp in the beginning and later

becoming more difficult. Progressively expanding the

content allows players to start off with the basics and

slowly move up to more in-depth and complex

concepts, giving them a natural curve of increasing

knowledge.

2 RunJumpCode GAME DESIGN

RunJumpCode is a 2D platformer with basic left, right

jumps & gravity idea. It was adopted from Super

Mario Bros. (Pedersen, Togelius, and Yannakakis,

n.d.) due to its high success rate (Ryan, 2011; Chen

2011), simplicity and level of entertainment. User

have to learn theory, solve problems and apply

learned knowledge in order to progress through the

game (Baghaei, 2016).

Once launched, the player is taken to the main menu

where items are clear and easy to understand. The

idea behind the simplicity is so that the players on a

broad age group will be able to figure out the

workings of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) with

minimal effort. And since this is the user’s first point

of contact with game and as a first impression, it was

imperative for the design to be cluster free and easily

understandable.

RunJumpCode was developed with a diverse age

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

group in mind, mainly senior high school students

and/or undergraduate tertiary students. The first step

is to login which is done either with a new account or

an existing account. Once logged in, the player will

be taken to the level selection window where the

completed levels and the next level are highlighted.

Once clicked on a highlighted it will show the level

name, description and the difficulty to give the user

an idea as to what they are about to do and learn in

order to complete the level. Once the user selects a

level and click play, the level will be initiated. The

first thing the user sees on the level is the level

information screen. Key information shown here is

the programming tutorial section, which highlights

what is taught and the exclusions section, which

highlights the restrictions applied to the level. This

helps the users to familiarize themselves with the

level so they know what to expect for the coming

session.

The game character moves by detecting arrow key

presses. The user has to navigate the game space to

reach the endpoint by clearing obstacles along the

way. Each obstacle poses a learning curve to the user.

This is an approach to promote logical thinking.

Logical thinking is one of the most important aspects

of software engineering and this is where some people

struggle. With our application, the users are actively

encouraged to come up with solutions to each

problem. To make things more interesting, each level

also comes with a set of restrictions just like lifelike

scenarios where not all the options are available. On

each level these restrictions are different, to ensure the

user cannot interact with a problem same way if it

occurs multiple times, thus forcing them to think

differently.

Obstacles also require object manipulation,

meaning the user may have to spawn, scale, enable &

disable objects to progress. This approach was

encouraged by need to teach syntax. As an example

to spawn a box a player has to enter

“player.spawnItem(Box);”. If the user makes an error

a syntax error will be shown with the cause, helping

the user to understand how important it is to follow

syntax in coding and how small details make a big

impact.

Apart from that, the user also has a theory section

as well, giving the user key theory knowledge

required to progress with the game such as explaning

what Integers are in Level 1. This is further elaborated

with examples which in our past experience helped

with memorizing theory. Before the user can

https://unity3d.com/

complete any level, there is a minimum number of

coins to be collected, which is another measure taken

to make sure the player gets a minimum level of

knowledge before progressing forward.

The game starts at a very simple level, which is

made even easier with hints and lots of mouse clicks

and less coding. As the game progresses, it involves

more and more coding and less GUI operations. This

is also a systematic approach since people who are not

very technical, seem to need more help till they get

more familiar with the concept of coding.

Although hints are available, it is not free to use

them. The user loses some marks for using hints. This

helps to discourage the player from using them and

guides them more towards thinking and independent

learning. Both of which are again quite important for

software developers.

Figure 1: RunJumpCode Level 1.

In level 1 (shown in Figure 1) the obstacles are

very simple to overcome. All the player needs to do is

to place a box, jump on it and continue on. As the

player progresses, the obstacles get progressively

trickier. In figure 2 one box is not allowed so the user

has to summon a ladder. Merely summoning one

ladder is not enough as the player also has to scale the

ladder. This makes the user interact more with the

game on a creative level.

With development tools such as Unity

and Unreal

Engine

being available for free, 3D development has

become slightly easier. Having said that, budget plays

a role on how a game is being developed. 2D game

development cost less as teams can be smaller in size

https://www.unrealengine.com/

Designing a Novel Educational Game for Teaching C# Programming

and development is less complex. Math and art are

more complicated in 3D. As for gameplay, 2D game

has simpler physics mechanics and basic intuitive

controls. Players would be able to identify interactive

objects in the environment easily. Interactive

tutorials and Code Box also work well on 2D because

of the said simpler layout and should cater well to

users of all ages compared to 3D. 2D development

requires low system requirements thus the game can

be played on a very low end system without

sacrificing the gameplay. Another issue with 3D

development is having to use more memory and

resources thus producing inconsistent framerate could

greatly impact player’s experience on a slow

machine.

Building a good programming foundation is one

of the goal of this game. It aims to enhance player’s

knowledge by solving a wide range of challenges and

puzzles as they go through each stage. The primary

focus was the introduction of programming in a way

that is mentally stimulating while being engaging and

fun. This would provide the user an engaging

experience and help increase knowledge of

programming fundamentals.

3 TARGET AUDIENCE

The game is designed to cater for teenagers and young

adults. It is easy to understand and would be attractive

to Senior High School students and young

professionals. It can feed their interest with both

gaming and programming. Those who are new to

gaming should find an easy take on into the game.

RunJumpCode is also challenging enough for regular

game players and we believe parents might be

interested in trying it out too.

Figure 2: RunJumpCode Level 3.

The elements of this game are tailored carefully,

with the aim of eliminating the possibility of the user

getting deterred, confused, or bored easily. As the

game progresses, it challenges players more based on

an increasing learning curriculum. Each stage is

focused on teaching one programming skill. The more

stages the player goes through, the more skills they

learn and utilize to progress. This way, anticipation is

being fed to avoid boredom among players but at the

same time keeping the process simple enough to cater

for teenagers and young adults who have basic

computer knowledge.

The game provides a Code Box in which the user

learn how to write a code. By using the code the

player writes in the box, they are able to manipulate

the object in the game The number of stages reached

should equate to the user’s interaction with the

computer and his acquired programming skills.

Finally, Figure 3 shows the player’s interaction

data collected by the mobile application we have

implemented. Users, researchers and/or parents can

view the statistics for each level (picked from a drop

down menu), e.g. total scores, time taken to complete

the level, number of hints received, number of times

reseted etc. We will be analysing this data for the

upcoming study to see how engaged players are with

the game in addition to assessing the improvement in

their programming knowledge.

Figure 3: Mobile App collecting myRunJumpCode

statistics.

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

4 PRELIMINARY EVALUTION

We carried out a pilot study with RunJumpCode in

February 2017. 17 users (13 males & 4 females, aged

18-24) took part in our study by playing the game for

20 minutes and filling out a user questionnaire at the

end. The results are shown in Table 1.

Overall the game was well received and majority

of the users believed they had fun playing it, the

feedback were useful, the controls were easy to use

and that the game has merit in enhancing users’

programming knowledge. We received very positive

comments, for example: “I believe the game can help

people with learning programming”, “innovative

approach”, “It makes coding fun”, “enjoyed playing

it”. Some suggestions were also made for further

improvement. Some users asked us to display their

interaction logs at the end of the game, if they wanted

to see it. One user taught it might be a bit too

challenging for younger players to win and another

one suggested some of the feedback messages to be

shortened, as they might influence the player’s

experience otherwise. A user asked for more

improvement in visual effects and sounds and a few

others asked for it to be personalised to the players, as

some were more experienced than others.

5 CONCLUSIONS

We presented RunJumpCode, a novel educational

game for teaching the fundamental concepts of

programming. We used C# for this project, as we have

two C# programming courses in our undergraduate

curriculum. The game enhances the player’s

programming knowledge by providing a fun range of

challenges and puzzles to solve. We promoted the

interaction of programming through a ‘Code Box’,

allowing players to enter lines of predefined code that

modifies in-game objects. This tool is essential in

completing the challenges and puzzles we designed.

To allow alterations of its properties, we made further

manipulation of each object possible, which would

give the player creative freedom to complete each

level. Quizzes and journals were utilized to assess and

collate their learnt material for future reference.

In addition, we created a mobile application to

track each player’s statistics throughout the game and

compare their progress with other. The results of an

initial pilot study showed that the players liked the

idea, enjoyed playing the game and believed it adds

value and can enhance their knowledge of

programming.

Going forward, we plan to conduct an evalution

study with 20-30 undergraduate tertiary students to

measure the effectives of RunJumpCode in teaching

C#. We will have a control group who will complete

a pre-test, do an introductory C# course followed by

a post-test. We will also have an experimental goup

of students who take the same course, sit the same

pre-test and will be given the game to play in their

free time. They will complete the post-test at the end

of the course. We will be measuring the learning

outcome, engagement with game and enjoyment via

pre-test, post-test and subjective questionnnaire as

well as analysing the data logged during the players’

interaction with the game features. We hypothesise

that those students who play the game enjoy their

experience and enhace their programming knowledge

significantly more than their control group

counterparts. We believe our research paves the way

for the systematic design and development of full-

fledged eductional games dedicated to teaching

fundamental conceptos of computer programming.

Table 1: Subjective Evaluation.

Question Yes, very

easy or high

merit

Yes, easy or

some merit

Neither

Yes or No

No, difficult

or little merit

Were the game controls easy to use? 48% 36% 12% 4%

Did you have fun playing the game? 65% 15% 13% 7%

Do you think the game has merit in enhancing

users’ learning of programming languages?

71% 18% 6% 5%

Did you get well through a challenge? 54% 19% 11% 16%

Were the feedback given to you during the

game helpful?

71% 17% 9% 3%

Designing a Novel Educational Game for Teaching C# Programming

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CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education