A game that lets players experience software development could be a great way to teach coding concepts and programming features, like loops and conditional statements. Games that can do this include Zachtronics Shenzhen I/O which puts players in the shoes of disaffected engineers who work at an uninteresting chip company and have to design computer chips by hand. The circuits they are asked to design become more difficult beginning with making lights flash in a specific pattern.
The interface of the game is very similar to web browser’s developer tools and also teaches scripting. Another excellent example is Screeps which combines JavaScript programming with massively multiplayer online gameplay to build self-sustaining colonies. Both games do a wonderful job of teaching fundamental concepts www.mrworkspace.nl/2011/03/24/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-read-this-report-on-news-from-software-development-world/ as well as slowly introduce new ones.
