tegrate games into their existing curriculum. Typically, games are used as programming assignments, 1, 3, 5, 22, 25, 33, 34, 37 or to teach abstract concepts, 11, 15, 30 or as an example application area to teach the concepts involved in an entire topic area. 9 These are traditional CS classes that exist independent of game programming. These classes are actually clients of game development where they use game development as a vehicle to deliver specific abstract concepts. After these classes, students are expected to understand the abstract CS concepts, and not the details of game development.

Courses in the first two categories are new courses designed to teach students about game development. Over time, as the game development field matures, it is expected that these courses will evolve and eventually some of the contents will become part of the standard CS curriculum. This is not unlike the early years of many existing disciplines in CS (for example, software engineering13 or computer graphics8), where the syllabi of pioneering courses consolidated as the disciplines mature. Courses in the third category, the “game development clients,” are traditional CS courses that can be found in existing CS curricula. The earliest work in this area1, 12 adapted games almost anecdotally without holistic considerations; most of the more recent work is structured around addressing core competency areas with reference to the ACM Curriculum. Accordingly, courses in the “game development clients” category can be divided into two broad efforts: introductory programming classes (CS1/2) and ad-vanced/elective classes.

 

Games and introductory Programming Classes Many CS educators recognized and took advantage of younger generations’ familiarity and interests for computer video games and integrate related contents into their introductory programming courses. Because these are the first courses students encounter, they build excitement and enthusiasm for our discipline. 24, b Based on the type of

 

b It is important to reiterate that, after these classes students are expected to understand abstract programming concepts rather than concepts specific to building games.

effort required by faculty, existing work done in this area can be classified into three broad approaches:

Little or no game programming. 9, 17 In these courses students learn by playing custom games but they do not actually program the games.

Per-assignment game development. 3, 21, 32, 33, 38 All these classes developed games as part of individual programming assignments. In each case, isolated games are designed around technical topics being studied.

Extensive game development. For example, faculty must design programming assignments based on custom library, 39 general game engines, 4 dedicated game engines, 25 specialized programming environments, 22 custom object-oriented class hierarchies, 25 specific curricula, 23 or new programming languages. 11

Much of this work reported resounding successes with drastically increased enrollments and student successes. 3, 11, 23 Based on these results, it is well recognized that integrating computer gaming into CS1 and CS2 (CS1/2) courses, the first programming courses students encounter, is a promising strategy for recruiting and retaining potential students. With the enrollment challenges faced by the CS discipline, it is desirable and important that this strategy can be adopted widely by all interested faculty and departments.

However, most of the existing work in this area is based on pioneering exploratory projects by faculty members with expertise in computer graphics and gaming. 3, 23, 28 With few exceptions, these projects are student-centric where the main goals of study are student engagement and various learning outcomes. Adaptability and generality of the resulting materials are usually not main concerns. For the faculty members teaching CS1/2 courses, most of which are without computer graphics or gaming background, it can be challenging to take advantage of these results.

In addition, when considering experimentation with CS1/2 courses, it is important to appreciate institutional oversight procedures. Though becoming less controversial in recent years, many CS educators continue to be unsure about integrating gaming in formal educational settings. 20 It can be challenging in departmental commit-

tees to arrive at consensus for significant modifications to CS1/2 courses, especially if the modifications involve computer games. For these reasons, to be widely adaptable, game-related CS1/2 materials should be designed with the following considerations:

The materials should not demand 1. knowledge in computer games or graphics.

The materials should include in- 2. dependent modules that are limited in curriculum scope.

The materials should support se- 3. lective experimentation by individual faculty members in small-scale pilot demonstration projects in their existing courses.

Selective Gradual Adoption. Results from the extensive game development approach discussed previously typically include large amounts of adopt-able/adaptable courseware materials. However, using these materials often requires a significant investment of time, for example, understanding a game engine, or significant reworking of an instructor’s existing curriculum. Because of the considerable overhead, results from this approach are typically not suitable for selective adoption.

In terms of suitability for selective adoption, we expect that results from the per-assignment game development approach will be most applicable. For example, one could selectively replace nongame assignments in existing classes by the corresponding games assignments. However, because of the pioneering nature of work in this area, many of the results on per-assignment game development are “anecdotal” and do not discuss the impact of such assignments on the CS1/2 curriculum holistically. For example, the results from Huang only involve turn-based strategic games, 21 Ross only discusses puzzle games, 32 and the discussion from Valentine is based on a single game. 38

The Game-Themed Introductory Programming Project at the University of Washington, Bothellc is specifically designed to address these issues. In the first phase of our project, we have designed and built general game-themed CS1/2 programming assignment modules that demand no existing knowl-

 

c http://depts.washington.edu/cmmr/Research/ XNA Games/ index.php