Developing a Board Game For Beginning Block-Based Programmers

Computer programming has become an essential part of K12 education, promoted as a way for students to engage in computational thinking that helps develop students’ ability to analyze and solve problems and prepare them for future careers. Tabletop board games are seen as an effective means to help students learn computer programming. Several board games have been developed for teaching computer science to novice students. Still, many are dominated by simple pathfinding movements lacking comprehensive use of various computer programming concepts or have a considerable gap between the game dynamics and the actual coding that takes place on the computer. This paper presents a design case in which we used Kalmpourtzis’ (2018) elements of educational game design (game elements, learning, and players) to develop a board game that engages players who are learning block-based computer programming. We present the four major prototypes and the challenges for each step. Then, we highlight three main areas in which our design process offers implications for the design of educational board games.