A game that lets players experience software development could be an excellent way to introduce programming concepts and concepts in coding techniques, including loops and conditional statements. Games that accomplish this include Zachtronics’ Shenzhen I/O, which puts players in the shoes of dissatisfied engineers who important source work for 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 particular pattern.
The interface in the game is very similar to developer tools found in browsers and teaches scripting. Screeps is a different excellent example, which incorporates JavaScript code with massively multiplayer online gaming in order to create self sustaining colonies. Both games excel at teaching basic concepts and gradually introducing other players.
