University of Twente Student Theses
De-stereotyping Game Development Exercises
Poutsma, T.A.H. (2024) De-stereotyping Game Development Exercises.
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| Abstract: | This project attempts to answer if a ‘neutral’ mini-game with programming features can attract potential students to a software development course, when they might be interested, but are swayed away due to stereotypes. Background research is performed on these stereotypes and the influence and influenceability they cause. The research shows that potential students are influenceable, and so a mini-game was ideated to make use of that opportunity. The ideated product is a three dimensional puzzle game made in the Unity game engine, with neutral styling, and a soft colour palette. The game features a game-within-a-game concept in order to create a gameplay layer that introduces players to programming. The gameplay layer is executed by granting players ‘developer access’ - players can directly access and control important gameplay variables. This access to these game variables is used to solve increasingly more difficult programming related puzzle challenges. Twenty playtests were performed to test the game’s overall experience, accessibility, and its impact as a tool to introduce players to programming as a concept. The playtests were overall experienced very positively and all playtesters were able to fully complete all puzzle elements of the game. When asked if they would have been more interested in programming as a concept, had they had this product as their first introduction to programming, the answer was a largely yes. The results gathered from playtesting indicate that a de-stereotyped minigame with developer access features can help attract prospective students to programming and by extension, to a software development course. The product is ready to be used on open days as an introduction to programming. Some future work should go into re-visiting the intuitiveness of existing gameplay features, solving some accessibility issues found in playtesting. Other than that, the main areas for future work stemming from this product are found in the form of product expansion. New levels, expanded developer access features and more challenging puzzles can greatly increase the product's effectiveness. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Clients: | Grafisch Lyceum Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Subject: | 50 technical science in general, 54 computer science, 81 education, teaching |
| Programme: | Creative Technology BSc (50447) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/103504 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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