A game that allows players to experience the process of software development can be an excellent way to teach programming concepts and coding techniques, including loops and conditional statements. Zachtronics Shenzhen I/O is a game that does this. It puts players in the shoes of unhappy engineers working for a dull company and are required to design computer chips by hand. They are presented with increasingly difficult circuits to create, starting by making lights flash in a specific pattern.

The game’s interface looks very similar to developer tools found in browsers and teaches scripting. Another great example is Screeps, which incorporates JavaScript coding with massively multiplayer online gaming to build self-sustaining colonies. Both games excel at teaching the basics of concepts and slowly introducing others.

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