How:
Although most people do not know a programming language, everyone can read and write.
This platform allows users to create fun and sophisticated video games with English and discover critical and computational thinking
behind them.
With conventional programming languages, it generally will take many months to years in order to study, learn and create games such as Pacman,
Donkey Kong, Target Kick, etc. The goal of this platform is to enable learners of all ages to be able to create such games in a matter of minutes,
while appreciating the logic and the thought processes behind them.
As you write your own game (or read games created by others), you will apply many programming concepts, such as
logical reasoning,
problem-solving,
debugging,
algorithmic design,
critical and computational thinking
in the process!
In terms of computational thinking, the four core areas are emphasized in
GameChangineer:
- Abstraction: Focus on the relevant and discard irrelevant details in the design process. The level of abstraction for designing a game focuses
on describing the actions/interactions among the characters. For example, "the fox chases the rabbit" ignores
the low-level details of determining the trajectory and step-by-step movements. The user can also describe at the lower-level of details with the position,
direction, and other variables of the character if the user chooses.
- Decomposition: Break the problem down to smaller pieces.
GameChangineer emphasizes breaking the problem down to actions and interactions between
characters. Each interaction is a smaller problem to the large problem of the entire game.
- Pattern Recognition: Many sub-problems may share similarities, and some may be similar to other situations in other games, thereby reducing
the effort to compose entirely different ways to realize the result for each sub-problem. For example, how two different characters respond to being touched
by the same third character may be similar.
- Algorithm Design: Unambiguously compose the sequence of steps to realize each component, with English.
GameChangineer also guides the user with any mistakes he or she makes in the process.
- Data Structures and State Space Management: Clever use of variables and objects to represent the state of each character in the game. The
states of the characters (such as being invisible, etc.) enable the effective design of algorithms.
Because English can sometimes be imprecise, incomplete, and ambiguous,
the GameChangineer platform
will tolerate a certain degree of imprecision and uncertainty in your game plan text.
In addition, it detects when the sentence contains functionalities that the system is unable to implement.
Whenever the system identifies any imprecision / ambiguity / error in a sentence,
it will provide real-time feedback to help you clarify the text and fix any errors! The feedback will
also often contain suggestion sentences on how to describe a certain type of action / interaction for the intended logic.
Most importantly, the feedback helps you to think more like a computer scientist, as you see how experts describe the actions
and interactions among the characters in a game.
