Learning computer programming is not simple for many students. They have to develop several complex skills to be able to understand programs and, more important, to create programs that solve problems. This means it is important that students have a high motivation level, so that they engage in that work and do not get frustrated with the natural errors they will make in this process. Digital games are often used in educational contexts to attract and retain students. In literature and on the web, we can find many games related strategies that aim to support learning in introductory computer programming courses. One of these strategies is the using games approach: asking students to play games that include problems that must be solved in order to progress. This paper presents a list of 40 games classified by type and highlights the skills and topics supported by them. We hope this work helps teachers to choose games as part of their teaching strategies, as alternative or complementary exercises to their students.

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This work investigates the use of programming games as an alternative to establishing the first contacts of high school students with programming concepts. Programming games are puzzle style games where the player must solve problems that require algorithmic logic using some programming representation. The research was conducted with 14 students who used three different games and answered a questionnaire with open and closed questions that sought to know the opinion of students on: (i) favorite game, (ii) engagement and fun, (iii) tutorial style (how the games bring the problems to the players); and (iv) perception of programming and concepts involved. The results indicate that using programming games as an approach in the early contacts of the students with programming concepts can bring beneficial results for creating a less intimidating environment where the student realizes his ability to achieve educational goals while have fun.

Teachers have used games as a support tool to engage students in learning tasks. As they often record student's performance as learning progresses, it is interesting and useful to discuss how that information can be used to assess learning and to improve the learning experience. For instance, teachers can use that information to give personalized attention in classes and the game can use it to provide challenges of the "right" difficulty. In computer programming learning, games can provide an alternative way to introduce concepts and, mainly, to practice them. This paper proposes a model to identify the students' progress considering their performance in programming tasks. The model is demonstrated by an implementation in a casual computer programming serious game. We illustrate how this game could use this model to personalize its challenges.

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Este artigo descreve um jogo sério para o aprendizado introdutório de programação e sua experimentação com uma turma de 16 alunos. O jogo abrange os assuntos de sequenciamento de ações, variáveis e condicionais. A solução é desenvolvida com blocos gráficos, tal como no Scratch. O objetivo da experimentação foi identificar os pontos fracos do jogo em promover a diversão. O instrumento utilizado para aferir essa qualidade chama-se EGameFlow que permitiu medí-lo em seis dimensões: concentração, clareza dos objetivos, feedback, desafios, autonomia e imersão. Os resultados demonstraram que a imersão é a dimensão mais fraca e nas conclusões apresentamos sugestões de melhorias.

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