Technology has brought the biggest changes to education. Over the past few years, game-based learning has helped learners increase their interest in learning. But games are rarely included in higher education, especially in programming language courses. Programming has long been considered a difficult subject to get started in, and although teachers around the world are aware of the importance of computational thinking in solving programming problems, little research has been done on it. Based on the design-based research method and ADDIE model, this study proposes that teachers use game learning to carry out programming activities, and analyzes its impact on computational thinking ability. This study conducted educational intervention on first-year students majoring in software in Jiangxi Vocational College of Finance and Economics. The objective is to assess whether students can try to improve their teaching effectiveness by using a game-based learning style combined with computational thinking elements when they encounter programming difficulties.