Скачать или смотреть Assembler’s Adventure in Sands: A Narrative Puzzle Game for Learning Assembly Logic and Computati...

Assembler’s Adventure in Sands: A Narrative Puzzle Game for Learning Assembly Logic and Computati...
Robert Hortua Leal, Hazra Imran

CHI PLAY 2025: The ACM Symposium on Computer--Human Interaction in Play
Session: Student Game Design Competition / Interactivity Lightning Talks and Teasers

Assembler’s Adventure in Sands is a puzzle-based educational game designed to teach foundational programming and computational thinking skills through an assembly-inspired visual interface. Players solve spatial logic challenges by dragging and sequencing simplified commands such as MOV and JMP to complete level-specific goals. Each level targets foundational CS1 concepts, including control flow, memory access, and conditional execution, with later levels introducing more advanced topics such as recursion and comparison logic. Players receive real-time feedback: incorrect solutions prompt optional scaffolded hints, which can be unlocked using in-game coins. Hints are delivered by Khepri, a narrative-aligned mentor who also supports player navigation and learning progress. Correct solutions trigger performance metrics such as execution time, instruction count, and comparisons with optimized paths. Insights from informal playtesting with five adult learners, including graduate students who recently transitioned from non-computing backgrounds, informed the game’s design and hint system. The findings revealed support for problem-solving, iterative reasoning, and engagement with key programming concepts. Developed within the LogicStep research initiative, this work demonstrates how structured logic puzzles, adaptive feedback, and narrative framing can create flexible and exploratory learning experiences, particularly for learners with diverse backgrounds, prior knowledge, and learning needs.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1145/3744736.3749316
Web:: https://programs.sigchi.org/chiplay/2...

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