Enhancing Software Engineering Education with Game Design and Development

The benefits of integrating game development in software engineering education are multifold. It keeps the studentsinterested, engaged and motivated during the courses and can potentially open a range of employment opportunities forstudents who would like to pursue a career in the game industry. The present study reports the design and delivery of fourgame related courses in Bachelor in Programming. A ‘‘red thread’’ of game courses are used to motivate the softwareengineering material, while a software engineering approach was used for regular addition of new courses and updatingexisting courses. As the authors were involved in teaching across all levels, they were able to retain an overview of thecurriculum as a whole while implementing these improvements. Integration of new courses and new content requirestesting and constant evaluation. The motivation for the assignments and the assessment of the courses are discussed inrelation to development and Self-Determination Theory. The courses are reviewed for their contribution against both theSWEBOK knowledge areas and the IGDA curriculum framework. Further, lessons learnt about using games to teachsoftware engineering to improve education are included.