In Joe’s retrospective on the intensive coding involved in creating a game, he says, “I began to think of the immense labor involved in just these little details, let alone the massively complex code that undergirds the entirety of the game. While I was taken out of the gameplay a bit with these thoughts of coding, I also had a different, richer kind of experience playing and viewing the game.” The idea I want to explore this week in my post is the potential gamification of coding.

Joe was able to experience richer gameplay due to his understanding of code—and with the understanding, his newfound empathy for the coder. Coming back from Spring Break, during which I tried to ‘unplug’ from the Internet and coursework as much as was possible, I thought that perhaps thinking of coding as a game might make my reentrance into it a more fruitful and/or enjoyable experience. It’s interesting that there is a difference between trying to code NotPacman correctly so that the game works when refreshed in Chrome and trying to code the game correctly because completing a spec is comparable to completing a level of the game that is “ENG 7006 Lab.”

At least for now (although maybe forever, perhaps Scott or David can provide an experienced coder’s perspective), the difference is often hard to distinguish because I can only confirm that the specs are being met by testing NotPacman in Chrome and therefore playing the game to the end to make sure the keyed up ball disappears and the timer pauses. However, I did experience the distinction between gamified code and coded game during a coding session with Diana and Aden earlier today. Diana was operating the computer, so every time we checked a potential line of code meant to pause the timer when the keyed up ball had collided with all of the other balls, she had to play the game and chase down each white ball with the blue keyed up ball. We joked that by the time we finished the project, she would be the fastest NotPacman player ever, and Diana expressed that she wished she didn’t have to play the game every time just to see if our code worked. The goal was not to prolong the play nor to complete the game, but simply to finish the code. Funny to think that from this point of view, the next time I sit down to play a computer game, I’ll feel like the good part is already finished before I even begin playing.