Frank Swain, contributor
Good news for students: your next batch of homework may be several hours playing a video game. SpaceChem
, a science-themed puzzler hailed as one of the year's best indie games
, is aiming to make the leap from bedrooms to classrooms in the latest attempt to inspire a new generation of computer programmers.
The brain teasing adventure catapults the player into distant galaxies as a materials chemist with the seemingly mundane task of fabricating chemicals for use by space pioneers. The increasingly complex reactor designs are a form of visual programming, so while students won't learn a great deal of chemistry from SpaceChem
, they will get to grips with programming concepts such as in-order execution, nested routines, logic gates and more.
A spokesman told New Scientist
: "Many students have difficulty getting their mind into programming or logic, and SpaceChem
helps ease their way into classwork".
To this end, the company is offering their game at a steep discount to any educational institute worldwide. Zachtronics Industries aren't the only company to think children need a greater understanding of the computers they use daily.
Earlier this year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation
unveiled a £15 minicomputer designed to be an educational platform for teaching the nuts and bolts of programming, whilst another British outfit, Strongman Games, produced Oh!My!Game
, a program that takes care of the fine coding to helps users design their own Flash games with ease.