Urbarium A Socially - Based Game Platform

In this paper we describe a socially-based game platform, the Urbarium, developed using XNA, Torque, and Muppets that will support learning of concepts for the laboratory components of the IEEE/ACM CS1 and CS2 programming courses. The Urbarium´s narrative will span three different stages of social development in a real world location, the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. These stages will correspond to hunter-gatherer economies, tribal economies, and state organizations. The students interact with each other over a local-area network. By solving problems, students collect code segments, and exchange these segments to complete components. Completed components provide enhanced rewards to students on future moves. The idea is to support a net-centric approach to software development and interaction among students in the lab. We feel that this will support student learning within a network environment by weaving a social fabric of cooperation into the code development process early on in a students´ career