Introducing object oriented design patterns through a puzzle-based serious computer game

In this paper we confront the stereotype which depicts a software engineer as an individual who is programming all day in his or her cubicle. We present an interactive, puzzle-based game, which is similar to Lemmings, to help students ranging from middle school to college juniors learn high-level concepts about the design phase of the software engineering life cycle. Object oriented design patterns are represented in our game in the form of actions that can be assigned to lemmings. The actions are metaphors for object oriented design patterns in software development, which means the student is not actually developing a design for a real software system. This could be an abstract and intimidating process. Instead, the student plays a puzzle-based game which is appealing especially to a younger audience. The key is the student is still using the same strategies that would be used in a real software project to develop a design to beat our game.