A game that allows players to experience the process of software development can be an excellent way to introduce programming concepts and coding, such as loops and conditional statements. Zachtronics Shenzhen I/O is a game that does this. It puts players in the shoes of unhappy engineers working for a non-existent company and have to build computer chips manually. The circuits they’re required to create become more complicated beginning with making the lights blink in a specific pattern.
The game’s interface looks very similar to the tools used by developers in browsers and teaches scripting. Screeps is a great example, which blends JavaScript code with massively multiplayer online games in order to create self-sustaining colonies. Both games do a fantastic job of teaching fundamental concepts while gradually introducing new ones.