The Surprising Social Benefits of Coding Games

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With many social distancing measures still in place, kids are unable to see their friends on a regular basis. This reduced socialization can be challenging for everyone, and for young people especially, school provides an opportunity to learn and practice important social skills.

Video games have become a popular hobby among kids in quarantine, and while we often think their primary purpose is entertainment, many aspects of gaming support socialization and strengthen the foundational skills that help kids build relationships with others. In fact, the EU Digital Competence Framework identifies communication as a pillar of digital literacy, and one that gaming often supports.

Terminal Two games teach fundamental coding skills through engaging and exciting gameplay, and many of the games support social skill building as an added bonus. Not only are kids learning and practicing fundamental coding practices, they are also working on talking to others to gain critical information to support gameplay. These single-player games offer safe spaces to engage with other characters, learn how to ask for help, and work collaboratively as a team.

For example, consider Dragon’s Apprentice: Dungeon 1, a game that immerses kids in a mysterious dungeon where they have to utilize command lists to move blocks and golems to navigate through the dungeon. Along the way, helpful hints come from Nox, a character who guides the Apprentice throughout the puzzles. This type of interaction helps kids build helpful habits, like asking for help and checking with another person when things are difficult. In fact, when kids play online, they often ask each other for help: “What should I do?” and “Try this!” are frequently used to try new programming codes. Over time, these habits develop resilience and communication skills that easily transfer outside the game.

Fablemaker, another Terminal Two game, integrates coding practice into Aesop’s Fables, allowing kids to rewrite the famed stories by editing pictures, sounds and paragraphs. Building and controlling stories is an excellent way to support socialization by developing creativity skills and supporting social-emotional learning. At the end, they get to share the resulting creation and show their unique vision for the story, interacting with others as they display their creativity.

Another unique component of the Terminal Two games is space and community they build that allow kids to engage in low-stakes risk taking. Within many of the games, players can try inputting code, test and assess, and retry without penalty - in fact, this testing process is encouraged. This is great for confidence building, which is a prerequisite for strong social skills.

Even though kids might not have as much face-to-face socialization these days, video games provide lots of opportunities for young people to develop skills that will support them when they return to school - while also having tons of fun learning how to code.