SoftBook: Software Development as an Adventure

Educational games have proved to be a useful alternative to the learning in various education areas. Software Engineering is a regular discipline of the Computer Science course. Its teaching is, usually, based on the use of abstract models, including also practical projects whose complexity does not portray some quests of the industry software development. The Softbook comes as a resource to reinforce the Software Engineering content. It is a game-book, i.e., a non-electronic game, with the focus on teaching an agile development process, highlighting the importance of social considerations, budget, and technical issues which are not commonly highlighted by traditional lectures. An empirical study evaluated the Softbook contributions in the learning process of this Software Engineering content. In this study, we found that the Softbook was well received by students and that they better-answered questions about ES after playing Softbook than before that.