Assembly Academy: Using Video Games and Virtual Robots to Teach Assembly Programming

Assembly is underutilized as a beginner programming language. Its simple and repetitive syntax allows students to focus on logic and problem-solving. While the low level of abstraction causes Assembly to be challenging to work with, using Assembly gives students better insights into how computers operate and more fundamental skills for procedural programming. This paper introduces Assembly Academy, a programming puzzle game utilizing a virtual robot. We include a use case demonstrating how the game provides feedback to students to keep them engaged and motivated while learning Assembly.