Programming Education for Young People using the Falling-Puzzle Game, “Puyo Puyo”

This study utilizes the game rules of a falling-puzzle game, developed as a consumer-oriented digital game, in programming education for young people. When digital games are used in programming education, they are often designed specifically for that purpose. In this study, we focused on the game rules of the consumer falling-object puzzle game, “Puyo Puyo.” Learning impact was investigated on 23 Japanese elementary, junior high, and senior high school students. The results show that the concepts of branching and arraying in programming were taught effectively; thus, consumer digital game rules can be used as a case study for programming education.