Developing Students' Independent Problem-Solving Skills through the Heuristic Teaching Method in a Game Development Capstone Course

Game development requires highly independent skills such as problem-solving, programming, creativity, and critical thinking. These skills can hardly be taught via traditional prescriptive education methods which heavily rely on instructors to lead students using the same known solutions for limited questions particularly designed for the classes. To address this issue, this paper presents an educational practice in game development education that implements heuristic methods of teaching. To introduce real-world questions into the game development capstone project, the course uses the context of driving simulation which has been used in lots of areas ranging from the entertainment industry to the automotive industry. This topic requires students to explore and develop a comprehensive solution that effectively integrates components from software, hardware, and driver commands. In this capstone project, students were guided to collaboratively develop a driving game on a simulator that combines control features of a manual vehicle (such as haptic force feedback, gearshift, clutch operation) with fun features of the game (such as interactive environments, upgradable vehicles, and power-ups). Through developing this game, students are developed with abilities in locating real-world questions, building project plans, implementing feasible solutions, and disseminating their games to public players on the game day hosted at the end of the course. An example of students' collaborative game development project is provided in this paper to demonstrate the effectiveness of the implemented heuristic method of teaching in game development education.