Enhancing Informatics Education Through a Serious Game: Design, Development, and Pedagogical Impact

Teaching informatics across educational levels poses significant challenges, particularly in maintaining student engagement and ensuring the effective understanding of fundamental concepts.In this paper, we present "CodeQuest: Escape the Lab, " a virtual reality (VR)-based serious game developed using Unity and C#.The game is designed to enhance the learning of core programming concepts-control structures, loops, and arrays-through interactive and immersive gameplay.It guides students through increasingly complex programming challenges within a VR simulation of a lab at the University of West Attica.Initial user experience (UX) testing with our research group and a small group of students demonstrated positive engagement, though larger-scale testing is planned for the academic year 2024-2025.During this trial, first-year students will be divided into control and experimental groups, with the latter using the game as a supplementary tool.At the end of the semester, the effectiveness of the game will be evaluated by comparing the performance of the two groups through educational assessments.The results are expected to provide valuable insights into the role of serious games in informatics education.