Teaching design patterns using a family of games

Abstract

Object-oriented software design requires a combination of abilities that can not be easily transferred to the students in lecture sessions. Based on our experience, this paper details how to increase student comprehension of design patterns through a project-based approach that consists in the development of a family of abstract strategy games in an incremental way. In this approach, the application resulting from the previous assignment is refined using refactoring and design patterns to complete the next assignment. Our approach is illustrated by the development of a family of n-in-a-row games in a CS3 course.