Doherty - Computational thinking in board games

Berland and Lee research five categories of computational thinking in their article on playing Pandemic. Those categories are: conditional logic, distributed processing, debugging, simulation and algorithm building. Comparing these to the list of commonly accepted facets of computational thinking in Grover and Pea’s work from last week, we have:

Berland & Lee	Grover & Pea
Conditional logic	Conditional logic
Distributed processing	Parallel thinking Systematic processing of information
Debugging	Debugging (and systematic error detection)
Simulation	Abstractions and pattern generalizations
Algorithm building

I’m wondering if Berland & Lee were conservative with what they looked for and whether or not you can find all other listed facets of computational thinking (Grover & Pea) in Pandemic or some other tabletop game.

Efficiency and Performance constraints – In programming this refers to elegant solutions that take minimal processing power versus brute force solutions that can eat up a lot of processing power. In game play, especially in Pandemic, it’s about using the most strategic moves in order to progress in the game. In Pandemic, if you do not spend time assessing the whole board and situation, you can make moves that have little to no effect on the game outcome. For example on page 75, in the Alpha group, the players are discussing the next move. John points out a specific desirable move that will enable the players to avoid an outbreak. While Aaron also has a plan, his plan does not take into account the imminent threat of an outbreak. The opposite is also true in the game, there are situations in which it seems like taking the disease cubes away from a city is most useful, but in fact, trading cards in order to cure the disease is more efficient.

Iterative and recursive thinking –Honestly, I’m a little confused at how these are different in computational thinking. So here I’m taking iteration as repetitive act that moves something forward and recursion as a process that depends on an earlier version of itself. At it’s most basic level this is turn taking. In virtually all games, one person takes a turn then so it goes around the circle. In a cooperative game the iterative period is each person playing since they are essentially playing as a multi-brained person. In a non-cooperative competitive game, the iterative period is one turn around the board, it’s the individual person’s turn that let’s their game move forward.  In a similar manner, recursive thinking is critical, the game board changes as you play. How many times have you played a game with a perfect move in mind and then another player royally messes up your plan? You constantly have to revise the plan based on previous moves.

Structured problem decomposition – This is only true in more complicated games where there are a) multiple ways to win, or b) there are multiple goals for the cooperative. In Pandemic you both try to cure the diseases, but you also have to not lose (it’s so easy to lose…). In a game like Settler’s of Catan or Ascension you can win in multiple ways so you are trying to juggle multiple areas of import. This is a bit different than with computers where you take a big problem, and make it little easier to solve problems, but not so different.  

Symbolic systems and representations – This is the tricky one. I think it both depends on how people think of the game as a whole, modeling it in their head and whether or not the game has a written component. Certainly, I imagine, in some paper-based games this could be true.  But it’s more about communication of ideas, and that happens less in board games since you either can’t communicate, or all communication is done through verbal forms.