A self-developed board game, created by Donát Magda, a student of Széchenyi István University, has been named SZEsnake at the instigation of lecturer, Dr Katalin Kovács. The first version was designed for first-year students of Computer Science Engineering and Business Informatics programmes, but by changing the task cards, it can be adapted to any field of study. 

At Széchenyi István University, a special board game has been created to help students learn and check their knowledge, while building community, developing their communication skills and having fun. The idea came from Dr Katalin Kovács, Head of the Department of Informatics.

Inspired by Dr Katalin Kovács, Head of the Department of Informatics at Széchenyi István University, the board game was created by Donát Magda, a student of Computer Science Engineering (Photo: András Adorján)

"In order to facilitate the learning of professional foundation subjects, I was looking for an exciting teaching method for young people, which would help them to acquire the necessary knowledge and engineering mind-set. I brainstormed with one of my students, who took the original idea a step further and set out to create an educational board game by reviving the well-known game of 'snakes and ladders'. In the end, he drew on the knowledge from all the subjects covered in the first semester of the programme to create the questions on the task cards. In the game, more difficult tasks are mixed with the easier ones on the ‘SZEluck’ and joker cards, which relate to university and everyday life here. You might even be able to jump several spaces by doing ten push-ups," said the instructor mysteriously.

She added that in programming-related subjects, the “beta testing” was done by lecturers, who sat down for half an hour but could not stop playing for an hour and a half. It was then "run" in upper cohorts before being put into the hands of first-year students.

SZEsnake quickly became popular among students (Photo: András Adorján)

The creator of the game, Donát Magda from Csepreg, Vas County, is in his third semester of Computer Science Engineering, while also doing a dual education programme at Audi Hungaria. "After a programming exam, we started brainstorming with the teacher to help the students to test themselves on a 15-20 minute game, which could take up to a whole semester. I then started to put together a bank of questions, from which the most important ones were put on the cards. The prototype was completed in about three months and initial feedback was good, as the students were positive and quickly absorbed the game," said the developer.

He said that SZEsnake could be used by other faculties and disciplines by changing the questions on the task cards, and that there is already interest in the game "in-house". In the meantime, the student has also started designing a second version, which will move the game into the online space and allow players to develop individually. He is confident that this will help many of his fellow players to prepare.