Teaching Encryption Algorithms with Serious Games

Currently traditional learning methods still dominate education despite trends such as serous games and gamification. Especially in advanced fields, like encryption algorithms, detailed approaches for novel education are missing as the literature review shows. The target of this paper is to determine whether the approach to modify an existing game would have any impact in teaching encryption algorithms to students. We first assess five existing games and their suitability for encryption algorithms within the gameplay. After finding an adequate game named "Among us" and applying some modifications, an online survey was used to evaluate the approach. The results show that the approach of reusing "Among us" as an encryption algorithm game is promising. Further adaptions and iterations are suggested to create a serious game which can successfully be used to teach encryption algorithms to students.