In order to help newcomers to open source projects identify tasks that are suitable to them and their level of expertise within the project, issues can get the good first issue label on the GitHub platform. In this paper we report on a preliminary investigation of good first issues in terms of how they effective they are for developer onboarding and task completion. We find that, although good first issues are effective at developer onboarding, and developers perceive good first issues as being useful, changes can be made to the types of tasks suggested as good first issues to match the types of initial contributions made by newcomers11This paper is based on the MSc thesis of J.W.D. Alderliesten [1].@en

The year 2020 started with a corona-virus outbreak. As a result, many people are no longer allowed to leave their home, which leads to a heavy reduction in social contact. At the same time, everyone wants entertainment at home so many people are playing games. Dismental is a social game explicitly designed and developed for this context. The game aims at creating a fun experience and con- viviality by requiring players to communicate and work together to complete a number of mini games to defuse a bomb (see Figure 1). Dismental consists of two types of mini-games, for 2 up to 8 players: the first type involves two active players, and requires skillful communication, coordination and keeping your head cool; the second type involves all players and is aimed at fast reactions and chaotic situations. Completing a series of mini-games within a set time limit will successfully defuse the bomb. All players use a variety of gestures captured by their webcam to interact with the mini-games. The game was created with the Godot1 game engine. The codebase is available on GitHub, and a trailer can be found on YouTube.@en

Commuters who travel by train often feel annoyed due to misunderstanding the causes of delays in train traffic. They oftentimes are unaware of the necessity of performing maintenance to stations, tracks, and trains. MainTrain is a serious game developed to teach commuters about rail-maintenance while simulating the difficulty of keeping passengers happy. It is a fast-paced strategy game with a top-down view in which a player can perform maintenance actions on stations, tracks, and trains. By using commuter happiness as a base metric, MainTrain attempts to elicit empathy from players dissatisfied with scheduled maintenance so that they gain a better appreciation of the need for scheduled maintenance. This is coupled with the need to schedule maintenance for several components of a rail network, encumbering a player while teaching them about different aspects of rail maintenance. To examine the effectiveness of the game, the results of a user study are presented.

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Unlike classical physics, quantum physics is harder to explain, as it involves very small scales and phenomena that are not visible to the naked eye. Understanding the differences between classical and quantum physics is difficult, especially for children, who cannot grasp the subtleties conveyed in complicated formulae.

We propose to achieve this in a playful and immersive manner, which is a more familiar and convenient way to introduce children to new concepts. For this we developed Save Schrödinger’s Cat, a puzzle game in virtual reality featuring a classical physics mode and a quantum physics mode. As virtual objects and phenomena behave differently in each mode, this mechanic encourages players to toggle between modes, in order to explore the differences between quantum and classical physics in an immersive, entertaining and challenging way. A preliminary evaluation showed that players could better identify various distinguishing features of either mode.@en