Welcome on SPY

It's your turn to learn how to program...

Start playing!

Fun

SPY is a video game designed to teach the basics of computer programming. Several game scenarios of progressive difficulty allow you to perfect your skills.

Simple

SPY offers an easy-to-use block-based language for programming robot actions.

Free

SPY is a free, open-source, customizable game, with scenario and mission editors included.

A game designed for teachers

SPY contains several ready to use game scenarios that will enable you to get your students working on computational thinking skills: observing and modeling the simulation (abstraction); breaking down your strategy into sub-steps (decomposition); determining the best solution (evaluation); planning the actions to be carried out (algorithmic thinking); designing solutions to solve several problems (generalization).

In addition to these pre-built scenarios, SPY includes a mission editor that lets you create your own missions tailored to your students, and arrange them using the scenario editor.

You can also suggest that your students create their own missions...

A shared resource

SPY is free, but it's also:

Open Source

For developers wishing to participate in game development: https://github.com/Mocahteam/SPY

Open Data

For researchers wishing to analyze anonymized traces of game sessions: https://spy.lip6.fr/openTraces.html

A random code generated by the system is given to each new game session. Its purpose is to enable the person using the code to track his or her progress in the game. Data is collected on the player's interactions with the game. No identifying data is collected, and it is impossible for us to identify players from the code or the data. The data collected is therefore anonymous. They are used to keep track of progress in the game and for research, teaching and game improvement purposes.

Scientific publications

M. Muratet, S. Jolivet : “GTC un formalisme permettant l’analyse automatique des compétences de la pensée informatique dans un jeu sérieux : application au jeu SPY”, Sticef, vol.31, n°1, 2024, p.10-44, DOI: 10.23709/sticef.31.1.1 (2025)

A. Yessad, M. Muratet, Th. Carron : “Assister les enseignants du primaire dans l’enseignement de la pensée informatique. Une approche basée sur la scénarisation et vers les teaching analytics”, chapter in Enseigner, apprendre, former à l’informatique à l'école : regards croisés, pp. 211-231, (Université Paris Cité), (ISBN: 9782744202124) (2024)

M. Muratet : “How to Characterize and Analyze the Computational Thinking Skills of a Learning Game?”, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 14200, Aveiro, Portugal, pp. 263-277, (Springer Nature Switzerland), (ISBN: 978-3-031-42681-0) (2023)

M. Muratet : “Comment caractériser et analyser les compétences de la pensée informatique d’un jeu sérieux ?”, Actes de la onzième Conférence sur les Environnements Informatiques pour l’Apprentissage Humain, Brest, France, pp. 178-189 (2023)

M. Muratet : “SPY : Un jeu sérieux partagé pour étudier l’apprentissage de la pensée informatique”, Actes de l'atelier Apprendre la Pensée Informatique de la Maternelle à l'Université. APIMU 2023, Brest, France, pp. 33-40 (2023)

M. Kanaan, S. Maillos, M. Muratet : “Toward a learning game on Computational Thinking Driven by Competencies”, Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Games Based Learning, vol. 16 (1), Lisbonne, Portugal, pp. 288-296 (2022)

H. Saddoug, A. Rahimian, B. Marne, M. Muratet, K. Sehaba, S. Jolivet : “Analyse de l’adaptabilité de jeux pour l’apprentissage de la pensée informatique ou de la programmation”, L'informatique, objets d'enseignement et d'apprentissage. Quelles nouvelles perspectives pour la recherche ? Actes du colloque DIDAPRO 9, Le Mans, France (2022)

H. Saddoug, A. Rahimian, B. Marne, M. Muratet, K. Sehaba, S. Jolivet : “Review of the Adaptability of a Set of Learning Games Meant for Teaching Computational Thinking or Programming in France”, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, vol. 1, Prague, Czechia, pp. 562-569, (SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications) (2022)

About

SPY is a serious game designed by Mocah research team from Lip6 laboratory (Sorbonne Université).

Other projects: https://webia.lip6.fr/~muratetm/projects.php?LANG=en.

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