Killer App: A Eurogame about software quality

Games can be effective teaching tools, if the games simulate faithfully some aspect of the material being taught. Eurogames are a recent genre of games that allow for effective simulation of tradeoffs and competing strategies for achieving the same end. We have developed Killer App, a Eurogame which is focused on software development and on software quality tradeoffs. Here we report on the design of Killer App, our early experience in playtesting it with both programmers and non-programmers, and our experience of using it in a senior-year software quality assurance course.