I think there's a spectrum from graphical games to full programming. Games can be designed which can explore problem solving, debugging and programming. For ex

I think there's a spectrum from graphical games to full programming. Games can be designed which can explore problem solving, debugging and programming. For example "Human resource machine" is entirely visual but if you happen to click 'export' you get a very basic assembly language style output. If you never clicked export you wouldn't even realise you were "programming", you were just solving the problems on screen. The game does at time explain the analogies used. If you prod the people they'll describe linked lists but such understanding isn't required to progress. Moving across the spectrum a little there are games like TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O which do involve programming but with very small instruction sets and graphical debugging and feedback. These aren't aimed at children so are more complex than would be suitable for children but what I'm trying to get across is that they don't specifically teach programming. You won't come out of it knowing python or C. You won't know about stacks or function calls. But they do teach problem solving and the run/explode/debug loop of getting an instruction set to work on different sets of data. By being games they gameify the process of wanting to reach acheivements while also solving the "what do I build?" aspect of more freeform/creative programming learning which can often be a dead-end without a sense of aiming toward a goal. I think a Human Resources Machine style game aimed at a younger audience could be greatly impactful on teaching a programming mindset.