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As technology has become cheaper and ubiquitous, children are spending more time playing video games. Surveys suggest that that video game play is an activity that children participate in almost universally and that the amount of time spent playing games is enormous (Lenhart et al., 2008). While new research makes a compelling case for the educational potential of video games, some categories of games are rarely represented. Action platform games in particular, while incredibly popular among today’s youth, are seldom mentioned in video game research.

Constructionism is a powerful design tool for transforming passive activities into highly engaging, thought-provoking, educationally rich experiences (Papert, 1993a). While constructionism has been utilized successfully in programs that encourage children to design video games (Harel & Papert, 1991; Kafai, 1995), we believe that constructionism has a place in the playing of video games as well. We propose that action platform games should be designed to incorporate a constructionist paradigm. By incorporating constructionism into action platform video games we believe that such games can become powerful spaces for identity formation and problem-solving skill development.