Life's a game and the game of life: how making a game out of it can change student behavior

There is little argument that creating experiences for students that will increase student success and retention is a goal that is shared by anyone teaching courses. In computing courses, we have seen a lot of focused attention on the first year introductory courses as it has been shown that it is failure in these courses that drives students away from the discipline. In this paper we describe success we have had with first year students through the creation of achievement system for the undergraduate experience. Through the Just Press Play project and its associated achievements, we observed a significant shift in student behavior in relation to our first year students which lead to a greater level of student success in their first course.