Software engineering discipline needs promoting and responding to the demands of the software industry and their challenges, centered on the diversity and short delivery times in the projects. Looking to align with such demand, software engineering teaching has evolved incorporating newel strategies for increasing student motivation in the learning process. Gamification is one of them strategies centered on games principles, as the interactivity, ludic, and enhance engagement. This strategy, compared to other teaching techniques, improve the processes of conceptual understanding and learning. In this paper we propose a method, based on gamification, to design pedagogic instruments, comprising a strategy, techniques, and materials for teaching a specific subject. The goal of method is facilitate the gameful activities design in the classroom and then increase of motivation, cooperation and teamwork in participants, in the learning process of conceptual and practical subjects. The method was validated with the topic of software design in a course of a software engineering of the Universidad de Medellín (Colombia). In this pilot we establish improvement actions and recommendations incorporated in the final game version. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.