Boku, Microsoft's 'LittleBigPlanet' heading to 360, PC

They need to tighten up the graphics on level 6.

I like this idea.

I picked up LBP late last week (and it's seriously distracting me from the writing I'm supposed to be doing) and dove almost head-first into the level creator as soon as it was explicitly available to me. I love it, even if it's not immediately intuitive (though admittedly most of that is me not watching all of the tutorials nor having played through more than just portions of the story mode). In my book, anything that makes game or level creation fun and interesting is needed and appreciated.

(insert obligatory "in my day we had LOGO and the turtle on monochrome ancient Atari computers and we LIKED IT" rant here)

Ugh this isn't like Little Big Planet. Boku is nothing like it. Boku is just a simplified XNA so that people with little or no programming knowledge can create games, like children...it really should not be compared to lbp.

Can't talk, still playing LBP.

Yeah.. We want to make our own games, because there are no games for 360 to keep us occupied!!!

LBP would be infinitely greater if it was also for PC... that's where the genius modding/level creating community lives.

Actually, this has me thinking... does LBP have the keyboard and mouse support?

you worry about those fighters! ill worry about the towers!

@Syn, I hope you're being sarcastic. Sometimes it's hard to tell on the internet. :P

@Bigfoot

Would you rather make a crappy game/play someone elses crappy game or would you rather play a game which was developed by people with experience and a large budget? Example; Gears of War 2 or Boku? lol

People always think you're being a fanboy when you say this, but for me there are no 360 games worth playing. And it's not something I celebrate, my 360 just sits there gathering dust.

@Syn, I've achieved all 1000 points for Jumper, so I'm willing to play anything, good or bad. :P

That looked kind of stupid...I guess the 90's music was not helping it either.

I was at the PDC this past week and saw the unveiling. Boku is not intended in any way to be a competitor to LBP. Boku's goal is to teach core programming concepts visually via a game. LBP's goal is to create arbitrary game content.

Nor is Boku intended as a way to create content for the XNA Creators Club. It doesn't generate standalone XNA games; the games only run within the Boku environment.

It is actually amazing to see it in action. They have obviously put a great deal of thought into how you can express object-oriented programming concepts via a visual interface that requires no keyboard input whatsoever.

I am mentoring some students at a Montessori school in doing some introductory programming, and I can't wait to get my hands on this. It certainly doesn't replace other forms of instruction in how to create "real" programs, but I think it will be a fantastic supplement. I plan on playing around with it and introducing the kids to it. Then when I want to explain a concept in C#, I am much more likely to be able to say "a class that implements an interface is just like doing XYZ in Boku" and they'll immediately grasp it.

The fact that this is PC/360 further illustrates my complete lack of desire/need to get a 360.

Why should I drop another $500 (with all the accessories) + $50 per year when I can wait a bit (or possibly not at all) to get it on my compy?

@Bass Masterson

Come on now, there are TONS of great games out there. Chin up!

Now if you're a multi-console owner, that's a different story. Then I can totally understand. 90% of the 360's exclusives are just "meh" to me. There's a few gems that come along that I can't live without though, which make it all worthwhile (like Castle Crashers).

HMMMMM looks like its just a more user friendly version of XNA and thats about it

Carnage Heart? Wow, I wasn't the only one who remembered that one.

VERY SKEPTICAL about this one....probably will be as boring as LBP.

However I'll wait until we see some more vids and find out more information...

This looks really awesome. I hope this turns out good. Best part of LBP is all the crazy stuff people come up with. We need more games like this.

I hope that with the success of LBP and now all of the interest in Boku that who ever made RPG maker and Fighter Maker will release new versions of those games. Speaking of fighter maker, what ever happened to MUGEN?

And this is supposed to be the answer for littlebigplanet, this looks like it should have been developed for the WII, and that is a large compliment.

People need to think before they type. This includes the journalists ;p Boku was around well before LBP was announced-- it was actually publically announced the day before LBP. It was never intended to be a competitor-- it's not even intended to be a game at its heart. It's a visual programming language, aimed at getting kids interested in computer science. The research around Boku has existed at MSR for years. It existed internally many months before LBP went public. It's just plain silly and ignorant to yell bandwagon on this one. Shame on Kotaku, Joystiq, etc and shame on the fanboys that legitimize their journalistic ramblings. This could do the field of computer science a world of good, so don't muck it up with fanboy ramblings from either side.

Needs more Richard Lewis.

So, is this going to be multi-genre? From the video it looks like platforming, racing, puzzle, and sports are all in.

But I wants to make me some rpgs.

Actually, I just noticed this thread. sorry for the delay. I have to agree with David Cater's post and want to add more:

Boku is not like LBP. Actually, not at all. Boku was designed and previewed prior to LBP even being announced. Technically, I think by one day. (back in 2007)

First and foremost, Boku is about teaching young kids how to program and develop logic skills while they are developing a game.

Think about that - how do you teach kids the logic and skills necessary to write software without a keyboard? Do you do that with LBP? No. LBP gives you already built and functional components that you use to create stuff within your world. With Boku that is not that case. The end goals for both projects are totally different. This project is run by Microsoft Research -- not a game to compete with LBP.

For more information, please skip the links associated with this post and listen to the people actually writing the software.

Please watch this video for the first 2-4 minutes then fast forward to marker 69:15 or so. Watch how Boku actually works. It's not LBP nor meant to be, in my opinion.

[URL="http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN04/"]http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN04/[/URL]

(If you have time, watch the entire 90 minutes, pretty neat stuff, 2nd light too)