CES 09: Game making made easy with Kodu

by Dustin Burg on Jan 7th 2009 10:45PM

On stage, during this year's CES keynote, Microsoft' Robbie Bach announced the new game building playground that's coming to the Community Games channel later this year. It's called Kodu (formerly known as Boku) and allows anyone to pick up a 360 controller and build their own game. It's sorta like Little Big Planet, but more open, free and targeted towards all age groups. With a simplified control scheme, over 200 building block options and possibilities galore, Kodu is an interesting lil project.

Though, from Bach's Kodu on-stage demo, we were quickly overwhelmed by the amount of menu navigation that was going on. It's supposed to be intuitive, but to us, it seems a bit overwhelming. We'll see.

Source

Tags: boku, ces-2009, community-games, kodu

Reader Comments (49)

Honestly, I think this might be actually a very fun & entertaining & hopefully costless way to create these small games. Similar to XNA but like I said hopefully w/out the price.

i'm looking forward to this LBPs tools were confusing at first, but i got the hang of them hopefully people will come up with some good stuff

This is amazing, totally pwns LittleBigPlanet.
Simply amazing

now now.. let's not get into the habit of claiming unplayed games are better than ones that have been released.

@Cranium

But given how TERRIBLE the core gameplay of LBP is, is this really that big of a risk? BUBSY was a better game than lbp. LBP just had a really versatile editor that allows anyone to make their own awesome levels in a really terrible platformer.

Kodu could actually make a fun game or two.

and your proof is? the shot up there looks like it's completely different from LBP. this is first and foremost a game creator. LBP is a game with a strong level creation aspect. you can buy LBP and never touch the level creator but with this, you're probably gonna be making games if you get it.

oh and Van Faulk, the core gameplay was by no means terrible. sure, the jumps weren't as precise as mario but that just meant you had to pay more attention. the multiplayer though... that could use quite a bit of work especially in the lag department.

Controls looked stupidly simple to program functions into objects.

Hopefully they don't charge money for it and make it a feature for having Xbox Live Gold sub.

It was still pretty cool and was definitely aimed at taking on LBP, though it was probably in development before LBP was announced.

um probably not free. just going out on a limb here.. but at least it'll be 50 dollars cheaper than LBP.

seems interesting, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Reminds me more of the LEGO Mindstorms programming language than LBP.

it will have to be pretty special to beat lbp

and the comment:
'It's sorta like Little Big Planet, but more open, free and targeted towards all age groups

i dont see how little big planet can be more open and free, apart from no moderation on levels made, and im sure MS will have something similar if they want you to be able to share levels,

and the comment implied that lbp was for kids?
well your sadly mistaken, lbp is being enjoyed in all age groups aswell just check the forums theres teens up to over 40's giving praise to how amazing lbp is.

i see MS stealing the idea from lbp imo, i wouldnt be supprised if we see a 360 version of home in the next few months

Kodu/Boku was in development before LBP was. So please don't say MS stole the idea. As I said in my previous post, Kodu is for creating games, where as LBP is for creating levels.

Jambi,

If you don't mind, could you please link to the source that states that Boku was in development before LBP?

I don't mind at all Noshino, I just have to find it lol.

These aren't the exact links that I got my info from but you can see that Kodu/Boku was actually shown a day before LBP was.

[url]http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/03/techfest_demo_b.html[/url] for Kodu/Boku

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_big_planet[/url] for LBP

Basically Boku/Kodu was shown on the March 6th 2007, where as LBP was announced March 7th 2007. If I can find my original source I'll be sure to post it.

Those links are broken, and there isn't an edit button so sorry about that. I didn't realize that it automatically hot linked things for you.

Here are the links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_big_planet

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/03/techfest_demo_b.html

Jambi,

Nowhere in that link it is mentioned when development of Kodu began, heh, it isn't even on the Microsoft Research papers

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/

But, if we go deeper, and look MacLaurin's (Boku's Program Manager) profile, then you can see that he has been employed by Microsoft for about 5 years, and well, based on what it is mentioned there, it seems that all of his time didn't go to Boku.

We do know that development of LBP started around Dec 05/Jan 06, so yah, there is nothing that evidence that proves that Boku was in development before LBP

Noshino, I think you may be right that LBP was in devlopment first, but regardless of that, people really can't say MS just blatantly copied LBP when Boku/Kodu was "technically" announced before LBP was. Both were in development around the same time. That's mainly my point. It's not like LBP came out and then MS decided to say "we must copy them !#!" I guess that's my main point. I made my original comment because of lee saying that MS "copied" LBP with Kodu.

Oh, of course, at the core they are completely different, LBP is much more focused on level design, while Boku seems to be more aimed towards mechanics.

But it is also very likely that LBP influenced the design of Boku (before someone says otherwise, influencing doesn't mean that it is a straight copy...)

@lee
"i wouldnt be supprised if we see a 360 version of home in the next few months"

Home was a joke, so i doubt it.

@Lee

I wish people like you would think before you talk or at least do some research:

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/03/microsoft_resea.html

Look at the date of that, which means it was in development long before that. Unless Microsoft has secret spy Monkeys in Sony HQ it's impossible for them to copy the idea.

Reality is Sony and Co aimed low and went for level editing, Microsoft aimed high and went for game creating.

When you really look at this though, it's honestly not like LBP. LBP is basically a huge LEVEL creator. Where as Kodu is an actual GAME creator. Sure they are both sort of aimed at younger audiences, but at the same time they both can be used a lot more efficiently by the hard core. If Kodu is similar to anything, it is by far more similar to XNA than LBP. I think Kodu is really just a simplified version of XNA.

What they failed to mention was that Sparrow, the 12 year old demonstrator, is a super genius who will be attending MIT next year. Sparrow for Prez in 2032!

Has there been any confirmation that Sparrow is actually a 12-year old?

It said it on the screen, it must be true! ;-)

Actually, she didn't look much older. If anything, maybe a little younger. She's somewhere between 11 and 13, so 12 it is!

"She will be attendign MIT next year".

Please,She will be dominating the world by bedtime.

Another game that's lets you create stuff.
You know what that means

More Penis realted stuff.

*related.

Pwns LittleBigPlanet.

LittleBigPlanet IS for all age groups.

that 12 yr old got skillz... lol

You make it sound like LittleBigPlanet wasn't designed for all ages in mind either.

Blind Fanboyism always trumps Truth.

Kodu means Home in Estonian.
Might be intentional, but is kind of an unfortunate name because it sounds like the PS3 thingie :P

Youths need a good, accessible programming tools. But Kodu and LBP are a step in the wrong direction.

I grew up writing simple programs and games in Basic on my C64 and Amiga. My peers and I were not afraid of typing actual text into the computer, and we had children's programming books that had cartoon characters explaining to 10-year-olds how to write statements like "100 FOR I=100 TO 1 STEP -1". And in doing so, we learned syntax, data structures, and everything else that comes with a text-based programming languages.

Microsoft showed off a Kodu game "created" bu a 13-year-old. So we went from 10-year-olds typing in their own Basic-language programs to 13-year-olds arranging toy building blocks, and that's supposed to be progress?

I worry about what will happen when people who learned how to arrange blocks are faced with a real programming language like C++, and suddenly realize that's its completely different and their block-building skills mean nothing.

Well it's an interesting thing known as university, school and college.

Theirs no need to pressure a child, it's supposed to spark there interest in programming not teach them the ins and outs of it.

*old man voice*

back in my day, we did all our programming by arranging sticks and stones!

Evan,

The problem with your logic in regards of LBP (as I haven't tried Kodu) is that LBP IS NOT a programming tool, its just level design, which ranges from designing your characters, setting, and mechanics, BUT only using what it being given.

For example, designing for LBP would be like giving a box of LEGOs to a kid and telling him to design a background, modify his characters, and create certain mechanics, all of those would be worked with the already given pieces...

Programing is more like being able to modify those LEGOs..

Like I mentioned before, you are confusing the goal of LBP, its not "programing made easy" that they are aiming at but "designing your game with ease"

@Evan

"I worry about what will happen when people who learned how to arrange blocks are faced with a real programming language like C++, and suddenly realize that's its completely different and their block-building skills mean nothing."

Really. That's what you worry about? Hunh. I worry about nuclear war and global warming and economic collapse. But y'know, I'm weird like that. I guess the buliding blocks/C++ thing is important too.

@SadisticHam
Learning programming in university is not the same. It's like trying to learn to speak a new language from a school class verses growing up with a parent who spoke the language. Where I work, many new grads don't have a solid grasp of programming. They write bloated code that runs at half the speed. They don't instinctively design their programs to minimize cache misses, or design their data structures to minimize memory fragmentation. They don't understand pointers, and the lean on the system to provide garbage collection instead of writing code that doesn't need to lean on the system. It's appalling how badly universities are educating programmers.

@Etchasketchist
I worry about it, because the quality of software is deteriorating. I worry about it because there's little reason to keep programming jobs at home when our employees are no better than cheaper labor from India.

I think you're entirely missing the point of games like LBP and Kodu.

I kinda wish they would just license Gary Kitchen's GameMaker for the xBox360... :)

little big planet is a pants platform game which no one really cares about now that its been out a while. its wasnt good and it didnt bring me cake. and this other thing is a game creator, so it wins because i may be able to make my own cake.

the cake shall triumph

The cake is a lie!

LBP was like creating levels, your goal is always to get from point A (the beginning) to point B (the end) yet you get to... put some stuff in the way, like a skateboard for cardboard.

Yet in Kodu, you make a game, it could be like a adventure thing, a minigame, a "Point A to Point B" thing. Heck, someone might create Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie with it, of course it wouldnt be an exact repleca, but I think you get my point.

xbox xbox xbox never can come up with ur own orginal ideas like ps3 ITS LIES this wasnt in development before lbp der just saying that to try and say lbp copyed them

@the Man
Original ideas? Sackboy is a copy of Voodoo Vince!

@The Man

lol, well, I could say LBP copied off of Blast Works...

Just thought I'd chime in on the LBP debate. I have a 9 year old son who now has an intense interest in both art and computer programming as a result of the time he and I have spent crafting levels together in LBP. I showed him the video for Kodu and he showed interest in that as well. I understand the "back in my day" argument, I too was programming in basic by the time I was 12, I went on to learn FORTRAN and Pascal. Now I dabble in C, C++, Perl, etc, but it's mostly for fun as my profession is in chemistry not programming. I think these games are good at stimulating these kids and getting them interested in things like physics, art design, programming etc. Ultimately it is up to the parents to drive their childrens interests foreward. But either way, kids should consume media in moderation and be encouraged to try new things.

CES 09: Game making made easy with Kodu

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