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Game-creating game announced for 360 News
Xbox 360 News by Oli Welsh
Microsoft used its presentation at the Consumer Electronics Game Show yesterday to reveal Kodu, an easy-to-use game-creation package that will be released on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel in the spring.
Kodu can be operated with just an Xbox 360 controller, and to demonstrate its ease of use, a 12 year-old joined Xbox boss Robbie Bach on stage to demo it.
A graphical interface allows you to put together "action-reaction" programming commands based on simple concepts "like vision, hearing and time". You'll be able to piece together game-style "playgrounds" from 200 or so building blocks, or tinker with preloaded levels.
Going by photos from the presentation, the interface seems to use circular selection menus, and to represent commands and rules as strings of icons.
GameSpot's CES report said the young demonstrator manipulated it with "blinding speed". Looking, apparently, "like a simplified version of such programming tools as the Unreal Engine 3, the tool lets players tinker with wire frames, edit event timing, tweak colors, and speed up or slow down gameplay," GameSpot said.
Kodu is intended to serve as an introduction to the basic principles of game design, and to "prevent common programming mistakes", according to lead designer Matt MacLaurin. It will sit alongside the more sophisticated XNA programming environment as a way to create games for the 360 Community Games Channel.
It was designed by Microsoft Research as a tool for children, although the marketing men have had the genius idea of selling it as the Brain Training of user-generated content. "Kodu is the newest game to keep minds of all ages sharp by developing logic, problem-solving and creative thinking skills," said the press release, feeling very pleased with itself.
As yet it's unclear what the limitations are on the games you can create with Kodu, or what (if any) the cost of the package will be, but we'll be watching it with great interest.
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20 January, 2009 [1]
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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makeamazing
08/01/09 @ 09:37
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Yawn.... Clickteam have been making easy game creation tools for yonks, and it will still be better than this steaming pile from the money men!
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Mentalist(air)
08/01/09 @ 09:42
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If they package it up with teddybear characters, a Go Team soundtrack and an imprecise platforming control scheme, it could be 2009's Eurogamer game of the year!
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 09:53
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"If they package it up with teddybear characters, a Go Team soundtrack and an imprecise platforming control scheme"
Well as LBP can testify, that's a recipe for a badly playing game with really poor sales, so let's hope that doesnt happen, eh? ;) |
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"and to demonstrate its ease of use, a 12 year-old joined Xbox boss Robbie Bach on stage to demo it."
The fact that stuff like this actually works (putting a 12-year old who's received extensive training with the tool for the past 6 months to successfully create the impression of ease of use) makes me feel sad about humanity. |
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the_dudefather
08/01/09 @ 10:12
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And everyone on EG loves to have a good moan don't they? :)
I love to see developers trying out new stuff like this, looking forward to seeing more of it |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 10:33
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@retibra
I'm not getting into this debate AGAIN. I, like many others, have played it and found the controls to be utterly game-breaking. Others obviously manage to get on with it and find the variety/cuteness outweighs the vague controls. If LBP had the universal appeal and creamy gaming goodness that the evangelists profess then it would have sold better. End of story. Either way, I'm quite sure this MS offering will end up being embarrasingly shit. Allowing creation within a game works, but game creation tools do not, never have done, and never will. |
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"If they package it up with teddybear characters, a Go Team soundtrack and an imprecise platforming control scheme, it could be 2009's Eurogamer game of the year!"
"Well as LBP can testify, that's a recipe for a badly playing game with really poor sales, so let's hope that doesnt happen, eh? ;)" Still ragin that LBP is better than Gears2 then? Don't worry, it'll get easier with every passing day. Also the high sales=good game theory is somewhat stupid.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 08/01/09 @ 10:34
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This it the revival of aproject from 2007 called something like boku I think. It's not trying to copy LBP in any way. From what I remember. It is more akin to that old cube engine in that everything is made of cubes and height adjustments. I have no idea how people were supposed to create the game logic though.
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 10:44
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"Still ragin that LBP is better than Gears2 then?"
Nope. Very different games with very different audiences. I prefer one over the other but they really can't be meaningfully compared. |
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To be clear kodu has been in development for three years in Microsoft research labs.
Comparing i to Clickteam products that require keyboards and mouse, properties boxes etc is silly. This is for xbox360 and pc using a controller. It looks like a great way to introduce children to the concepts/decisions needed for programming in a visual way with no technical knowledge needed. It looks very easy so a selection of 'Character > Controller 1 > A Button > Move Forward' all via the icons in the menu makes a character move forward when you press a on controller 1.' It all seems contextual aswell so when you get to the a button icon it only shows actions that an a button can do etc etc. I dont see how anyone can see this as a bad thing if it helps children get into programming it must be a good thing. Like i said this does nto teach someone how to program but thinking in the correct way to achieve it (and hiding away that technical stuff until later on when maybe they will then look at XNA)
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 08/01/09 @ 11:27
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@ Rash'
"where are the games?" Jeez. You really are a fanboy moron, aren't you? The upcoming games for 360 are a mere quick Google search away. Or even a quick browse of the Xbox website. Fancy that, Microsoft hiding away a sample list of all the upcoming games on their platform's homepage. Who'd a thunk it? It's like they don't want anyone to know about them, isn't it? |
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Yonks ago I found a program with similar goals to this on a magazine CD, called Klik & Play I think it was. That incorporated no programming at all if I recall correctly, and it was entirely visual.
Everything I tried to make sucked harder than a granny with an egg in her mouth. Something tells me that I won't be any better with Kodu. If a twelve-year-old can use it well that probably excludes me from being any good at it. |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 14:17
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@DrDamn
"LBP is now approaching 2m worldwide. It may not be a behemoth but I'd hardly call that "really poor"." I think both the development budget holders and the Sony marketing bods who have spend kajillions of dollars on not only development, but sackboy plushies, documentaries and other assorted 'cute' promo items might disagree with you. Do you really think they will be pleased their 'face of the playstation brand' is associated with a damp squib? "There is a very simple way to avoid it you know ;)" Not gonna happen. 'Have opinion, will voice'. It's the way of things. |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 14:34
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@DrDamn
The people sat in the media molecule offices are not the full extend of the staff used to develop the game by a long shot. There will have been a lot of Sony support, especially technical advice. A corporation like Sony is not stupid enough to adopt their poster child from an indie dev with no Sony track history without making damn sure they don't balls it up.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 08/01/09 @ 14:42
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True but it didn't need a huge dev team based on the type of game it is. I'll still wager it was a lot cheaper to develop than many big games. Sony will make money on this game - not least because of all the associated micro-transactions.
Incidentally the only PS3 Christmas release to outsell it worldwide on PS3 was CoD:WaW. |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 15:25
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"True but it didn't need a huge dev team based on the type of game it is. I'll still wager it was a lot cheaper to develop than many big games."
Certainly cheaper than something along the lines of MGS or Halo as there are fewer assets, cutscenes, characters to voice and AI, etc.. It was in development for a very long time though, or at least it felt like it due to the constant drip-feed of non-information. "Sony will make money on this game - not least because of all the associated micro-transactions." They will probably make a profit, but it will not sell in the numbers Sony wanted it to to fulfill it's role as posterboy for the happy successful Playstation brand. That was my point, not the actual dollar bill value. "Incidentally the only PS3 Christmas release to outsell it worldwide on PS3 was CoD:WaW." Hehe, that's hardly an achievement compared to game sales for the other consoles! ;) |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 15:52
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@ronuds
You can craft the most intricate sculptures from camel dung, but not many people choose to because even with all that effort, in the end you have a pile of shit. I'm trying out middle-eastern flavored analogies for a few days, just to be a bit topical. How am I doing so far? |
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@Farticus
"Hehe, that's hardly an achievement compared to game sales for the other consoles! ;)" True, shot in the foot by Sony's inability to sell consoles a little - however it was only outsold by 3 Xbox 360 titles too. (Fable 2, CoDWaW & Gears 2 - all sequels to well performing titles you'll note). |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 16:04
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@DrDamn
Would you by chance have the numbers sold to go with those positions? It's all kinda irrelevant without the number of units sold. |
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Gears 2 - 4.2m
CoDWaW - 4.2m (360) / 2.5m (PS3) Fable 2 - 2.3m Madden NFL 09 - 2m (360) / 1.4m (PS3) LBP - 1.8m Fallout 3 - 1.8m (360) / 1.1m (PS3) I missed Madden out last time as I didn't realise it was a Christmas release. If you are feeling generous you can factor in the installed bases and the LBP sales then leapfrog Fable 2 & Madden as well ;). NB: The figures are rounded but Gears did just edge CoD and LBP did just edge Fallout 3. Though obviously the only source we have for this sort of data needs to be taken with a healthy dose of salt.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 08/01/09 @ 16:47
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 17:03
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@ronuds
It's possible. The results might be bad. Like, really bad. Like when you just met a new girl, and you go round to visit but you need to use the bathroom and you make a TERRIBLE STINK and there's no toilet paper. That kind of bad. But if that spurs people on to try XNA or proper dev tools then it could be worth it. It could also be a good place to hatch fresh ideas, but I very much doubt anything really worthwhile could be produced from the software apart from those ideas. |
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farticusmaximus
08/01/09 @ 17:07
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@DrDamn
"If you are feeling generous you can factor in the installed bases and the LBP sales then leapfrog Fable 2 & Madden as well" Like hell you can. LBP was supposed to be a system seller, remember? It should have elevated the installed base to make the sales, not theoritically make the grade by fudging the numbers. In this instance units sold is what counts, and nothing else. |
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Well when you never quantify what good sale figures are you can always come back and say they are poor.
Coming second in the PS3 sales chart to a sequel to the best selling title of last year and only beaten by a few 360 titles - all sequels - and still selling reasonably still does not = "really poor sales" and I can't see how you can claim otherwise. When you made the claim did you even know what the figures were? |
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bioreit, list me two firsty party games that aren't halo coming this year worth getting excited about. go on i'm reasonable, i'll admit if they are. (check my wanted list to gauge a sense of what i consider exciting) until you do it's you that is the moron for not recognising the serve lack of known exclusives this year on 360. how many more halos do we need?
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Ok Kaz Hirai has just piped up and said LBP has sold 1.3 million. So I've been pwned by Kaz :(.
A little in my defense I did say the figures needed some salt. Plus you may as well apply the same dodginess to the other figures. Kaz also didn't say when the 1.3 million figure was up to and a good 400k were within the last three weeks for the figures I used - so maybe not so far off. |
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@ Rash'
"bioreit, list me two firsty party games that aren't halo coming this year worth getting excited about. go on i'm reasonable, i'll admit if they are. (check my wanted list to gauge a sense of what i consider exciting) until you do it's you that is the moron for not recognising the serve lack of known exclusives this year on 360. how many more halos do we need? " So, not only a fanboy idiot, also a LAZY fanboy idiot. And also one who wants to control what games are allowable. Okay, two games off the top of my head published by MGS are Alan Wake and Forza 3, although I think the latter is still in vague "slated for a 2009 release" territory. How about Ninja Blade? Or Mass Effect 2? How's that then? /awaits fanboy splutterings of "but...but......those aren't actually programmed by Microsoft.....but....but....RROD....no Blu-Ray... *brain explodes* |
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farticusmaximus
09/01/09 @ 10:11
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@bioreit
There is no logic where Rash is concerned. Used to be able to reason with him but lately he's taken up headbog's mantle as the unwavering apologist general. |
Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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