Re: Don't Sleep on Xbox Live Community Games
Really looking forward to checking out Kodu when it hits Community Games this spring.
GDC 09: Making Games with Kodu
Really looking forward to checking out Kodu when it hits Community Games this spring.
GDC 09: Making Games with Kodu
In creating Kodu, Microsoft has made the most powerful tool around for easily learning and understanding entry-level game design and coding. It's no stretch of the imagination to envision Kodu being used in an elementary school curriculum to give students a jump start on learning the basics of programming without any of the jargon that can be such a turn-off.
As an educational tool, the strength of Kodu is impressive. It's also pretty darn fun to mess around with.
As an educational tool, the strength of Kodu is impressive. It's also pretty darn fun to mess around with.
In roughly an hour we had a game that featured clouds raining explosive rocks, motorcycles that shot stun missiles, a coin-launcher on a platform perched in the middle of an ocean, and a factory that pumped out turtles of death.
I use the word "we" because, as it turns out, it is just as easy -- if not easier -- to design a multiplayer game as a group as it is to make a game by yourself. All four controllers can be used, trading off control over the cursor and design process. You can even share your creation with people on your friends list who can then continue to edit and refine your game, further adding to the sense of community design.
Though the camera gets a bit funky in a multiplayer game, we found that it took just a small amount of prodding by the local professionals to get our small group thoroughly engrossed in the process. That's because with just a few radial menus, some option sliders, and some logic, Microsoft has created a game that has limitless potential.
OK, to say that there are just a few menus and sliders might be a bit of an understatement. There are a lot of dials to turn, menus to navigate, and options to consider when you hop in and start making a game. The ease of use comes in the way Microsoft has boiled down the oftentimes complex and multi-lined If/Then statements used in programming to a single line of visual logic. After placing an object, you can just hit the Y Button to bring up its "intelligence." There, you can assign a series of When/Do logic statements.
Let's say you want to make the blimp you just put down controllable by the first player. On the "When" side of the statement, you would add the icon for the left thumbstick on the controller. Next to that, you would assign that controller to player one. Scroll over to the "Do" side of the line and add the icon for movement and you're done. Hit start and you'll find that you can sail your blimp around the level. It's not exactly a game, but with just a few button presses you already have something you can play.
I use the word "we" because, as it turns out, it is just as easy -- if not easier -- to design a multiplayer game as a group as it is to make a game by yourself. All four controllers can be used, trading off control over the cursor and design process. You can even share your creation with people on your friends list who can then continue to edit and refine your game, further adding to the sense of community design.
Though the camera gets a bit funky in a multiplayer game, we found that it took just a small amount of prodding by the local professionals to get our small group thoroughly engrossed in the process. That's because with just a few radial menus, some option sliders, and some logic, Microsoft has created a game that has limitless potential.
OK, to say that there are just a few menus and sliders might be a bit of an understatement. There are a lot of dials to turn, menus to navigate, and options to consider when you hop in and start making a game. The ease of use comes in the way Microsoft has boiled down the oftentimes complex and multi-lined If/Then statements used in programming to a single line of visual logic. After placing an object, you can just hit the Y Button to bring up its "intelligence." There, you can assign a series of When/Do logic statements.
Let's say you want to make the blimp you just put down controllable by the first player. On the "When" side of the statement, you would add the icon for the left thumbstick on the controller. Next to that, you would assign that controller to player one. Scroll over to the "Do" side of the line and add the icon for movement and you're done. Hit start and you'll find that you can sail your blimp around the level. It's not exactly a game, but with just a few button presses you already have something you can play.
Naturally, you'll want to add a bit more to your game. It's when you start stacking commands that you can make something really complex. It doesn't take more than a few button presses to add a path for an enemy to follow by default, and then make it chase you if it sees you trying to sneak by. Do that and you have a simple stealth game. If you want to make it a not-so-simple stealth game, you can add a second page to an object's behavior, causing it to switch AI routines entirely when a certain condition is met.
There are roughly 20 objects to toy around with in Kodu with more on the way in the future, each with its own small set of specializations. This may not seem like a lot to make your game unique, but with careful level design and some creativity, you can make something wholly your own. In our game, the clouds rained explosive rocks. We could easily have made the clouds rain hearts that turned any object they hit red. Or we could have made any trees that got hit by rocks shoot missiles out in any direction. Or we could have created a game that made sense…but where's the fun in that?
The process of making a game using Kodu became a game in and of itself for our group. Our wacky game may not have been the most fun thing we could have made, but the process of getting there had the whole room laughing as new ideas were shouted out and then integrated.
By the end of our play session we'd set up a sort of class-based item collection game. Two players controlled motorcycle avatars who drove around the map picking up coins fired out at regular intervals by a cannon we'd placed on a mountain. Two enemy motorcycles would zoom around as well, which we'd instructed to try and steal coins from us. Aside from the aforementioned exploding rocks raining from the clouds, we'd set up a factory on the map that produced killer turtles that flew around and, if they made contact with our motorcycles, instantly killed us.
After telling the game to display health bars, it became clear we needed some kind of healing mechanism if we wanted to survive. This is where the third-player came in, as we assigned the third controller to moving around a healing flying saucer of sorts. When the third-player was able to run into our motorcycles it provided an instant heal. And, since the turtle factory was constantly churning out deadly shell creatures, we gave the saucer the power to blow them up upon contact. Now this didn't really work all that well, but it's an example of how within an hour or so you can, with limited coding famliarity, generate something moderately interesting.
With more time and dedication, it seems clear users should be able to easily channel their creativity into producing some interesting content. Be on the lookout for Kodu this spring to try your hand at the process.
There are roughly 20 objects to toy around with in Kodu with more on the way in the future, each with its own small set of specializations. This may not seem like a lot to make your game unique, but with careful level design and some creativity, you can make something wholly your own. In our game, the clouds rained explosive rocks. We could easily have made the clouds rain hearts that turned any object they hit red. Or we could have made any trees that got hit by rocks shoot missiles out in any direction. Or we could have created a game that made sense…but where's the fun in that?
The process of making a game using Kodu became a game in and of itself for our group. Our wacky game may not have been the most fun thing we could have made, but the process of getting there had the whole room laughing as new ideas were shouted out and then integrated.
By the end of our play session we'd set up a sort of class-based item collection game. Two players controlled motorcycle avatars who drove around the map picking up coins fired out at regular intervals by a cannon we'd placed on a mountain. Two enemy motorcycles would zoom around as well, which we'd instructed to try and steal coins from us. Aside from the aforementioned exploding rocks raining from the clouds, we'd set up a factory on the map that produced killer turtles that flew around and, if they made contact with our motorcycles, instantly killed us.
After telling the game to display health bars, it became clear we needed some kind of healing mechanism if we wanted to survive. This is where the third-player came in, as we assigned the third controller to moving around a healing flying saucer of sorts. When the third-player was able to run into our motorcycles it provided an instant heal. And, since the turtle factory was constantly churning out deadly shell creatures, we gave the saucer the power to blow them up upon contact. Now this didn't really work all that well, but it's an example of how within an hour or so you can, with limited coding famliarity, generate something moderately interesting.
With more time and dedication, it seems clear users should be able to easily channel their creativity into producing some interesting content. Be on the lookout for Kodu this spring to try your hand at the process.
Clock 24/7 didn't make the top 10?
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