I talked almost two years ago about Popfly, Microsoft Flash Silverlight game editor. Now they brought this to another level, maybe after seeing the success of Little Big Planet : with Kodu, one can create its own XBox video game.

Now what they've done is still in the field of visual programming, with the challenge of never using a keyboard. Only with the XBox controller, you can import elements in your game, create an environment with a terrain editor, and add behaviors to the game. Once the game is created, one can share it online wit other players.

Microsoft's Kodu

From my experience, Visual Programing editors have the choice between being simple, and being scalable. With Kodu, Microsoft made his choice towards simplicity : everything is represented as cute icons, no text needs to be entered... but you can only create the game mechanics Microsoft engineers thought of. Now I didn't test it (yet) as the program is still in beta, and I don't have an XBox, but i'll bet that we'll soon see youtube Videos of people pushing the system to its limit.

Edit : And since... well today, Kodu's team released on its blog a PC version, downloadable free of charge here.

I'm a fan of videogames. I like them. And to get to be part of one of them would be a fun and exciting thing.

Christian Slater