Kodu: Game design becomes child’s play… 03252013
Microsoft has released a new software called Kodu. It may turn game design into child’s play, and this is a good thing.
It is an educational tool to teach basic programming skills and game development. In our first glance it appears to be a great educational tool. They have taken some of the basics of programming and created a graphical, and interesting way to present them. The fundamentals of this language appear to be the idea of simple conditions applied to basic objects, so it may be considered an object oriented programming language.
Microsoft has built the program with many predefined objects and each object has a set of characteristics to simplify the process, so when you build the main character and it is a 1st person shooter, you do not have to invent all of the conditions. At this time I can not tell how sophisticated the programming can get but it does look like a great teaching tool and a way for curious minds to try something completely new to them.
Microsoft describes Kodu as this on their site:
What is Kodu?
Kodu lets kids create games on the PC and XBox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game, young children as well as adults with no design or programming skills.
Join our community, and discover games created by others and share your game at KoduGameLab.com.
The Kodu Game Lab site has all sorts of tutorials, examples and other news. the also have a special development kit for educators.
Looking for something new to introduce to your children or your classroom then Kodu may be a just what you are looking for.
This tool is not just for the PC it can be done on the Xbox too.
New ideas to help develop creative minds in children presented here by the tech team at www.end2endsupport.com and E2 Computer in Tarpon Springs Florida.
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