Kodu Launches Co-Op Friendly Game Creation on the Xbox 360
While we've seen some pretty amazing custom levels on PlayStation 3's Little Big Planet, Microsoft's answer to a user generated content game is a bit different. The toolkit is called Kodu, and it's designed from the ground up to be a visual programming experience.
While there's no way to create the game in a cooperative mode, you can create cooperative experiences and then share them with your friends. It's incredibly easy to add more players to the mix with the easy to use script language and before you know it you can have a playground for your friends.
I played around a bit with Kodu last night to see what I could make, and in about 10 minutes I created a really simple racing game. So how does it work?
Here's an example of how you would create character movement.
Add Character to the world. Edit Character script. Add On Controller->Left Analog Stick. Ad Do->Move. Done. Yup, that's it. All done from a quick radial menu.
There's a whole cast of predefine models and characters to use, a world and terrain editor, and tons of preset materials. Which brings me to the downside of Kodu - the lack of any ability to create your own materials and objects. You must use the ones included with the game.
The other downside is the games you create in Kodu, must be played inside Kodu. There's no way to share them with friends outside of the game. Still, all that being said I was amazed at how quick and easy it was to set up a game with racing, exploding rockets, and an engine that already handles physics and particles for you. All of which are customizable.
So what say you Co-Optimus readers! Think you can create a fun little co-op game in Kodu? If so let us know!
Kodu costs 400 
or $5 and is out under the Community Games Channel on Xbox Live now!
Source: Link 
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Although players can not work independently in this mode, every controller does move the cursor, so if anyone has an idea, they can definitely add it in themselves.
Kodu isn't really up to what I was hoping out of it, being an avid game developer already, but my younger brothers are thrilled to have something so approachable.
Any controller can access the edit UI, but there is only one edit UI - ground cursor, etc.
Where it really shines is inventing new forms of coop - single characters controlled by multiple controllers, one controlling many, etc. You can do powerups and have characters change how they work, so there are all kinds of interesting co-op scenarios.
Designer blog is here http://community.research.microsoft.com ... fault.aspx
That said, it certainly looks promising. I can see some interesting possibilities in gameplay given the options.
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