Kodu Fun

For those of you aspiring game designers out there (especially the ones without a masters degree in programming), I highly recommend checking out the "Kodu Game Lab" available for the xBox 360 on the Live Marketplace.

It released last week and is a great way for starting game creators to get their ideas going. All authoring is done on the 360 through a series of circular menus and iconic programming. The programming feels very "LEGO". It's very easy and quick to get a game up and running.

There are of course limitations. You're not going to be creating Halo any time soon on Kodu, but for simple games it's a lot of fun. There are currently around 200 3d assets to choose from (I've heard...but personally I find that number a little high) and the dev crew did a good job of creating assets for a wide range of games (sports, racing, shooter, platformer...etc.). It's a little like going to Toys R Us and grabbing a lot of generic playing pieces out of the board game isle and throwing them all in a box

There is a free trial, but the program itself is $5.00, but well worth it for the time you'll spend playing around.

Hopefully in the future they'll release 'asset packs' which will enable you to have even more items to play with.