So Microsoft's mini game developing tool called Kodu is out for 400 MS points. So here's some pictures of a short 2 to 3 minute game I created:






It actually took me 2 days to make but it has a story, choices and 3 different endings. You actually have a choice at every step....and getting all the characters to comply with what I had in mind took quite a bit.

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Hm, interesting pictures. A little taste of how hard it is to make a game. Thanks for the pictures.

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The graphics look very Darwinian. Stylistic choice or is that what everything looks like in this tool?

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NUNBERRY:

The graphics look very Darwinian. Stylistic choice or is that what everything looks like in this tool?

well you have about 120 ground types to choose from when you create the world so yeah I'd say there's quite the choice involved. You can also shape all the terrain features in whatever way you like. If I wanted one dot on the ground only to stick out 100 feet high I can do that.

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hadn't heard about this so might check it out

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PM me if you want an invite to lockerz!

How exactly does this game-maker work anyways?

Ive been eyeing it for a few days now wondering if its worth checking out..

Acryllis:

How exactly does this game-maker work anyways? Ive been eyeing it for a few days now wondering if its worth checking out..

You start with empty space. You choose a material and lay out the ground(you can always change it later if you don't like it), after that you can start shaping the terrain by creating hills and mountains or depressions.....everything can be completely molded by hand...and add water. Once you have something you're satisfied with you can add characters and program specific behavior into them and there are A TON of possibilities. Then you have sample worlds made by the developers where you can go in edit mode and look at exactly how they programed all the characters to behave....I learned quite a bit by doing just that.

It only costs $5(400 MS points) so I don't see a reason not to get it. I made a short 3-5 minute RPG with choices and 3 different endings. You can also share the games you create with other friends that have Kodu.

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Well i guess ill get the demo and see what its all about.

Is the programming of characters hard or is it just like "personalities"?

Acryllis:

Well i guess ill get the demo and see what its all about. Is the programming of characters hard or is it just like "personalities"?

I'm not sure what's "hard" for you but you must be very specific about things or it won't work right and sometimes you have to work around limitations. For example I wanted a character to say something when I approached but if I told it to say it when it saw my character it'd say it from a mile away so I had to program it to say it when it heard my character and then I limited it's hearing range to 0.5/10. That wasn't enough because it kept saying the text infinitely many times....effectively freezing my game so I had to program it to say the text only once when it heard my character. My character was a UFO so if there are other UFOs around you need to make it distinguish yours specifically so in my case I programed it to say the text once when it heard a gray UFO and I made sure that all the other UFOs were colored something other than Gray.

It's a programing tool so don't expect it to be too easy....you need to be able to figure things out or you'll be stuck very fast.

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well ill take a look tommorow and see if i like it. It sounds fun though.