Kodu Game Lab

Overview

Kodu is a visual programming tool which is used to teach basic coding with the use of blocks and pictures. Its design allows it to be accessed by anyone.

Kodu is available to download as an Xbox 1 Indie Game. There is also a PC version in an open beta which is available to anyone at their website.

Kodu is different from those other projects in several key ways:

• It avoids typing code by having users construct programs using visual elements via a game controller
• Rather than a bitmapped or 2D display, programs are executed in a 3D simulation environment, similar to Alice

Kodu Game Lab has also been used as an educational learning tool in selected schools and learning centers.

Language design

Kodu's programming model is simplified and can be programmed using a gaming controller or a combination of the keyboard and mouse. It dispenses with most "serious" programming conventions, including symbolic variables, branching, loops, number and string manipulation, subroutines, polymorphism, and so on.

This simplicity is achieved by situating the programming task in a largely complete simulation environment. The user programs the behaviors of characters in a 3d world, and programs are expressed in a high-level, sensory paradigm consisting of a rule-based system or language, based on conditions and actions similarly to AgentSheets.

The typical "hello world" of Kodu is:

see - fruit - move - towards

The grammar, as it were, of this expression is:

<condition> <action>

Where <condition> is:

<sensor> [<filter> ...]

And <action> is:

<verb> [<modifier> ...]

An illustrative variant of the above program is:

see - red - fruit - move - towards - quickly

Many different types of games can be made in Kodu, such as racing, strategy, RPGs, adventure, platform, puzzle, 1st person shooters, and others.

See also

• Educational programming language
• Visual programming language

References

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External links

• Kodu - Microsoft Research
• Kodu Fan Forum and Info
• Kodu for Kids book by Que Publishing