Game Design with Kodu Game Lab » mnjorgensen

Pushing the Boundaries – Games of skill and chance

mnjorgensen — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:28:34 +0000

Week 5 Kodu Course – Pushing the Boundaries – Games of skill and chance

Skill

Games of skill challenge the player with clear goals that demand a competent technique in order to win. An accurate aim for example, or the deft control of a joystick to manoeuvre around obstacles. These games often have a clear challenge and will slowly increase the difficulty, requiring the player to hone their skills.

Kodu is a wonderful platform for creating games of skill. With endless opportunities to reinvent the topography you can create narrow ledges, steep inclines, or simple shooting galleries with ease. Being able to adjust the behaviours of the game surface adds another interesting twist. For example, if you make the blue ground slippery when the player has to shoot a target it increases the challenge.

Considering the strengths and weaknesses of your game bots as we discussed last week, can add an additional element of skill to the this type of game. With bike bot, moving at speed is an obvious skill to master for example. Increase the speed, and you increase the level of difficulty.

You can easily achieve this slowly increase in challenge using point scoring system. For example, when your player reaches a particular score, the opponent bots recognise this, and move to an alternate set of behaviours where the speed at which they move increases.

Adjusting the friction, the amount of bounce, or the players ability to jump may also be things you consider to add an element of risk and difficulty for the player.

The great thing about games of skill, is that they are often simple in premise, and yet completely absorbing. Players can become obsessive about games of skill, particularly when the goal is clearly in sight. It is the players own level of accomplishment that stands in their way of success, and for competitive players, competing against themselves is the best challenge you can offer. Having an evident point score on the screen can add to this atmosphere

Games of skill may still offer strategy and an element of chance, but move too far away from the skill based requirement and you lose a critical piece of what makes games of skill so addictive.

Chance
When you introduce an element of chance into your game, what you’re really doing is offering the player something that they cannot easily predict, or that is impossible to predict. There may be an element of skill or strategy involved in a game of chance, but it is the unpredictable that keeps us coming back for more.

When a game offers the chance for you to win … if you’re lucky … the gambler in all of us gets hooked. It’s the thrill of the unknown that draws us in, and keeps us playing. Take snakes and ladders for example. Big opportunities to stride ahead of competitors or quickly lose ground make the game exciting.

There are a number of ways you can approach a game of chance in Kodu, and recreating a traditional board game where chance is the main ingredient is one obvious path to take. You can however, find the unpredictable in a game in other ways.

Drawing on the ‘wander’ movement of opponents in the game for example, make their placement on the board difficult, if not impossible to determine, particularly if they are moving quickly. Adding additional commands to the bot that further compound this unpredictable nature needs to be done slowly to ensure you get just the right balance in how they react, and the threat that they are intended to offer.

The obvious other way of introducing chance, is by using the random point feature, and have the characters behaviours assigned to different point scores. Using the programming ‘pages’ to best advantage here can allow you to create some very interesting behaviours in your games.

Who are you building for?

The funny thing about games of chance, is that even if the outcomes are entirely random, even if you’ve warned your players that planning a particular approach won’t help them, some players will still look for the best strategy.

Think about players at the roulette table. On some level, they know the game is purely chance, but it doesn’t stop them looking for a strategy to try to gain a favourable outcome. Players that love strategy will always look for the best advantage, even when the game is determined by a roll of the dice.

Similarly, in many circumstances, a player that loves skill based games may seek an slender advantage through that ability, despite the outcomes of game they are playing being entirely determined by luck.

You can create a great game with a focus on strategy, skill or chance, but many games will include an element of all three. An element of the unpredictable, an advantage in taking a strategy, and a roll of the dice all bundled together make the game challenging on a number of different levels.

You may decide to make your game to appeal to players that enjoy all these elements in a game, but I’d suggest that leaning toward one of these three will help define the sort of game you’re building, and help you better consider what sort of player your building your game for.

Knowing your limitations

There are limitations to Kodu, and when you know them, you’ll find it easier to work within the restrictions that the Game Lab has. Some of these limitations are built into the game intentionally to promote more diverse and exciting game play. For example, bots have different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. Once you know what these are, you can build games that leverage those abilities to best effect.

The game engine has a limit to how big or complex a world it can cope with, and this forces you to work with a more intimate game space. In the same way that telling a story in ten words rather than thousand requires you to focus more keenly on each world and its value in the story, the same is true of this game space limitations. You must weigh each element of the game carefully, assess its value, and determine whether it is adding to the experience of the game or is unnecessary or even detracting from it.

A good example of this were the soccer games I recently blogged about on the Planet Kodu. Some had peripheral characters on the sidelines that were there purely to add some extra colour. You might say, that these characters added little to the experience of playing the game. They certainly didn’t influence the challenge the game offered. It’s undeniable however, that they added to the overall atmosphere, and were for me, one of the most memorable elements. As I’ve stated before, knowing what to include, and what to leave out of the game can be a delicate balance, but can make all the difference in terms of engagement.

Of course, any game you build will have rules and therefore you must set your own limitations. When the player knows the restrictions under which must play, the game play can become more intense. Knowing how many rules to include, and how much freedom you allow your player can greatly affect the playability of your game.

Finally, like any game environment, Kodu has its own quirks and character, and your best games will often be those that use to these unique elements to best effect. Playstation games are in a completely different category to Nintendo Wii for example, both have their appeal, both have strengths and weaknesses and are satisfying because of them.

Final Week

It’s been a wonderful five weeks running the Planet Kodu course, and we’ve learnt allot, observing the games and unique approaches participants have taken. We hope you’ve gained some new programming skills, have a clearer idea of how to approach game design, and have enjoyed the experience!

We’ll be leaving the course material online as a resource for the rapidly growing number of Kodu Game Lab for PC developers, and hope it will continue to be of use to the broader gaming community.

Thanks for playing!
Martin Jorgensen & Richard Olsen

Game Experience: Theme and Story

mnjorgensen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:45:05 +0000

Week 4 - The Game Experience – Theme and Story

We’re more than half way through our course! Thanks to everyone that has contributed so far, we’ve really enjoyed the games you’ve uploaded, and the discussion, and hope it continues after the course concludes in week 5!

Kodu characters and worlds

There are dozens of different game genres, and one of the wonderful things about Kodu is that it allows you to explore most, if not all of them! Each genre offers unique advantages and challenges to the developer and player.

I’ve outlined a few of the better known game genres below, and some considerations to keep in mind.

Strategy

Usually turn based, games that require a strategic approach are perhaps one of the more challenging genres to approach in Kodu. Strategy assumes either you have an intelligent opponent, which either means you’ll be building a multi player game, or your facing a challenge set by the developer.

You can achieve turn based reactions in a number of ways. You might use points, where different scores result in a range of reactions. Alternatively, you might determne that for particular behaviours on the part of your protagonist, specific reactions result, making the game more about devising a strategy to overcome these reactions.

Developing a strategy game is a real challenge, but worth your time as the game play can be absorbing.

Action

Perhaps one of the more common game formats for Kodu games, this style of game often challenges the players quick reaction times. One of the things to consider in this type of game, is a unique set of properties for each advasory. A weakness and a strength will enhance game play considerably. For example, you might make the bike bot super fast, but unable to traverse particular obstacles. You might make the tug boat slow, but with superior weaponry.

Considering a strength and weakness for each character will enhance the gameplay, and encourage you to think about their placement and position in the game more carefully.

Because you can also adjust the reactions of game objects (like a ball) as well, consider what their strengths and weaknesses are as well. For example, a ball that moves quickly over one surface, but slowly over another.

RPG and Adventure

You’ll need to think about your story more carefully in this genre, as roleplaying games rely on narrative as well as some action to draw the player through the game. Good RPG games can strongly resemble interactive fiction.

In simplest terms, think about your character as the hero in the story. You might even write down some basic story structure to help you create an absorbing narrative. A simple three act story structure is the easiest approach, and you can find supporting material on Lightning Bug.

Another important point when considering the story you intend to structure your game around, is the concept of emergent narratives. This is when the story that evolves is one that occurs because of what the player themselves brings to the game. For example, if the player ignores your suggested path, and takes an unintended shortcut across the river.

You might wish to tightly control the experience of the player in the game in order that they follow your story as you’ve prescribed it, but keep in mind that the player and may have other ideas, and play in ways you may not have predicted. Providing some side quests is one way of approaching this, accepting that the player may never conclude your story, and prefer to take their own path.

Another challenge when developing a significant world and storyline can be that Kodu Game Lab struggles to cope with the scale of your game. In many of the RPG game examples I’ve come across, the usage meter is often near or in the red zone. To avoid this, consider what you can leave out of your game up front. This might be simplifying your approach to the topography and relying on moody lighting instead. Or it could be using one adversary with a unique strength and weakness rather than five that just point and shoot.

Construction and management

Games like these rely predominantly on collecting resources and building structures. You’ll likely be using the factory bot in this type of game. Though the bots can’t create other buildings, they can create large objects like rocks that can be used for all manner of creations. For example. your player might be tasked with filling a space with rocks to get across it.

New gaming

Your game doesn’t neccesarily have to have a definitive end resulting in a win or loss. Take a look at the work of Tale of Tales for example. Their games are built for atmosphere and the experience rather than a focus on reaching an evident end goal.

This may be a little harder to achieve with the Game Lab, but you can definitely experiment with some alternate game structures … just ask my 6yo daughter who is obsessed with Kodu at present. Her worlds are an end in themselves. She simply likes placing things in the word that will respond to her. She stands by the lake, she wanders through the forest, she chases the clouds. You don’t ‘win’, there are no points to collect, she just revels in wandering about a space of her own creation.

There are no hard and fast rules about how games must be developed. One of the great things about Kodu, is that you can experiment with combinations of different genres to create unique experiences that you wouldn’t encounter anywhere else!

Of course, Kodu has some restrictions, like any development tool, but there’s plenty of room for a creative approach once you know what those restrictions are. Getting to know Kodu just that little bit better however, is the best way try something completely different. After all, you need to know the rules before you can figure out how to break them!

Building atmosphere in your Kodu games

Building atmosphere in your game might seem easy on the surface. A little dramatic music here, a dark forest there, and bingo! Instant atmosphere!

To achieve it with some success however, you’ll need to develop a holistic approach to building your game, and not rely on one or two single elements to achieve it for you. There are many ways in which you can build atmosphere, and I’ve outlined a few ideas get you thinking about your own approach.

Character size

Given that you can adjust your characters size, and the size of the objects around them, this presents a wonderful opportunity for introducing atmosphere. Size is inevitably (no jokes here please) linked to power and the level of threat a character is confronted by, or holds over the environment around them.

A small character in a large dark wood immediately introduces the impression of vulnerability for example. Experimenting with your characters size and strength is one way of building atmosphere … without all the dramatic music and dark lighting.

Dramatic music and dark lighting

Of course, you can’t go wrong with dramatic music and lighting … as they make a substantial impact on your game experience. Don’t consider them an end in themselves however, think of them as simply another layer of atmosphere. It’s worth noting that music in particular can be used to great effect if you position it carefully in the game.

Heading off to meet the big Boss? Dramatic music! Wandering over a bridge? Perhaps something a little lighter. You’ll be the best judge of how to most effectively use these effects. Just remember that if you use them sparingly, but effectively, they’ll have far more impact. Constant music of any kind can wear thin after a while.

Delayed gratification

No, this isn’t another paragraph about size, it’s about the completely absorbing nature of video games. Of all the forms of entertainment we indulge in, playing computer games demands (and gets!) the most attention from us. Numerous studies have suggested that we’re far more likely to remain absorbed, despite distractions, in a good game than we are in TV or even a book!

Delaying gratification in the game is a great way of slowly increasing the stakes, building tension, and keeping your players hooked. Providing just the right amount of challenge to keep the player just out of reach of their goal. Just be careful to allow your audience some wins along the way or they’ll eventually get frustrated, and move on to something else.

Colour use

Effective colour use will influence the mood considerably. Think about your best use of colour however, after you’ve chosen your lighting. If it’s a dark night, dark ground won’t show up to best effect. Similarly, a dark bot will be hard to see, but then, perhaps that’s what your after? Just consider your lighting first, and then take the colour of everything else into account.

POV

The point of view you take in the game can have a considerable influence over the atmosphere and tension in the game. Take for example, a space invaders style shooter like the one that Richard designed a few weeks ago.

A fixed camera angle removes the distraction of a wandering point of view, and introduces the feeling that you can’t back away from the action! It also allows you to see the entire playing field, and as you can more easily see the growing number of opponents your faced with, increases the tension.

A first person perspective on the other hand, is a far more personal point of view, and perfect for RPG games where you want the player investing themselves in the outcome of their characters journey.

Game Mechanics – designing challenge and engagement

mnjorgensen — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:57:10 +0000

How to develop game objectives

Developing an engaging, exciting game is difficult if your objectives are unclear. You need to know where you’re going! To ensure immersive game play, in most cases, you’ll need to dangle a carrot in front of your player and offer them something to strive for.

Character driven

If your game is driven by an ongoing narrative, then a character driven goal is an obvious option when setting goals in the game. Your players might be set the task of finding hidden apples for Kodu, defeating combatants for bike bot, or catching fish for the tug bot. Perhaps there’s a choice of tasks, or a succession of more difficult requests. Trying to fulfil an objective set by a character in the story can be an effective way of delivering the task, and it offers the player a degree of agency in the game by giving the impression, real or imagined, that they are choosing to help.

Ticking clock

Think about the number of movies you’ve seen where time is the thing that the characters must race against to complete their objectives. A ticking clock is also a wonderful way of adding suspense and increasing the tension in a game.

Simply achieving a game objective can be enough, but add a ticking clock in the corner and you add another layer of difficulty and engagement. The other great thing about using time as a secondary objective, is that you can up the ante, perhaps by reducing the time available to complete a task as the game progresses. A time limit will push the player to improve their game skills as the game progresses and keep them coming back for more!

Open ended

Your game may have objectives, but achieving them doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the game play … in fact … your game doesn’t have to end at all. Open ended games rely on the activity in the game being absorbing enough that you don’t need to set an end goal.

You’ll find it difficult to achieve this however, unless the game play remains fresh. One way to do this is continuously change the abilities of either the character or the opponents. Another way is to move the player between a number of different challenges in rotation. First I’m shooting fish, next I’m racing a cycle, then I’m back to the fish again. If you focus on a different theme for each challenge, the player will have to refocus each time they move to a new game.

Object driven

Obtaining a difficult to attain object is a good way to place a goal in front of your players. You might surround the object opponents to build the game challenge, or alternatively, make the terrain the challenge. A thin path you must stay on to reach your objective for example. It doesn’t have to be in plain sight, but they will need to be reminded of the ultimate goal if it’s not.

Team play

An additional character can represent your objective. Beat your opponent and win the game. You’ll still need to establish something that both characters can strive to achieve, a particular score, collecting the most items etc.

Where two players are working toward a common goal however, your objectives can be a little tricker to establish. The focus with more than one character is usually working as a team.

One simple way to make this engaging is to clearly differentiate the characters. Giving them different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses will encourage them to rely on each other. You’ll still need clear objectives, but with team play the aim is to put in place a set of achievable goals most easily gained when the two players work together.

Building intensity

We’ve all played games where the goals increase in intensity with progress. It’s a tried and true method of ensuring that the players skills are increasing as they move from one challenge to the next. It’s also a good approach to draw a character into the game without overwhelming them at the outset.

With Kodu, this can be achieved in a number of ways. For example, with the achievement of a certain score, or once an objective has been met, a more difficult opponent is released into the gameplay. You don’t neccesarily have to build multiple game spaces in which to achieve this, simply make this ’sleeper’ opponent part of the scenery until it’s time for them to take part.

Another approach, and an obvious one, is the game Boss. Building a larger more fearsome opponent in the game that you must get past to move to the next level or complete a challenge is also a well established way to develop intense game play.

You might surprise your players with this more difficult opponent after a set number of achievements. Alternatively you may elect to tease them with the notion of a difficult end game challenge, seed the idea early in their minds as something to work toward. For most players, the Boss character will be a solid inducement to play on as they’ll look forward to an ultimate challenge.

Developing your game rules

Building a world with consistency

One of the more frustrating aspects of a game, can be a lack of consistency. If all the fish bots in the river are easily defeated except one, and you haven’t established this quirk clearly up front, it can feel like a bug. Setting clear rules about how your game will progress gives a degree of certainty to the player, and allows them to feel confident in the method of attack that they take.

Revealing the rules to the player as they become necessary is another approach to take. You may not want to hit the player with 12 different requirements at the outset, but release them slowly as it becomes necessary to know them. For example, if you have several game spaces with differing terrain and combatants, you may want to provide guidelines as the player moves to each new challenge.

Changing the rules

Of course, changing the rules on the player is also one of the best ways of adding a fresh element of challenge in the game. Set the rules, play the game, and then at a predetermined point, do a 360 degree turn and force your player to change their approach.

For example, Kodu may have to reach an apple at the end of the road, it’s lined with bike bots that stand immobile. If he touches the apple however, they come alive, and become new combatants that Kodu must defeat. Changing the rules is also a great way of quickly establishing a new objective.

There are however, two things you’ll need to be careful of when changing the rules.

The first is to notify your character that the rules have changed. You can do this up front, warning the player that performing certain actions will trigger a change in game play. Or you can do it at the moment of crisis, for example, when Kodu grabs the apple, it triggers a message that informs him of the new objective.
The second is to consider the other implications of a change in game play. Does your music need to change, adding a little tension? Do you need to remind the characters that shooting or running away is now required?

Secrets (And how to reveal them!)

Keeping secrets is something my six year old is becoming adept at, and she takes great relish in telling vital information to some members of the family and not others. Knowledge is power after all!

Earlier we talked about changing the rules, and revealing secrets about the game play is a great way to achieve this. Revealing for example, an opponents weakness to rockets, can encourage your player to take a new approach mid way through the game.

There are countless games that rely on this device to keep the game feeling fresh as the player moves through the set objectives. In RPG’s for example, it’s often a piece of the story, or characters history that’s revealed. Often the information allows the game to develop to the next level, and is intended to offer the player an additional incentive to play on.

You can introduce secrets into you Kodu games in many ways. For example, items or opponents that reveal themselves when a particular score is achieved.

I’m trying my hand at a side scrolling …

mnjorgensen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:27:34 +0000

I’m trying my hand at a side scrolling game … far from finished, but I’ve uploaded the terrain tonight, and will work on programming Kodu and the other bots over the weekend. http://planetkodu.com/platform-game/1007

Rapid Prototyping

mnjorgensen — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:59:59 +0000

The more formal approach to game design

Iterative process

Last week we looked at the informal approach to game design. This week, we take a look at a game development approach that’s more formal, with clearly outlined steps designed to encourage you to consider your game design more broadly.

An iterative process, is a commonly adopted cyclical method you can use to approach designing a game.

Image from Wikipedia – a typical Iterative Development Model

The Planning and Requirements steps are a mission statement of sorts. You’ll need to establish the known goals for your game, what you’ll need to build it.
Next, you design your game, perhaps drawing a paper prototype of it before you start building.
Once built, you test the game.

Seems a little like the informal design we explored last week doesn’t it?

Well yes, it is like the informal process, except for a few key factors.

Firstly, you establish clearly up front what your goals are, and then with each round of testing and evaluation, you return and revisit those goals. There’s still a healthy amount of trail and error involved, but this method allows for more formal reflection.

As each cycle is completed, you further refine your statements established in the first step. This is often necessary as your hopes for how the game will function, and the reality of how the game actually plays, are often a little different. You may find that as you progress, some of your initial aspirations for the game are either unnecessary, unachievable, or require a number of improvements.

With a more formal approach, your known goals will always been front of mind as you progress with development. Not only will you be considering whether they are being met with each new cycle, you’ll be determining your games re-playability each time you begin testing.

Rapid Prototyping

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml

Whether you’re taking a formal or informal approach to design, building something quickly introduces challenges that will be present with either method. If you have a time limit ahead of you, like our challenge last week, there are a number of factors you’ll want to consider:

Choose a theme that underlies your game. It may be for example, that a version of the universally known schoolyard game of tag is the underlying structure, predator and prey. Or, you might decide that the game centres around audible triggers. A theme will help give your game the underlying structure it needs to be engaging, and you’ll save time during the games development if you identify it early on.

Don’t dwell too long on an idea that’s not working out – try something new, start something different and come back to your original idea later.

Just because you want to build something quickly, doesn’t mean you can skip important steps. If your game hasn’t been well thought out, if the actual experience of playing the game is less than engaging, no amount of mood lighting, music or clever use of colours will hide that fact.

Just because you want to build something quickly doesn’t mean you should ignore the mood lighting, music or clever use of colours! A game that looks and feels polished will be more absorbing. It won’t save a badly designed game, but it can greatly enhance a well considered one.

Embrace failure! We learn from our mistakes, it’s as simple as that. The more you embrace your failures as golden opportunities for learning, the faster you’ll develop as a game designer.

Never underestimate the power of the simple game. Your game doesn’t have to have a thousand different variables to be fun. PacMan and Pong are great examples; despite having been around for years now, new versions of these games keep emerging because they are simply engaging … or is that engagingly simple? Simple games can be completely and utterly absorbing, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be fun.

Having an end goal will not only make your game more engaging, you’ll find it easier to work toward a target. I’ve noted a number of RPG attempts in particular built with Kodu that have suffered from this problem. You wander here, you wander there, with no clear idea of what you should be doing. Sure the terrain and mood lighting are impressive, but what am I doing here? People get bored fast, so make sure the goals are clear up front.

Brainstorming

mnjorgensen — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:58:59 +0000

You can’t schedule creativity, there, I’ve said it. You can schedule the work that goes into building an idea into a solid workable prototype, you can schedule the different aspects of the development cycle you intend to follow … but coming up with new ideas?

You might find these are best uncovered in the traffic on your way to work, while your mind wanders while doing the dishes, or reading a book before bed. Personally, I find with Kodu Game Lab, it’s when I’m pulling apart somebody else’s game that I’m most often inspired by a new idea.

And where does brainstorming fit in? Well, there are a number of ways you can try to kick start the creative process. It might be simply by messing around with the Game Lab, or you might find making a list of the things you want to achieve in your game brings out some ideas. There are numerous approaches to brainstorming, the trick is finding the one that works best for you.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Automatic writing

Simply start writing as quickly as you can, all the things you want in a game. Don’t stop for spelling or punctuation, don’t stop to consider or flesh out your ideas. Just write as fast as you can, everything that pops into your head on the subject. Set your self a time limit, a couple of minutes perhaps. Now, stop writing, sit back, and put a circle around anything that catches your eye.

Switch off

Sometimes just switching off for a while is the best way for new ideas to spring forth. If you find the new ideas just arn’t coming, take a break and go for a run, have a bath, and give your mind a rest for a while. You’ll be surprised how often getting off the task for a short time can be the best way to inspire a new idea!

Messing about

Playing with the Kodu Game Lab with no clear goal is another way you can find inspiration for a new game. Don’t head in with any clear intentions in mind. Simply start up Kodu, and start building! Try things you’d normally not consider just to see what happens. You can discover allot about the Lab when you’re not placing yourself under any pressure – and you might just find a new idea will surface from all your unplanned messing about.

Paper prototype

Sometimes using a different medium can a great way of inspiring new ideas. I know for example, that I approach problem solving differently when I’m typing, as opposed to when I choose to sit down with paper and pencil. As I tend to type very fast, using paper and pencil forces me to slow down and more closely consider the language I’m using and the ideas I’m exploring. The same applies to designs on paper with Kodu. Draw an approximation of your world and then start putting in characters and ideas. Once you’re done, try recreating it in the Game Lab.

Task 2

mnjorgensen — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:11:33 +0000

This week we’re offering the choice of two tasks depending upon the time you have.

A. Improve an existing game

Find an existing game, whether it be a game you have previously made, a default game that is bundled with Kodu Game Lab or a game you’ve found on Planet Kodu and then improve it. This may include adding new bots to the game, expanding its scope or improving the AI and game play, its up to you.

Or,

B. A more complex game

This week, with a more formal strategy in game design in mind, we’re asking you to take the next step in the development cycle. Using the steps outlined this week, we’d like you to write a list of achievable requirements for your game first, perhaps a mission statement, make a few notes about the design, and then follow the iterative process outlined in this weeks course guide.

There are no time limits on this weeks challenge. You simply need to submit your game, finished or unfinished, with your notes. It doesn’t matter whether your notes are a few simple bullet points, or a considered paragraph or two. What’s important is that you have reflected on the development of your game more strategically.

Oh, and it’s worth noting that we’re particularly interested in your failures! That’s right, if you’ve found little success on your initial attempt, we still want to hear from you, so we can all learn from each others mistakes!

Welcome to the Planet Kodu, Kodu Game Lab course

mnjorgensen — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:30:45 +0000

We’re thrilled to have you onboard!

This course is will take you through many aspects of game design using Kodu Game Lab, a programming platform developed by Microsoft.

We’ve scaled the materials in this course so that Kodu users of any level of ability can benefit from being involved. During this course, we’ll explore the practical nuts and bolts of how to create a game but also discuss the broader theory of games design.

This course will, we hope, give you a greater appreciation for what a game is, and what Kodu Game Lab is all about.

Timeframe

We’ve designed the course to be flexible to suit your schedule, so you won’t have to fit in with ours!

Though the course is over five weeks, we’re not expecting you to be in one place at any particular time. Dip in and out of the material during the week, or take it all in at one time. It’s up to you.

Giving something back

This is an interactive course, and we’ll be counting on your participation!

Each week there will be challenges and requests for your involvement. We’ll be asking for your feedback on a range of topics and of course, most importantly, we’ll want to see the games you’re building!

Delivery

We’ll deliver the course right here on the Planet Kodu website.

New material will be delivered in blog posts at the beginning of each week. This means that if you want to subscribe to the course RSS feed, you can have it delivered direct to your feed reader! You’ll still need to visit the Planet Kodu website to participate in certain sections of the course, but the core material will be provided on the blog.

Of course, you can share your game designs or responses to the course challenges anywhere you want! If you’d prefer to use your blog to reflect on your participation in the course, and upload your game creations there instead of Planet Kodu, that’s fine! Just don’t forget to link to your blog in the comments field on Planet Kodu so other course participants can keep track of what you’re doing.

What do I need to get started?

You’ll need Kodu Game Lab installed on your PC, and you can download the most recent version of Kodu here for free.

You’ll also want Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight is also a free install that amongst other things, helps with the delivery of high definition video files. You need Microsofts Silverlight in order to get Kodu Game Lab up and running. Some videos may also need quicktime installed in order to view them.

What if I run into trouble during the course?

Problems with Kodu? Where can you turn if you need assistance during the course?

There are a number of ways in which you can seek out assistance during the course. Your first port of call should always been Kwestions, our online forum style resource that already holds the answers to many of the more common Kodu Game Lab questions.

If you can’t find your particular problem represented, you can simply ask it yourself in the Kwestions forum, and the Planet Kodu community will endeavor to answer it for you!

You can also turn to the Planet Kodu comments page for this course.

Finally, you can direct a course question to the Twitter account @planetkodu. We’ll respond as quickly as we’re able!

What is Kodu and where do I start?

mnjorgensen — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:28:37 +0000

What is it?

Kodu Game Lab is for building games!

Originally called Boku, Kodu is a programming environment designed by Microsoft for Windows and the Xbox 360.

Matthew MacLaurin, the director of the Redmond FUSE (Future Social Experiences) Lab and the game’s creator, designed Kodu to allow children to actively engage with computers rather than experiencing them passively. Kodu enables you to build games using a series of visual elements in a rich 3D environment, without having to learn a single line of code. Microsoft describe Kodu Game Lab as being ‘… designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone.’

The core of Kodu Game Lab is its intuitive user interface.

From the interface, you choose visual commands to determine the actions of the characters and environment, rather than having to type lines of code to build your games. Think of the commands as rules that the game characters and objects must follow.

In the example above, whenever the character sees an apple, they will move toward it. At the same time, whenever the character bumps into an apple, they will eat it.

What isn’t it?

While what you can build with Kodu is significant, there are limits to what you can achieve. Building games of expansive size with countless characters will tax the Kodu Game Engine.

Luckily, Kodu has a built in indicator to let you know when you’re stretching the game engine beyond it’s capacity.

A thermometer to the right of the screen indicates clearly whether your game is becoming too big to manage. If it is, it’s a simple matter of reducing the size of the game space, or removing peripheral characters from the game.

That’s not to say that Kodu can’t be used for building games of surprising complexity! What you can achieve with Kodu can be surprising.

Where do I start?

Start simple

There are a number of ways of approaching building a game, but our suggestion initially is to keep it simple. Our suggestion for your first attempt at building a game is to create a simple environment, and then program a bot (one of the characters you can place within the game) to perform some simple actions.

GDC 2009 review of Kodu

In this review by GDC, make shortly after the release of Kodu in 2009, the compares discuss the basic principles behind the game.

GDC review

Get some inspiration!

Watching what other users have created is always a great way to get ideas, and see how they have approached the game.

RPG Example

Space Dungeons

Download and edit

Download some of the games already created on the Planet Kodu website. You’ll also want to try the dozens of games that come preloaded with the Kodu Game Lab software. Play the games, look at the way the characters have been programmed, and then try to replicate it in your own game.

Final Note: Kodu Game Lab for PC is still in Beta, but the most recent version has removed the majority of bugs, and is now considered to be a far more stable release.

The informal process of game design

mnjorgensen — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:27:21 +0000

There are a number of ways you can approach game design, but often an informal approach is the most suitable method to begin with.

Developing a game idea

There are lots of ways to uncover great ideas for game designs. We’ve outlined a few approaches below that might help inspire you!

You could attempt to replicate an existing game, like PacMan, where the rules and game design are predetermined. This gives you a framework within which to operate right from the start.

You might also consider replicating an environment that all game players would be familiar with, like a maze. There are numerous elements about the game that you’d still need to determine. Is it a maze from which you have to escape, or one in which you need to reach an item in the middle? Will there be creatures or objects to challenge you as you progress? Whatever decisions you make, the basic concept of how a maze works will offer you a starting point.

You might use the characteristics of a familiar physical game as your starting point. Take tag for example. Numerous games are built around this simple schoolyard activity. Because it is a game that everyone is familiar with, no matter what incarnation you choose, your audience will have an immediate way of engaging with it.

If it’s your first attempt at a game with Kodu however, you’ll want to keep it simple, and perhaps aim to achieve one or two simple tasks.

For example, you may decide that initially that you want to simply build the topography, and insert a character that wanders around the landscape. Once you’ve achieved that, you might add another layer of complexity, and then another.

Testing

Testing shouldn’t be something you do at the end of the game creation process. Making alterations, and then testing to ensure they have worked as you intended should be done as you progress, not at the end of the process.

Try to achieve too many new things at once in your game, and you may find it difficult to rectify your problems all at once. One of the main reasons this is the case, is that your character interactions become unclear. Is the Kodu bot moving because he hears or sees something? Or is he simply moving of his own accord? If you have too many new elements introduced into the game at once, you may find it difficult to determine whether even simple improvements you’ve made have been successfully achieved.

Getting other users to test your games for you is another solid step in this process. Other users will have different approaches to game design, and will have their own solutions to problems you encounter that you may not have considered previously.

Refinement

It’s a good idea to offer up progressive versions of your game creations for the assessment of your peers. With each new version you can more easily see where improvements have been made, and how successful your updates have been.

You can revert to previous attempts if you have to, and try different approaches to find out what the Kodu community thinks of your improvements.

Other users will also benefit from being able to keep track of your progress and understand how you improved your games, enabling them to replicate your achievements in their own games.