Learn how to create an entire game from scratch with Kodu! This 4-part video will teach you how to make a Geometry Wars style twin-stick shooter. Kodu is only $5 on the indie games channel on Xbox live.

Part 1

In this part we'll learn about land tools, and setting up basic character controls.

Part 2

In this part we'll add walls, some enemies, AI, a path for a wisp. We learn how to use pages, and mess up the programming with a misplaced "random" tile.

Part 3

In this part we'll program a 60 sec clock on an invisible rock, add music, and bump some enemies.

Part 4

In this final part we'll add some lights, and put the finishing touches on our game. We learn how to add some text with a keyboard, add glyphs, and mention land types.

You can download the "Generic Wars Tutorial" game from the Kodu servers. Also look for my advanced version called "Generic Wars Infinity."

Update: This got linked on the Kodu blog! :)

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1. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Note: I also put up a much longer tutorial showing how to create a whole game from scratch!

3 Keys Tutorial

Here's how to use three separate keys to open color-coded doors, all using a single variable (score). This isn't really needed now that they've released Patch 1 (more variables), but it still may be interesting and give you some ideas. It will at least teach you how to use keys in general.

The Popcorn Popper

A game I made just for fun.

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1. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...

http://crackedrabbitgaming.com/download/Rock-Band-Drum/

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Because there are so many different things happening, the compression is terrible, so clicking "watch in high quality" is definitely recommended. My drums drop tons of notes, but oh well.

YouTube playlist for my drum videos

I will put up downloadable divx versions later.

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How this was done: The video you're seeing is not what the audio came from. The audio was captured by turning off all sounds (crowd, instruments, etc.), and playing with No Fail mode turned on, with a full band (but not playing). Some tracks can still be heard, as well as some booing, but it's fairly quiet.

The video was done a second time, vocal only (no fail) just so you don't have to stare at the full band charts. You can see my Hayley character singing (it's hard to get an actual likeness with the RB creator).

That's What You Get:

crushcrushcrush:

More Rock Band videos to come!

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Let me know if I made any mistakes, and I can add some annotations to the video.

** Download the high-res divx version on the downloads page **

Related posts:

1. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
2. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Contents:

00:00 – Introduction, Pad silencers/rebound
03:16 – Rock Band Drumsoft
09:44 – Sensitivity mods
15:22 – Bass Pedals
25:00 – Good Wood Mods

34 minutes, 13.5MB:

See a quick video of the mods at the bottom of this post, along with links to all things discussed (you might even want to watch the video first so you know what the stuff looks like when you listen). I also posted some score pics below to show my drums are working pretty well.
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Read the rest of Podcast #2 – Rock Band Drum Mods (Tommy Gun + Mojo) (275 words)

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Could this be the shortest demo ever? Yes, this is on the "high-speed" version of the game ("throttle monkey"), and I did kill the tanks as fast as possible, but my very first try at the demo on normal wasn't much longer (30 secs?). The demo ends after you kill four tanks, so it's possible to play longer, but only if you suck.

It was pretty fun, but maybe at the 40 second mark you realize there's nothing else to do. The game got pretty mixed reviews, although it's only $5. Eh.

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Related posts:

1. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...
2. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...

The purpose of this Rabbit Run is not to beat the level as quickly as possible, it's to show a lot of the cool weapons in the game. I could have played the whole battle with a machine gun, but that's not interesting.

Showing the controller on the screen was a bit of an experiment. This is NOT something I'm going to do for every video. I just did it in this case because, well, there are a lot of controls for Snowblind, but also because I was using a lot of the controls. The whole point of this run was to show off as many different weapons as I could, so I was constantly switching.

If you think it's interesting, let me know, and maybe I'll do it again with another game if it makes sense.

About the controls: It's possible to bring up a menu to switch weapons, but that pauses the game and really takes you out of the action. The "quick" way of switching is to use the d-pad. UP/DOWN cycles guns, LEFT cycles through Augmentations (things like invisibility, abbreviated as "AUG" below), RIGHT cycles grenades.

See run notes at the bottom of this post. See also: "Project: Snowblind" Review.

Game: Project: Snowblind
Level: Rescue (End battle only)
Developer / Publisher: Crystal Dynamics / Eidos Interactive
Game Released: February 22, 2005
System: Xbox
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Spoilers: Shows weapons, one battle.
Length of Run: 2:40 min.
Played By: Tommy Gun
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Read the rest of Rabbit Run: "Project: Snowblind" – Rescue Battle (456 words)

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Game: Project: Snowblind
Level: Intro
Developer / Publisher: Crystal Dynamics / Eidos Interactive
Game Released: February 22, 2005
System: Xbox
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Spoilers: Intro
Played By: Tommy Gun

See also: "Project: Snowblind" Review.

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1. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...
2. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...

As I wrote at the end of the video, this was her first try, and the game doesn't like vibrato, so she could have scored much higher. I really just sprung this on her; she was here for the holidays, so I asked if I could quickly record her since I knew she could beat the song on expert. She wasn't trying for a high score or anything, so she was a little late on some of the phrases, which also lowered her score.

Related posts:

1. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...
2. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...

Screenshot:

A Few Notes About the Game:

Colored Notes: If you haven't played the game before, here are what the notes mean:

Yellow: Hit left bongo
Red: Hit right bongo
Pink: Hit both simultaneously
Spiky Blue: Clap

Drum rolls: These are the long notes. You don't get any points for drum rolls, and they don't count as misses. They're meaningless, score-wise. In single player ("Street Performance") you earn coins for doing them, but in multiplayer, nothing. They don't show up on the results screen or anything.

Even though you don't get points for them, I still did them in this video. They're part of the song, and it's stupid that they don't give you any points.

Clapping: When I clap, all of the bongos pick it up, as they should. In some spots I have to hit a note and clap at the same time, but I only hit the note, because it's enough vibration/noise to also trigger the clap sensor. What's the sound of one hand clapping?

Trophy: At the end of the video you'll see a trophy appear over P2. All that means is that P2 had the highest combo, but they were all full combos (no bads, no misses), and P2 just had more notes than the rest.

The Song — Pokemon Theme:

Quartet mode is meant for four people to play at once (obviously), and as such, the note charts are designed to overlap. The really hard songs overlap a lot more with more variation, and you really can't do them alone (well I'm sure some insane person out there could with a lot of practice). If the song is too easy, you're basically just playing single player but split up between bongos (i.e., notes on P1, then notes on P2, etc. instead of at the same time). The Pokemon theme was just right, which is why I chose it. It overlaps enough to make it fun, and somewhat difficult, but not insane. I wanted to be able to hit all the notes, including drum rolls.

Shortcuts and Exploits:

It's definitely possible to do harder songs. I can do a lot of the songs this way, but probably not get full combos (despite what people say, I actually do have better things to do than practice stuff like this all day long). Here are some tips for harder songs:

• Ignore claps that are at the same time as notes — just hit the notes and the clap sensor should trigger.
• Ignore ALL rolls (drum and clap rolls). You don't get points, they don't matter. Only do them for fun.
• Double hit as much as possible (hit two bongos with one hand). If P1 and P2 have the same notes, hit them both with the same hand. That way it's just like playing single player. (Which is why I specifically avoided that in this video and used both hands when I could.)
• Use your arm to hit all four drums if necessary. Sometimes there are pink notes on all players — you can get them.
• Diagonal hits — use your thumb on one pad and your fingers on the other, like I did for the very first note. More of a press than a hit.

Someone Beat Me To It…Sort Of.

After I decided to try making a video of this, I thought I should search online to see if anyone else had put up a video of it. Turns out someone had, with two bongos anyway. Here's the thing though — he was playing two bongos, but in Quartet mode, not duet. That means the computer was playing P3 and P4, so there were fewer notes that he had to play. Well that's fine, he still did it, and got a full combo, so that's great. But there were a few other problems:

1. He didn't show the screen while doing it, so it wasn't the greatest video to watch.
2. He only did one of the drum rolls, which simplified the whole thing a lot. Since he didn't show the screen, you don't realize he skipped them. So not only was he only playing half the notes since it was Quartet mode, he was playing even fewer than half since he didn't do the drum rolls.
3. At the beginning of the video he said he was playing on "Gorilla Mode" (the hardest difficulty), but there is no difficulty select in Quartet mode. (Just pointing it out — a lot of people don't know that.)

I don't know him (see below), but I figured I might as well prove I can do better, and not just talk about it. I think what I did is harder, but at the very least it's more fun to watch.

UPDATE: He has seen my video and has commented saying I "stole his idea" and "discredited him on my site." Of course, he used much harsher, juvenile language in doing so. I'm sorry he feels that way. The above section was simply discussing ways in which I could improve on what he did to make a better video. If he had done the exact same thing that I did, I wouldn't have made a video of it. We're all friends here (these are video games we're talking about!), he could have just calmly emailed me about it, but he chose a different route. In any case, I have slightly edited the above section, and hope he is less offended.

As I said on this page and in the video, I think everyone has had this idea. I had the idea the first time I played it. Plus, he only did two, I did four, and a different song; it's not the same thing. I also mentioned that I wasn't the first one to make a video right on this page. Maybe it was just an angry first reaction, but it still wasn't a very good way to handle the situation.

Update:

pitt_norton commented on GAF: "That's not how you play a music game…This is how you play a music game" and gave a link to a Pop'n Music video. My answer might clarify it a bit for other people also, so I'm posting it here too:

DK is weird to play this way for a few reasons — the bongos aren't connected so they slide around and change positions. Reaching them all isn't exactly easy, as you see I stand at an angle so I can move to the side when I need to hit P1 and P4 at once. Pop'n Music has separate columns for each note, so it's easier to read, and you can adjust the scroll speed, etc. DK certainly isn't harder, but it's weird to play.

I guess my point is that you're right, that's not how you play, which is the whole reason I did it.

Update 2:

This was mentioned in NGamer magazine!

Related posts:

1. Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
2. Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

This is a video of me playing the KISS song Strutter (expert) on the Guitar Hero II demo. I did this so people (who haven't bought the demo) could see what expert looks like. It has a lot of three-button-chords, which are new to GH2. At the same time, I decided to show the live-action part of it (frets/strum on the plastic guitar), and put it at the top of the video. I flipped the video so it's a mirror image, that way the colors match up, making it easier to follow along.
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Read the rest of Two Guitar Hero videos! Strutter Expert (GH2 demo), and different playing positions! (1,093 words)

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This was done on the Xbox version, but the Xbox 360 game, Far Cry Instincts Predator, is basically an upgraded port, so this run should apply there as well.
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Read the rest of Rabbit Run: Far Cry Instincts "Cliffs" level in 11 min. (1,873 words)

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