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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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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Kodu, you may remember, is the game programming tool shown at CES by "actual 12-year-old girl," Sparrow. It was cartoony and cute and bright, and many people wrote it off instantly: "LBP rip-off!", "Stupid rock-carrying game?!", and so on. I really wanted to try it out, and now, apparently, it's out. I say apparently because it's gotten almost no press, and the only way I found out was by randomly browsing the Community Games channel and seeing it there. (Okay, Joystiq and other sites did post about it, but I had relatives over for the past two weeks so maybe I just missed it.) Still, after the CES demo I thought its release would be a much bigger event, and it would show up somewhere on the Xbox dashboard (Spotlight). It's too bad it wasn't released on XBLA rather than the CG channel, the place where no one dares tread.

Anyway, I've been playing around with it for the past few days, and it's great! You really can create all sorts of games, from FPSs, to side-scrollers, to racing games. The interface is very well designed, for the most part, using nested pie menus for all of the actions/objects. There are lots of different lighting options and ground materials to help change the look of your games, so don't think everything created has to be blue-skies-and-rainbows. The programming is easy, but surprisingly deep if you learn how everything works. Because it was initially designed for kids, it's also very fast. You can go from editing your level to playing it in under a second.

I was programming a dual-stick shooter for a video I hope to put up, and my roommate started watching. "What happens when you run into the UFOs?" he asked.
"They blow up and damage your ship."
"Is that what always happens?"
"Well no, that's what I made them do. I can program it to do whatever. I can make them…turn into apples, if I wanted to."
"Do it!" Literally twenty seconds later I had it working that way, just for fun. The Kode (yes, I just called it that):
WHEN bump puck DO vanish me
WHEN bump puck DO create apple
Crazy how simple it can be, isn't it?

There are definitely limitations though. One of my biggest complaints is that not every object has every option available to it — you can create a tree that shoots missiles, but a soccer ball can't follow a path the way lights and bots can. I was hoping each object would simply look different, and have sliders set differently (bounciness, speed, etc.), but could be programmed however you want. If you like how one vehicle controls, but wished you could use a different 3D model, you're out of luck. But this is where extreme creativity shines. With these limitations, how far can you take it? Some game types seem impossible, but someone will figure out how to make it work. Kodu comes with a bunch of samples and prebuilt games, so you can learn how the more advanced games are programmed (they're all editable). Be sure to check out "gawlf" to see how they brilliantly used the health bar to act as your swing power meter.

Did I mention it's only five dollars, which is a steal? I easily would have paid $20, and with a more robust system it could have been a retail game. I should mention that Kodu does a pretty poor job at introducing you to the game. They desperately need a "play tutorials" button on the main menu, with a list of tutorials that get checked off as you go along, each one with a hint system (where's Clippy when you need him?*). There are just three tutorials that come with Kodu, mixed in with the other games, and they don't actually explain anything. I guess they thought it was so well designed it didn't need any explanation. So I recommend watching some video tutorials (online — none are included) first to get an idea of it before you jump in (I hope to have some tutorials up in the near future).

You won't be able to make the next Gears of War, and you won't even be able to make exactly the arcade game you had in mind, but new ideas will appear, and you'll have fun doing it. If you have kids, buy Kodu. Even if they can't use it on their own, you can create things with them. If you've ever had a game idea of your own, buy Kodu. It's designed to get you thinking like a programmer, and it succeeds.

Other Notes:
Right now game sharing sucks — you have to be friends with the person, and both be running Kodu at the same time. They are working on a patch though, which will add three dedicated servers! There's also a bug where levels seem to get deleted — if it happens, restart Kodu and it might fix it (more info here). The patch will also fix this and other issues.
The patch is out! Delete Kodu and re-download if you don't have it (there's no "update" function).

Links:
Kodu fan forum
Audio interview with Matt MacLaurin — back when it was called Boku.
The Kodu Blog

* Please don't include Clippy. In anything. Ever.

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You step into the shoes of Ol’ Master Ninja, tasked with defending Ninjatown from waves of enemies trying to make their way through the town. To stop them, you construct Ninja Huts along their path, from which Ninjas will emerge to engage the enemy. Building each hut costs you Ninja Star Cookies, the currency of Ninjatown, and as you defeat enemies, you earn more cookies. You then re-invest these cookies into building and upgrading huts to deal with the ever increasing waves of enemies. You can also build something we call Modifier Buildings, that will endow any adjacent huts with a special ability. These include buildings like the Training Dojo, which can increase your attack power, or the Tea Shop, which makes your units move faster.

That’s only the basics though, among the new gameplay elements we introduce are Ol’ Master Ninja (OMN) Powers, which are unlocked throughout the game and help to supplement your defensive abilities. These give you powers like Get Off My Lawn, where the player blows into the microphone to push enemies around on the map, or Magnifryer, which lets you direct a beam of scorching hot light on your enemies.

The ninja huts you build are what you'd expect — slow powerful ninjas, fast weak ones, snipers, ice/fire ninjas, and so on. There are also building modifiers, which raise the attack power of the surrounding ninjas, increase their range, or get you more cookies (money). You can upgrade the huts, but that takes time, so you need to do it between waves, or hope you have enough ninjas out there while upgrading.

I just beat the game, getting A ranks on every stage (with the help of strategies on a couple stages). It's an incredibly fun game, and its biggest fault is its length! It's not that it's so short, but it's so much fun it leaves you wanting more, and there were so many obvious, easy ways to extend it!
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Read the rest of Totally addicted to Ninjatown (DS) (454 words)

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1. I didn't buy it until just now, because I've been broke
2. the blistering speed of the new songs melded my hands to the guitar, leaving me unable to use a computer keyboard
3. I've been so addicted to GHtunes that I've spent every moment creating and playing new songs
4. although we bought it on day one, it's not very good so we haven't beaten it yet, and instead simply unlocked all the songs with a cheatcode and played the ones we liked in quickplay, then went back to RB2

Yes, it's the last one (though I've played it more than that). How can a game that seems almost identical to RB be so much worse? It's the little things…
(...)
Read the rest of Review: Guitar Hero World Tour (1,657 words)

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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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It might be entertaining for the video game fans, but all those hours spent trying to cross the road to get home have left frogger extremely sleep deprived, and exhausted when he gets up for work in the morning.

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Of some note are all the great comments on Half-Life 2: Episode 2 – "Little Rocket Man" Gnome Achievement Tips. Nine months later, and people are still leaving comments, which can now be seen! Thanks for all the extra tips!

Another good comment is the review by Eugenio, posted under my Getting Up Review.

So aside from that stuff, I'd just like to say that I will definitely be putting up some Rock Band videos! I wanted to wait until I had better drums, but I don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon. I'll be sure to get some full band videos — we may be having a "Rock Band 2 BBQ" in the next week or so.

I'd also like to get more content up, maybe some more podcasts (I wanted to do a GTAIV podcast, but my roommates took forever to finish the game! I beat it in three days). Now that I promise your comments will be seen — what do you want to see more of on this site? Guides? Gameplay videos? Rabbit Runs? Podcasts? More papercraft videos? :)

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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 **

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There are a lot of features I have yet to try, but let me run down some of the biggest improvements (and worst removals) Harmonix has made, and suggest some more changes. I haven't played online at all, so I can't comment on that, nor do I have any of the new instruments. I'm calling this a "quick" review only because I'm focusing on specific things that matter to us RB-obsessed players, not reviewing every part of the game.
(...)
Read the rest of Quick "Rock Band 2" Review (1,592 words)

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Tommy,

Thanks for getting in touch. While we do expect to eventually offer the controller module separately, we intend to do so to allow Drum Rocker users who own multiple consoles to use a single Drum Rocker kit with all of their systems.

The module was designed specifically for use with the Drum Rocker drum and cymbal pads, which have a unique set of output characteristics (as do all electronic drum and cymbal pads). Lots of work has been done to ensure that Drum Rocker is optimized for Rock Band performance, in terms of trigger sensitivity, crosstalk rejection, latency, and more, and the design of the module has been tuned to deliver the best possible performance in conjunction with the Drum Rocker pads. Plugging another set of pads that happen to have 1/4" outputs into the Drum Rocker module will not yield the same results as using a Drum Rocker kit, and in fact may not work at all, so we don't recommend it.

However, if your goal is to have a single electronic drum set that can be used with your existing drum module and Rock Band as well, you can go at this from another angle. We would suggest that you get a Drum Rocker set, and use the Drum Rocker pads with your existing electronic drum module. If it's got 1/4" inputs and its input sensitivity can be adjusted, you should be able to combine the Drum Rocker pads with your existing module, and have exactly what you're after – a single kit for playing games and playing music!

Hope this helps!

Customer Service – DrumRocker
Ion-Audio

So of course their solution is to have me buy the whole drumkit, as you'd expect — no thanks. I hope someone buys the brain anyway and tries it out.

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I really didn't expect to do that; I guess it's all thanks to my new pedal. I still need work on Kool Thing, Hammerhead, The Perfect Drug, and a few others. I added some of my high scores to ScoreHero, and will add more later.

I've also been trying to raise my career score, and have almost broken the top 500 on the 360 leaderboards. I've been reading about the best overdrive paths to use, so I just thought I'd let everyone know:

Public Service Announcement

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I finally decided to just mod the pedal that came with my Yamaha DTXplorer, since I play Rock Band more than Drummania nowadays (and it doesn't disable the pedal or anything). This is the best Rock Band pedal there is now (click for large):

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Read the rest of The Best Rock Band pedal, 5-starred Disturbed Expert Drums (117 words)

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Quick Thoughts

Dark Sector isn't a terrible game if you're a fan of the genre, but there are a lot of weaknesses. Enemies respawn far too often, which amounts to you ducking behind a wall for ten minutes shooting the same enemies. It copies Gears of War too much, including things that don't make sense: as GiantBomb pointed out, your running and sprinting speed is the same as GoW — which makes no sense here as Hayden (your character) is a skinny guy, not a giant man in armor.

The "glaive" is great, and is one of the only things that sets this game apart. It's a blade that acts as a boomerang; throw it to slice enemies in half, and it'll come back to you. You'll gain an "aftertouch" ability which lets you slow down time and actually direct the glaive mid-flight, which is what I spent most of the game doing.

Aside from that it's a pretty standard shooter.

Poor Game Design

Countless times throughout the game I found myself wandering around wondering what I was supposed to do next to proceed. The game is terrible about giving you any sort of direction, and assumes you know what to do or where to go despite never "teaching" you anything.

Example 1: You come to an area where there's a door on the other side of a locked fence. You need to throw your glaive over the fence, then use aftertouch to steer the glaive down and hit a button to open the gate. Sounds fine, but there are a few problems when actually playing the game for the first time.

1. You have no idea you're supposed to go through that door in the first place.
2. The game has never taught you that you can hit a button with your glaive (and at this point in the game I don't think you've ever even seen those buttons before).
3. The button isn't very obvious.

I figured that part out fairly quickly, but I play a lot of games so I know the drill. Valve has a three step approach they use in games like Half-Life. First they teach you the basic mechanic (button opens door), then they give you an easy puzzle using the same mechanic to make sure you know it, and then they give you a tough puzzle with it. Dark Sector really needs something like that.

As for #1, that's a big problem with Dark Sector. In other games you'll have radar, text telling you what to do, or some guy on the radio giving you instructions like, "find a way into the compound!" This game has none of those, so you're left to search a bunch of boring rooms to find where to go.

Example 2: At the start of a checkpoint, you find yourself in a room with a turret that shoots rockets. You gain a new ability: a temporary bubble shield around you. The game tells you that it can reflect rockets to wherever you're aiming. Okay, I try aiming at the turret to blow it up. Doesn't work. I try aiming at various walls or doors to find a way out. Doesn't work. The game keeps telling me I can reflect rockets with my shield. I'm trying!

There is another room you can go into, but it has some ammo and that's about it. Oh — and it also has a door you simply have to walk through to load the next section. Wait, what about that turret? Apparently (after just now reading an FAQ), there was in fact a door I needed to blow up to get out of that first room — I guess when I tried to blow up the turret it also hit the door. The problem was that I had no idea I blew up a door, and the "tutorial text" still kept popping up telling me to use my shield. It was completely misleading and made me think I still needed to do something with it. As for the other room, well there are a lot of those in the game; side rooms that contain ammo and nothing else, so I didn't think that was the way out.

Again, a small radar would have been perfect here. Not a map, just a little blip telling me the direction I was supposed to go in. It would have led me to the other room with the door out. It's not that I spent an hour reflecting rockets or anything, I found the other door after a couple minutes; it's just bad design.

Example 3 (minor spoilers): The first real boss you run into climbs up the walls and throws rocks at you. I figured out the first part quickly: throw your glaive into the fire, then hit the boss with it to make him drop down. Now he's on the ground for a few seconds where you can…shoot him? Glaive him? I tried both those things for a while, but the boss doesn't have a health bar, and there's no indication that shooting him isn't working! A simple "bullets bouncing off" sound effect would have been sufficient to let me know I was taking the wrong approach.

Eventually I figured out that you're supposed to run up to him when he's on the ground, and initiate a Quick Time Event (series of button presses, a la God of War). In retrospect I realize he was flashing red when on the ground, which, if you've performed a "finisher" on a normal enemy, you would know means you can hit a button. But the game never taught you that, and I didn't know that at the time. I only know that now after playing the game for a while and figuring it out. Perhaps the manual mentions it, but I don't have it (GameFly remember), and games should not require manuals. Also, what if you're playing this game as a shooter? Then you never would have gotten close enough to perform a finisher.

There's a difference between hand-holding and teaching you how to play a game. The former is annoying, the latter is a necessity. Dark Sector could learn a thing or two from Valve.

Improvements

For me, the glaive was the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did. As it stands, the game is pretty forgettable, but there are some things that could have made it much more interesting and fun.

Increase the speed

Hayden is a small guy, let him run quickly around the levels slicing enemies up.

Add more hand-to-hand combat

Give Hayden more up-close glaive moves, and focus less on the boring shooting.

More glaive puzzles

There are some interesting puzzles in the game, but not enough. If they teach you how to use the glaive in strange ways, then they can throw some complicated puzzles at you.

To be honest, if they removed the guns completely (and adjusted the levels to make up for it), I would have enjoyed it much more.

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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...
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No, I don't care about Gold Starring it!

Now that my drums are working almost perfectly, I'm trying to raise some of my scores. I just re-calibrated Rock Band, because it still felt off. I tried harder this time and tested it, and it really felt like it made a difference. I basically have to just guess the settings though, because the "calibration tool" never works.

I five-starred a whole bunch of songs: Dead on Arrival (as you can see. I don't think I've played it since the first month we got RB), Next to You (Yes!), March of the Pigs (although I think I've only played that one once before, not a huge NIN fan), and some others. I still haven't gotten 5 on Run to the Hills, but I'm closer (4 and 3/4?).

I even passed Blinded by Fear for the first time (3 stars), but I played cheaply and purposely missed half of the hi-hat notes. If you just alternate hands (hi-hat, snare) and still hit the bass pedal, it's not too hard, and you'll still maintain your health. I don't think I can physically play that song correctly all the way through, it's just too fast.

So now I only have a small bunch of 4-stars left (including DLC), and just that one 3-star!

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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.
(...)
Read the rest of Podcast #2 – Rock Band Drum Mods (Tommy Gun + Mojo) (275 words)

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The Rock Band Drum "In-between Sock Mod"

Here's a little guide I wrote for a Rock Band drum mod (based off of another mod). It's working great for me, but I'd love to get more feedback on it. If you try it, let me know how it works!

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