Boku (360/PC)

[Norse]

From Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/03/boku-microsofts-littlebigplanet-heading-to-360-pc/):

Little Big Planet captured players' hearts and free time with its unmistakable mix of ingenuity and cute. Now it appears that Microsoft has its own plan to tap into players' creative wellspring with Boku, a new XNA project billed by The Seattle Times blog as a "visual programming language for kids." Hello World.

Following a previous demonstration of the project in 2007, Boku was officially unveiled this week by project lead Matthew MacLaurin during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. The effort looks to build upon Microsoft's ongoing work with the more complicated XNA Game Studio, allowing players to program their own games using a more inviting set of icon-driven instructions on either the PC or Xbox 360. Sort of makes us want to go back and revisit Carnage Heart.

No official release date has been announced yet, though MacLaurin noted during his presentation that players will be able to start playing with Boku sometime "early next year." Until then, check out a video of it in motion after the break.

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I don't think this should be compared to LBP. This is obviously designed for very simple games, both in terms of presentation and gameplay, and is aimed at kids. Still, another way for young people to get into game design is great IMHO. Maybe this can develop into something more advanced down the line.

I'm surprised that I haven't heard about it before as it was announced early last year (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/03/microsoft_resea.html):

Kids can program Boku using a graphical language to move around the island, play games, and eat brightly colored fruit. Boku runs on Microsoft Windows and the XBox, and is currently being tested internally.

He said he was inspired by his first computer, the Commodore 64, which he programmed in Basic. He projected a screenshot of the Commodore, with its tiny memory, and monochrome display with a black background, which, he said, signified infinite possibility. He singled out the blinking cursor for particular affection.

When the software is released, Microsoft hopes to build an online community where kids can discuss Boku and share programs, MacLaurin said.

This guy gets a million bonus points for mentioning the C64 :)

[Dukefrukem]

I don't think this should be compared to LBP.

They already did.. too late!

[Norse]

They already did.. too late!

True. Media loves to compare things, even if they're not comparable :)

[Iron Past]

I agree that the unavoidable comparisons to LittleBigPlanet are unfair, and the only reason it's getting them is because of the spotlight being put on that part of the game. There are plenty more games with level editors out there (Far Cry 2's is suposed to be superb), and as I understand it, this is almost an easier-to-use XNA, to create games. LittleBigPlanet is still LittleBigPlanet after the level editor (not that I'm saying that's a bad thing by any means).

At any rate, this seems like it might be worth a look next year.

[King3567]

So...what exactly is this? It's all over every gaming news site.

[J3DI]

I agree that the unavoidable comparisons to LittleBigPlanet are unfair, and the only reason it's getting them is because of the spotlight being put on that part of the game. There are plenty more games with level editors out there (Far Cry 2's is suposed to be superb), and as I understand it, this is almost an easier-to-use XNA, to create games. LittleBigPlanet is still LittleBigPlanet after the level editor (not that I'm saying that's a bad thing by any means).

At any rate, this seems like it might be worth a look next year.


Not sure what the learning curve is on LBP, but apparently MS wants this to be for ages 7 and up. It looks pretty sweet. I can't wait to see all the Pac-man games that people make for this.

[RandoM51]

Can Microsoft out-Nintendo Nintendo? They are definitely laying the groundwork this generation to beat them at their own game the next generation.

[digitalErich]

Can Microsoft out-Nintendo Nintendo? They are definitely laying the groundwork this generation to beat them at their own game the next generation.
I say this as a person who regularly buys and mostly likes MS products, but just like every other sector of their business in the last decade, when MS is trying to play catch up and they tend to not be very good at it, unless they can get a leg up via acquisition. Who or what are they going to buy in this case?

But all that aside, MS's biggest hurdle (and Sony's as well) to competing with Nintendo in the next gen is us. With sales of MGS4 and Halo3, it's still very lucrative to produce games and hardware that deliver bleeding edge (from a tech perspective) content.

Nintendo took a large risk and consciously chose to push aside that type of experience and those types of games/gamers in favor of accessibility and affordability. I don't think MS or Sony will take that risk and thus, the baggage that comes with delivering the 'hardcore' experience will prevent them from being able to fully compete with the game Nintendo has (re?)created.

[Yeti2005]

LittleBigPlanet level editor is easy to use but it's limited. XNA offers unlimited functionality but it's a lot harder to use (at least for average Joe). Two products aimed at two totally different groups.