Ever have a flash of game-designing brilliance in the middle of fraggin' your friend, leading your guild through a raid, finishing a puzzle or just plain brushing your teeth in the morning? Wanted to do something about it but too afraid to touch a command console to input progamming languages?

Microsoft Researcher Lead Matthew MacLaurin walks us through a revolutionary new take on computer programming with the Kodu Game Creator being created for the PC and Xbox 360.

"The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner."

Features:

• High-level language incorporates real-world primitives: collision, color, vision
• Uses Xbox 360 Game Controller for input — no keyboard required
• Runs on XBox 360 and PC
• Interactive terrain editor
• Bridge and path builder
• Terrain editor - create worlds of arbitrary shape and size
• 20 different characters with different abilities

For more, check back later today for Raymond Padilla's impressions on Kodu straight from San Francisco and our GDC 2009 crew there. For now, it's safe to say that this isn't your parent's Logo Writer programming software.

Kodu Game Creator Demo Walkthrough