14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Research has unveiled something called Boku, a game/editor for the PC and the Xbox 360 and aims to allow users to create their own gaming experiences in a way not too different from the LittelBigPlanet videogame Media Molecule has created for the PlayStaton 3.
The tool, which is still in development, has been created using XNA, and appears to be somewhat more free form than LittleBigPlanet. It will not win any praise for cuteness with its current look. The big step forward is that it is based on icons as the basic building blocks, with each program saved as a simple instruction list. Some of the icons cover such complex concepts as character movement, the physics of collisions and control pad input.
At the moment, it's not clear whether Boku will be used to create games only by developers in its current form or that it will be released as it is to players in order to allow them to create complex gaming experiences. There's also a chance that it will only be available for those who pay the subscription to the XNA service from Microsoft, which is getting an Xbox Live section of its own, the Community Games channel.
Microsoft Research says about the game/tool that “It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone” and that is was inspired by one Microsoft developer who remembered how fun and easy it was to create games for the Commodore PET. The game is expected to arrive on the Xbox 360 in the fourth quarter of 2009 at the earliest.
LittleBigPlanet, a platformer which also includes a powerful level editor, was launched in both North America and in Europe, following a recall of all boxed copies earlier in October. At the moment, the game servers are overwhelmed and it seems that there are some issues with the online component of the game themselves, even as more problems have been fixed via the 1.03 patch.
Here's Boku in action: