14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has started sharing the source code for a project involving a new approach to building gaming content, by leveraging a visual programming language, designed to open up game development to the public. Now, although Kodu is indeed available for download free of charge from Microsoft, and despite the fact that the company will allow access to the source code, the project formerly codenamed Boku will not be open sourced.
According to Matthew MacLaurin, a principal program manager in the creative Systems Group at Microsoft Research, the Redmond company is simply sharing the Kodu source code with academic organizations. In fact, as MacLaurin has put it, the software giant is making only the first steps on the long road that it has ahead when it comes down to allowing third-party developers access to the Kodu source.
“First up are Teale Fristoe and Noah Wardrip-Fruin at UC Santa Cruz. UCSC has a fantastic game design PhD program that we've worked with in the past. In fact, Teale interned for us in Microsoft Research last summer building a fuzzy logic system for Kodu,” MacLaurin explained. “Through what is initially a custom agreement, we're sharing the Kodu source code with Teale and Noah and Teale's going to be working on his fuzzy logic system some more. Hopefully we'll integrate this back into the Kodu production builds as it is quite cool.”
In the end, Microsoft will be looking to share the Kodu source with all academia looking to get aboard. While this is bound to happen eventually, the Redmond company is welcoming additional collaborators for the time being, as long as they have Kodu project proposals, the more focused on education, the better.
“This is pretty exciting for me because we've had many, many conversations with universities who want to do custom features for Kodu. Being part of a giant public company, getting the legalese in place for these collaborations can be daunting. Now that we've got one up and running, I'm hopeful that we can gradually and incrementally make it more available for beneficient hackery by all kinds of folks,” MacLaurin added.
Kodu Game Lab - Technical Preview is available for download here.