2. The programming environment
2.1 KODU’s programming environment
Digital games are usually composite multimedia applications. Such applications are created through
the use of a programming language. A Visual Programming Language (VPL) lets users, even
children, create applications by programming graphically rather than textually.
Loukas Koutsikos et al.
The KODU1 software is a simple visual programming environment which was specially developed in
order to create digital games and digital three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds. Other visual
programming environments, such as Alice Carnegie Mellon, Scratch and Game Maker, which are
commonly used for educational purposes, are addressed to students of High School and are not
appropriate for younger students.
An icon- based programming environment such as KODU provides a significant amount of objects,
available to be imported as main characters. Those “heroes” can be programmed to adopt predefined
behavior and perform specific actions. The KODU programming language is designed to be easy to
learn, therefore accessible to children.
All the actions and behaviors in KODU programming, are expressed in physical terms, using concepts
like vision, hearing, movement, time and follow the treaty when (an event has occurred) - do (a
specific action), based on the concepts of object-oriented programming. Examples of the KODU
programming are noted in the following figures.
Figure 1: Example of programming the hero to jump
Figure 2: Example of programming the hero to move slowly
The specific outcomes that can be created on KODU are digital games that can be performed both on
Xbox360 as well as the Personal Computer.