Fast on the heels of Project Spark, Microsoft sneaked Kodu past us in the Store late last Friday. Because of personal engagements, I wasn’t online yesterday so I discovered this rather late. But there it is, KODU in the Store in full glory.

Unlike project Spark, Kodu is past incubation and kids can already play with the app to create games, and yet unlike project Spark, the games you create here is only playable on this platform, while games created with Spark will be playable all Microsoft’s platforms.

Since project Spark is still very closed right now, you can only get it by invitation and beta keys, you might as well get your kids to whet their appetite with this game in preparation for Spark’s GA.

Here is how MS describes this app in the Store:

Description

Kodu lets you create games through a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game with no design or programming skills.

Features

• Kodu is a rich tool for narrative creation and storytelling
• Kodu demonstrates that programming is a creative medium
• Kodu helps children with critical thinking, breaking a complex goal into manageable steps, and iterate on the design process
• Kodu introduces the logic and problem solving of programming
• Kodu introduces conditions and sequences, which teaches cause and effect
• Kodu can be taught by any teacher, no previous programming expertise required
• Students learn about cooperation, logic and creativity in addition to programming

Let op, this app is a full game, it comes at 350Mb so you need space on your device to run this. But thankfully unlike Project Spark app that runs only on Intel devices, this app run on ARM devices as well.

Curious to own the app, download now free in the Store via the source link hereafter.

Source: Windows Store