Probably the coolest thing I was shown at CES was a demonstration of a new XBOX 360 game for kids called Kodu. Actually, calling it a "game" does it a disservice. It's an online environment where kids get to create a game for themselves and then can play it with their friends. And by creating a game, what they're really doing is learning the basics of computer programming
What Kodu is doing really is demystifying computer programming by removing the abstract and forcing kinds to think critically and analytically. With Kodu, kids can create a "world" by creating one from scratch or changing any one of 10 to 20 starter worlds, and then fill that world with characters, items or other things. Each thing can have a behavior associated with it, and each behavior assigned will have a different consequence in the game.
In the demo I was shown racing type games, shooting type games and adventure type games, but kids can really create anything they can think up (with the programming tools they are given). The other cool think is kids can tweak and reprogram the game while they are playing it, which adds a whole other level of interactivity.
Kodu is being aimed at kids aged 9 years old and up, and will be available for download from the XBOX Live community games channel sometime this spring.
