Towards the later part of 2013, Microsoft introduced Project Spark. For those who are unfamiliar with Project Spark, it is essentially a tool created by Microsoft to encourage gamers on both the Xbox One and Windows platforms to create games of their own. Given that there have been many hit indie games, we guess this is Microsoft’s way of encouraging budding gamers to try and achieve their dreams.
Well the good news is that it looks like Project Spark has officially come out of beta as Microsoft has announced that they have formally launched the tool. The tool has been undergoing a beta test for the past six months and last we heard, Microsoft was aiming for a release in October, and we guess they made the date.
One of the good things about Project Spark is that gamers don’t necessarily need to have programming skills in order to create games. The tool is based on Kodu, a visual programming language that Microsoft has modified and gamified by Microsoft so that budding developers can earn rewards and unlock achievements for learning how to program as they go.
As noted by VentureBeat, it’s interesting that Microsoft has chosen now to launch Project Spark given that their acquisition of Mojang (and subsequently Minecraft) essentially lets gamers create user-generated content as well, but perhaps the types of games and audiences will be different. In any case if Project Spark is something you might be interested in, check out the video above to see Project Spark’s executive product Saxs Persson talk about it.
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