Kodu and LittleBigPlanet as similar as "pinball and cross-country skiing"

Kodu's lead programmer, Matt MacLaurin, has said that comparisons of its upcoming XBLA game to LittleBigPlanet are caused by unfamiliarity with the genres, describing Microsoft's title as a "programming language" rather than a level-editor.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz MacLaurin said that the two titles represented "a new wave" and that the industry has "some catching up to do".

"I'm a big music fan, with very diverse tastes, and one thing I noticed is that when you start to listen to other genres - like jazz or reggae - your first impression is that everything in that genre all sounds the same," he explained.

"Reggae all has that backwards bass line. Rock always has a backbeat. Jazz always has that spangalang thing on the cymbal," he continued. "When you're new to the genre, that's all you hear. When you develop an ear for it, the differences leap out."

He then commented on the specific differences between the two games.

"More fundamentally, Kodu is all about programming - a legitimately new programming language that is being patented and studied by some of the top language theorists in the world," he said, adding: "LittleBigPlanet is a super-cool level-editor that by-and-large avoids programming, as far as I understand."

"So, yeah, you can reposition objects and hit 'play' in both. Beyond that, they're about as similar as pinball and cross-country skiing. In the end, the more tools, the better"

Matt MacLaurin's full interview with GamesIndustry.biz can be read here.