The latest build of Kodo, the  visual programming language from Microsoft Research made specifically for creating games has a new Community option that allows you to share worlds with other Kodu users.

There was a time when if you wanted to play a computer game you first had to program it. And that was good. Now Kodu Game Lab gives the latest generation of kids an opportunity to program computer games and not just play them.

According to Microsoft Research:

The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner.

The big new feature for the latest release, PC Build 1.0.111.0,  is the Community option on the Main Menu which lets Kodu users to share worlds they have created with each other. The extra options are:

• Download - Downloads the world from the server to your machine.
• Like - Give this level a thumbs up. Note you can only vote on levels you have downloaded.
• Flag Abuse - If the level has anything offensive please use this option to flag the level. Flagged levels will get removed from the server and reviewed offline.

Some changes have been implemented in this build to make Kodu work better in a classroom setting including a bug-fix to prevent Kodu crashing if the My Documents folder was redirected to a network share.

Kodu is multi-lingual and the French, German and Polish localizations have also been updated. Kodu in Spanish is billed as "coming soon".

You can download Kodu from the Microsoft Download Center.

For more information, tutorial videos and a Classroom Kit for Educators visit the Kodu Game Lab.