Wow - I can't believe we're over half-way through the 2015 UVa Saturday 3D class! And what a lot of new discoveries using Kodu. Here's a few quick programming tips we've uncovered in the past 3 weeks:

**You can use the color of the terrain you add to make a "finish line". To do this, once you've got your ground created, go back to the terrain paint brush and pick a new color terrain to paint to the area of your ground you want to serve as your game's "finish". Then, go to your character's code editor, and script this: when "on land" (you have to click on "more" from the first event handler circle that pops us when you click on "when") + "types". When you click on "types", the same terrain color tiles show up, like when you first created the terrain using the paint brush. Click on the color of the ground that matches what you added. Then, for do: click on "game" and select what you want to happen next (increase/decrease score, end, win, etc.)

**We discovered some best practice for using the "mouse" event handler. Experimenting, we found that using "over" and "move" don't work that well; these commands are very broad and it's hard to control when they happen. However, Right and Left click because they are so specific, work great to allow you to program an effect like turning lights on and off. For example, program: when mouse + Left click do: setting>sky effect(instant), and click on the color you want the background to change to. Then on the same character, program a row underneath, only this time when mouse + Right click, do: pick another sky effect (instant). Be sure to explain in your game instructions (we added this detail through "change world settings" in the main edit screen>start game with>world description).

Very cool to see what both morning and afternoon classes thought of about creative ways to use Kodu, especially after watching Mountain and Gone Home game play from the 10 minute video clips we watched together!