[E3 2008] LittleBigPlanet
We get some hands-on time with LittleBigPlanet at E3 2008. Think you've seen it all? Think again.
Published: July 19, 2008
One of the titles that we had the opportunity to see at E3 was MediaMolecule's LittleBigPlanet. First making an appearance at GDC '07, the game is almost here -- it'll roll out this October. Thankfully, instead of throwing lavish parties filled with booth babes and coke, MediaMolecule has been hard at work on the game ever since we first caught a glimpse last year.
One of the newer additions is the ability to turn objects into "meanies" by attaching a special "brain" item to them. This will turn them into bloodthirsty foes, but fear not: if you can manage to hit the brain, the meanie will fall apart and you'll be clear to progress through the level. If you've ever played a Mario game (and who hasn't?), you're already trained for the job. You could always just ignore such an obstacle entirely and try to avoid it, but that's not very satisfying, is it?
MediaMolecule wants LittleBigPlanet to be played by the "broadest possible audience". Narration by Stephen Fry guides players along when they first start out, and a limited set of items are unlocked in the beginning, allowing for a smooth introduction to each feature so as to not overwhelm anyone. Players will also have the ability to play, create, and share, to varying extents which will help make the game appealing to more people. Because of this, levels can be completed in a different fashion based on the players preferred style. For those who want to play, any particular level would be presented in its full glory. However, if someone is more inclined to create, they can go through a smaller portion of the level to complete it, helping to unlock new materials and items faster. It's easy to see what play style someone chooses, too, because three colored orbs on a players profile indicate to what extent they play, create, and share. Tons of statistics are actually tracked behind the scenes such as amount of times the player jumps or how long they've played the game.
Even after being told this, we were surprised to find out that when a screenshot is taken by the player, every player in the level is automatically tracked and tagged. This allows for a seamless transition between viewing a screenshot and viewing a player's profile, jumping into a specific level or finding out more about a certain item. Such data tracking is also useful for handling abuse reports, which are detailed later in the article.
As Alex played the game, he told us that during development one of the important lessons they learned was to artificially limit the complexity of certain aspects of the game. Initially, LittleBigPlanet had infinite depth of field, but this proved confusing and cumbersome. To solve this, the depth of levels was limited to 3 layers: a background, a middle, and a foreground. One of the levels that served to demonstrate this featured a set of sleighs powered by the rocket item. Each sleigh was on its own track, allowing for a sort of makeshift sledding race along curvy paths made of ice. The end of the track was signaled by a satisfying crash into a wall, with the physics engine handling the resulting chaos without a hitch. This race was more of a fun demonstration than anything else, but proper races can be organized by placing specific start and end points throughout a level.
We were also shown the reporting feature, to be used when abusive players are encountered. A window titled "Good Grief" pops up, which takes a screenshot of the current environment, and it asks the player to highlight the specific offense and categorize it as pornographic, copyrighted, etc. During this, Alex joked that MediaMolecule's creative director Mark would be "leading the charge" of creating offensive content. Speaking of in-house content creation, we were shown a level created by a beta tester that featured an arrangement of blocks in the background, each assigned a specific sound. In the foreground was a vehicle that drove across the level, activating these blocks to play a song in some sort of Rube Goldberg-esque beat machine. We were told that although each object has default settings (making the game easy to pick up and play for a majority of players), several configuration settings can be tweaked allowing the hardcore to make some ridiculous stuff. For example, sounds can be activated when an object is destroyed, stepped on, passed by the player, etc. As sackboy reached the end of the track, a picture of the creator's face (likely taken with the PlayStation Eye) was prominently displayed on screen, ushering in laughs from everyone in the room.
It's worth noting that everything we see in LittleBigPlanet can be created with the tools in the game. The demonstration at Sony's press conference this year was created in less than a day. The team admitted to cheating to get text to display, but decided it was a useful tool, and will be adding this functionality in to the final build. Granted, most people won't be able to create amazing levels on day 1 -- which is why the d-pad acts as a VCR, allowing you to pause the level and rewind when things go wrong. Once your masterpiece is completed, be it a level or an object within, you can publish it for the world to see, rank, comment on, etc. The current fascination at the MediaMolecule office, we were told, is vehicle creation -- more specifically, tanks, which grow more ambitious as time goes on. When an object is created by a player, such as a vehicle, it can be added to a level as a reward, shared with a friend so that they can use it and/or modify it, etc. Objects can be free to all or "copyrighted" which prevents it from being shared, requiring that players must earn it themselves through successful completion of a level, etc.
If you're wondering about trophy integration, don't worry. We saw several trophy notifications pop up during the demo. One of them is awarded after 1 or 5 levels are published (Alex was unsure as to which). Speaking of published levels, surely there will be tens of thousands mere days after launch. How is one to sort through them all? You can, if you want to, but LBP makes things easier for you if you're not a masochist. Search results are prioritized by what types of levels you play, which objects you add to your favorites, etc. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure LBP is tailored to your tastes.
The game will be out shortly, and this is likely the last time we'll see it before then. We'll bring you a full review as soon as we get our hands on the thing.
One of the newer additions is the ability to turn objects into "meanies" by attaching a special "brain" item to them. This will turn them into bloodthirsty foes, but fear not: if you can manage to hit the brain, the meanie will fall apart and you'll be clear to progress through the level. If you've ever played a Mario game (and who hasn't?), you're already trained for the job. You could always just ignore such an obstacle entirely and try to avoid it, but that's not very satisfying, is it?
MediaMolecule wants LittleBigPlanet to be played by the "broadest possible audience". Narration by Stephen Fry guides players along when they first start out, and a limited set of items are unlocked in the beginning, allowing for a smooth introduction to each feature so as to not overwhelm anyone. Players will also have the ability to play, create, and share, to varying extents which will help make the game appealing to more people. Because of this, levels can be completed in a different fashion based on the players preferred style. For those who want to play, any particular level would be presented in its full glory. However, if someone is more inclined to create, they can go through a smaller portion of the level to complete it, helping to unlock new materials and items faster. It's easy to see what play style someone chooses, too, because three colored orbs on a players profile indicate to what extent they play, create, and share. Tons of statistics are actually tracked behind the scenes such as amount of times the player jumps or how long they've played the game.
Even after being told this, we were surprised to find out that when a screenshot is taken by the player, every player in the level is automatically tracked and tagged. This allows for a seamless transition between viewing a screenshot and viewing a player's profile, jumping into a specific level or finding out more about a certain item. Such data tracking is also useful for handling abuse reports, which are detailed later in the article.
As Alex played the game, he told us that during development one of the important lessons they learned was to artificially limit the complexity of certain aspects of the game. Initially, LittleBigPlanet had infinite depth of field, but this proved confusing and cumbersome. To solve this, the depth of levels was limited to 3 layers: a background, a middle, and a foreground. One of the levels that served to demonstrate this featured a set of sleighs powered by the rocket item. Each sleigh was on its own track, allowing for a sort of makeshift sledding race along curvy paths made of ice. The end of the track was signaled by a satisfying crash into a wall, with the physics engine handling the resulting chaos without a hitch. This race was more of a fun demonstration than anything else, but proper races can be organized by placing specific start and end points throughout a level.
We were also shown the reporting feature, to be used when abusive players are encountered. A window titled "Good Grief" pops up, which takes a screenshot of the current environment, and it asks the player to highlight the specific offense and categorize it as pornographic, copyrighted, etc. During this, Alex joked that MediaMolecule's creative director Mark would be "leading the charge" of creating offensive content. Speaking of in-house content creation, we were shown a level created by a beta tester that featured an arrangement of blocks in the background, each assigned a specific sound. In the foreground was a vehicle that drove across the level, activating these blocks to play a song in some sort of Rube Goldberg-esque beat machine. We were told that although each object has default settings (making the game easy to pick up and play for a majority of players), several configuration settings can be tweaked allowing the hardcore to make some ridiculous stuff. For example, sounds can be activated when an object is destroyed, stepped on, passed by the player, etc. As sackboy reached the end of the track, a picture of the creator's face (likely taken with the PlayStation Eye) was prominently displayed on screen, ushering in laughs from everyone in the room.
It's worth noting that everything we see in LittleBigPlanet can be created with the tools in the game. The demonstration at Sony's press conference this year was created in less than a day. The team admitted to cheating to get text to display, but decided it was a useful tool, and will be adding this functionality in to the final build. Granted, most people won't be able to create amazing levels on day 1 -- which is why the d-pad acts as a VCR, allowing you to pause the level and rewind when things go wrong. Once your masterpiece is completed, be it a level or an object within, you can publish it for the world to see, rank, comment on, etc. The current fascination at the MediaMolecule office, we were told, is vehicle creation -- more specifically, tanks, which grow more ambitious as time goes on. When an object is created by a player, such as a vehicle, it can be added to a level as a reward, shared with a friend so that they can use it and/or modify it, etc. Objects can be free to all or "copyrighted" which prevents it from being shared, requiring that players must earn it themselves through successful completion of a level, etc.
If you're wondering about trophy integration, don't worry. We saw several trophy notifications pop up during the demo. One of them is awarded after 1 or 5 levels are published (Alex was unsure as to which). Speaking of published levels, surely there will be tens of thousands mere days after launch. How is one to sort through them all? You can, if you want to, but LBP makes things easier for you if you're not a masochist. Search results are prioritized by what types of levels you play, which objects you add to your favorites, etc. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure LBP is tailored to your tastes.
The game will be out shortly, and this is likely the last time we'll see it before then. We'll bring you a full review as soon as we get our hands on the thing.
