LittleBigPlanet

I jump up and down on top of Cory's head.

He doesn't seem to be getting the point. So instead, I smile and wave my hands. Finally he stops his random wandering around about the small cardboard box we inhabit and seems to pay attention. I point to the collection of user generated worlds to explore. He nods. Smiles. And he starts scrolling through the options. On finding one that looks interesting he pauses for a moment and waggles his head back and forth. I smile more broadly, nod up and down, and jump up with cartoon glee.

My rabbit ears are exceptionally floppy.

Like visiting demigods we descend into this ersatz Eden. We step gently, knowing that a misstep as often as not leads to dissolution. Ahead of us looms our clockwork dragon. Rearing and pawing at the ground, it ejects a ball of bile at us. It lands on Cory, who disappears in an explosion of black smoke.

I run back to the entrance, where his blue-stitched sack body re-emerges from the god-chute. We tread more carefully this time, approaching what we now understand to be a cannon, clearly placed to defeat the dragon. We instinctively divide the tasks: I jump up and down on the trigger, launching the canon balls. Cory controls the angle of elevation.

The dragon is toast before our display of mad skills.

Returning to our cardboard box, we do a little dance, decorating each other with flowers and donkey tails. Cory returns to the controls and selects another world to explore.

We spend the next hour in this same silent exploration. We journey from world to world. We speak not a word, but communicate solely through body language, actions, and changes in appearance. We could, of course, be speaking - if we owned headsets for the PS3, an extravagance I'd never seen the point of until now. But really, there's no need for speech. I can communicate just as effectively with a wave of my Raggedy Andy head, or the flailing of my articulated stuffed fingers.

He takes the role of controller, and I act as the arbiter of good and bad, exciting and boring, clever and obvious. More than anything, I am filled over and over again with a sense of wonder. Wonder at the simplicity of the worlds, the complexity of the ideas, and the occasional startling beauty of the experience.

And the silence.

Some 20 hours later, Lindsay sits on the couch.

"What's this?" she asks, looking at my rabbit-eared sack-boy standing lonely in his cardboard box.

"Just play with it," I suggest, returning to the kitchen.

Five minutes later, I run back into the living room. The laughter from Lindsay and my wife is so intense that I'm afraid that a flock of chickens has errupted from the carpeting. They're curled up in tears on the couch.

I look at the screen. Two sack-people now, still standing in their cardboard box.

"It's just so funny!" Lindsay exclaims.

They're just running around the box. Jumping, waving, smiling, frowning, dancing. I explain to them that there are actually worlds they can explore, and they're gone. With no instruction, they've discovered everything there is to understand about the worlds of LittleBigPlanet. And they never, ever stop laughing. Not because someone was telling jokes, or because they were playing "funny levels," but because they were simply exploring like children in a garden, making up their own games and testing limits.

---

LittleBigPlanet lived in my house for two short days. In that time I became convinced that it's important. Yes, it's fun, and it's extraordinarily polished and well-realized. Yes, it oozes super-hot cuteness from every pore. It's Lego-games cute with a side order of puppies. And yes, it will succeed or fail based on how well the community content system is implemented, and on the quality of the levels from developer MediaMolecule -- two enormous unknowns.

But that's not why it's important.

It's important because it's a breakthrough in forming connective tissue. With both Lindsay and Cory, the LittleBigPlanet experience wasn't a game experience. It was a social play experience. In one case, I had a completely satisfying, social, interpersonal play experience entirely without vocabulary. In the other, while the two players sat talking, side by side on the couch, their interaction with the virtual environment was so well crafted that the most complex activities were instinctive within seconds, allowing them to simply play - play in the childhood sense of the word. The seams between players in real time, and between the player and the designer (who in this case is just another player who has gone before) are so smooth that it's easy to overlook how different this really is.

There are two great fundamental challenges of game design in the 21st century. The first is to break the wall between the experiencer and the experience. That's the point of all the fancy graphics and 5.1 audio. It's the first premise of the Wii. It's the reason designers spend agonizing evenings deciding whether to put "jump" on the A button or the X button.

The second great challenge is to bring groups of people - both living rooms and communities - into game spaces in a meaningful way. The entire MMO industry is predicated on the need to make these connections. The second premise of the Wii is to get people playing together. It's the reason designers spend agonizing evenings tweaking multiplayer levels.

LittleBigPlanet splits these challenges with a cute-sharpened axe.

I'm a terrible fortune teller. LBP could be the smash hit of the holiday season or go down in history as a game that pulls Okami and Psychonauts down a notch off the Billboard chart for Bankrupt Critical Darlings. The game-as-shipped might be riddled with unforeseen bugs. All of the user created content could be bland. But I feel safe in predicting this:

In 5 years, we'll still be talking about what LittleBigPlanet taught us about games.

Comments

LBP is one of the first games I'm going to get when I eventually pick up a PS3. Right after Disgaea 3.

Speaking of complexity, did you know that someone made a working calculator in LBP? That is incredible.

This will be the first physical game I buy for the PS3, as I've already got arcade titles... Personally, LBP is the entire reason I own a PS3!

Maybe it's because I didn't get to jump on Cory's head, or because my expectations were spoiled by the ridiculous hype surrounding this game, but what I've played from the beta will be more than enough. I guess that if you're looking for pretty graphics or a box of virtual Legos you'll be in heaven, but if you're looking for an actual game that'll keep you interested for more than half an hour, you should probably look elsewhere.

But as the cool kids say, YMMV.

OK, Rabbitt, I'm on my way over.

Thanks for expressing my opinions better than I ever could have.

EDIT: Fixed within the time it took me to type the response.

AmazingZoidberg wrote:
All od the user created content could be bland.

Ah, the glorious typo in it's natural habitat, prose.

First law of grammar nazis: every post correcting spelling or grammar will contain at least one such mistake itself

Rabbit wrote:

My rabbit ears are exceptionally floppy.

\

But we knew that already!!

Well...yeah.
LBP with 4 friends and beer is maybe the best invention ever.
You screw each other over, moving grab-ables away from others or slapping people off edges.
But your kind of buzzed so you mess up.

It's somewhat jarring going from Rabbit's prose to the comments here.

Anyhow, I definitely can see this game being a fairly big hit, and I look forward to discovering some amazing levels. I'm going to get my fiancee to try it out once she's back home.

Zelos wrote:
AmazingZoidberg wrote:
All od the user created content could be bland.

Ah, the glorious typo in it's natural habitat, prose.

First law of grammar nazis: every post correcting spelling or grammar will contain at least one such mistake itself ;-)

The universe will not allow me to be a dick. Every time I try it comes back to bite me.

Stylez wrote:

It's somewhat jarring going from Rabbit's prose to the comments here.

Unfortunately, the new Youtube comment audio preview feature isn't having the desired effect.

Zelos wrote:
AmazingZoidberg wrote:
All od the user created content could be bland.

Ah, the glorious typo in it's natural habitat, prose.

First law of grammar nazis: every post correcting spelling or grammar will contain at least one such mistake itself ;-)

I guess I'm more of a Grammar Stalinist, then.

My vote's for smash hit, plus enduring legacy, and I agree with everything you've written.

First of all, my 8-year-old daughter and I had the time of our lives with the beta. We just sat and laughed our heads off. I can't wait for its release.

Second, I thought Spore would be the big conceptual breakthrough this year. I'm pretty certain that honor will go to LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet makes Spore's content creation seem incredibly shallow. With Spore, you're changing some stats and then doing a bunch of cosmetic work on creatures and items that fit within a comparatively rigid, pre-built structure. With LittleBigPlanet, you build the game from the ground up. The two games are worlds apart in terms of the creative depth they provide.

The Fly wrote:

My vote's for smash hit, plus enduring legacy, and I agree with everything you've written.

First of all, my 8-year-old daughter and I had the time of our lives with the beta. We just sat and laughed our heads off. I can't wait for its release.

I have to agree with everybody that the social aspect of this game creates something that transcends the simple platforming gameplay mechanics. Once I have the game and have unlocked a ton of levels going to have a LittleBigParty to invite over a bunch of my non-gamer friends.

I think this is going to be one of the most important game this generation, and possibly a generation-defining. Up until now most games have been more of the same. There have been some great (even fantastic) games so far but nothing has really broken the mold from what we expect from games.

We've seen level editing/creation before on consoles, but nothing to this degree. Timesplitters always had level editors, the RPG Maker series, Halo 3's Forge, but none of them made content creation and community such a core aspect of the game. Nor have they made it so easy. The tools in LBP are not simple by any means but they are accessible.

Three things amaze me. First is that MediaMolecule really did a bang up job with the control schemes and UI. They just work they way you'd want them to. The fact that my wife could jump in and be slapping stickers and objects down without really having to ask any questions is pretty amazing. Creating quality levels will be non-trivial, but playing around with the system and having fun is possible for everyone.

Second, the game creates a sandbox that is just fun to play in. My wife and I spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon simply messing around with the premade and user made levels. If something broke, we'd just make our own fun and move on. My wife commented on how things that would typically frustrate her in other games didn't bother her in LBP because there was really no pressure to do well. If she got stuck I could continue on to the next checkpoint, we could move on to another level or just make our own fun. For example, reassembling Humpty Dumpty with me inside was a fun, completely pointless distraction that had us both laughing.

Finally, the social aspects bring "web 2.0" to gaming. The amount of data they have and the way you can share levels and dig into what people have been playing and enjoying really offers something completely new. I also like the freeform online system where you opt to let others who want to play the same level as you freely join up and then follow each other around to new levels. In that regard it really is the YouTube of the gaming world.

The hardcore will love creating content and mastering the physics engine. Casual players will enjoy the cute art style, customization and the freeform nature of game play. Based on how many users had played some of the beta levels (over 100k on some I believe) I think the game is going to do very well for itself. Sony would be foolish to not make this come standard on PS3s in the future.

I fully expect that looking back this generation will be remembered for the online community/social aspects it brought to gaming.

Returning to our cardboard box, we do a little dance, decorating each other with flowers and donkey tails.

Best. Sentence. Ever.

Nice write up Mr Murdoch. nearly enough to make me interested in the game. But not having a PS3 anywhere in my future guess it isn't an option.

I think the smartest thing they could do is give programmers the option to plug a keyboard into their PS3 and poke around under the game's hood a bit more. There is a glass ceiling for what can be created for players who can ultimately only jump and grab things. Giving budding game designers even deeper tools to adjust the gameplay would make a big difference.

I think it's going to be a hit, but I still have serious questions about how far the game can take a community like GWJ a month from now. We'll be hungry for more to DO in these levels long before the environmental variation runs out.

Mr.Green wrote:

Maybe it's because I didn't get to jump on Cory's head, or because my expectations were spoiled by the ridiculous hype surrounding this game, but what I've played from the beta will be more than enough. I guess that if you're looking for pretty graphics or a box of virtual Legos you'll be in heaven, but if you're looking for an actual game that'll keep you interested for more than half an hour, you should probably look elsewhere.

But as the cool kids say, YMMV.

I'm curious, did you spend much time with the community-built content, or playing with others, or building your own stuff? Because those aspects of the game put it way over the top in my book.

Zelos wrote:
Stylez wrote:

It's somewhat jarring going from Rabbit's prose to the comments here.

Unfortunately, the new Youtube comment audio preview feature isn't having the desired effect.

Never... ever... read the Youtube comments. I cannot right now think of anything more damaging to a person, psychologically, than to take anything that anybody commenting on youtube says seriously.

Seriously, they're like a pan-galactic gargle blaster enema but without the pleasant side effects.

no post

Anyone have experience taking PS Eye snaps off of a laptop screen into the beta or should I get them printed on photos first and then try making PS Eye snapshots of those?

I took a slew of pictures of random things that could work well as textures over the weekend and wonder what will import most clearly via the PlayStation Eye.

Oh and if anyone needs to buy a PS Eye for this game PM me I have an extra brand new one I'm looking to unload cheaply.

The Fly wrote:
Mr.Green wrote:

Maybe it's because I didn't get to jump on Cory's head, or because my expectations were spoiled by the ridiculous hype surrounding this game, but what I've played from the beta will be more than enough. I guess that if you're looking for pretty graphics or a box of virtual Legos you'll be in heaven, but if you're looking for an actual game that'll keep you interested for more than half an hour, you should probably look elsewhere.

But as the cool kids say, YMMV.

I'm curious, did you spend much time with the community-built content, or playing with others, of building your own stuff? Because those aspects of the game put it way over the top in my book.

No I didn't spend time building my own stuff and this is what I meant by "actual game". If I could find the time and energy, I'd continue my XNA project instead. And by finding the time, I really mean that I'm a lazy slacker suffering from ADD.

And as a game in the traditional sense, I thought it was overly simplistic and shallow once you were past the pretty graphics. But I guess what was provided with the beta was minimalist and that the retail version will have levels with challenges tailored for people over 3 years old.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was the only game that made me want a PS3.

Now there are 2.

It won't be enough to push me over the price edge, but I am greatly envious of those who will get to enjoy this, and I really hope this game design spreads across all platforms.

From folks who are playing the review code, I've heard that the stuff we saw in beta was low single digit percentages of the actual content. Take that with as much salt as you like.

And I refuse to ever look at a Youtube comment. I tried once. I need glasses now.

Infinity wrote:

Anyone have experience taking PS Eye snaps off of a laptop screen into the beta or should I get them printed on photos first and then try making PS Eye snapshots of those?

I've done it in order to create my glorious "real David Caruso" (seen at 0:10). It was generally functional for my purposes. The picture quality coming in is not super high (compared to in game textures) and I had some issues fighting with reflections in the laptop screen, but it was completely functional. I think printed photos would provide better quality, but it is by no means neccessary.

Man - I really want to play this game now, but there is no way I can swing a PS3 in the immediate future. But by the time I finally allocate the funds, no one will be playing this game anymore, and that shared sense of community and whimsy will have evaporated.

Great write up.

HedgeWizard wrote:

Man - I really want to play this game now, but there is no way I can swing a PS3 in the immediate future. But by the time I finally allocate the funds, no one will be playing this game anymore, and that shared sense of community and whimsy will have evaporated.

Great write up.

Pretty much sums it up for me too. I don't feel like buying a platform for one game, as amazing as it looks. Platform exclusives suck.

Sticky mouse button!

Fantastic piece, Julian.