About Little Big Planet
From LBPedia
Contents |
General Information
Creator: Media Molecule
Platform: Playstation 3
Media: Blu-Ray disc
Release Date: US - October 28th, 2008*
Genre: Malleable platform sandbox
Trophy support: yes
Multiplayer support: yes
Overview
This text was taken from a post at the original PSU LBP forum by user ZW and modified to fit the current state of the game.
The LittleBigPlanet experience starts with players learning about their character's powers to interact physically with the environment. There are obstacles to explore, bits and pieces to collect and puzzles to solve; requiring a combination of brains and collaborative teamwork.
As players begin to explore, their creative skills will grow and they will be ready to start creating and modifying their surroundings; the first step to sharing them with the whole community.
Creativity is part of the gameplay experience and playing is part of the creative experience. Players can make their world as open or as secretive to explore as they like. When it's ready, they can invite anyone within the LittleBigPlanet community to come and explore their patch; or can go and explore everybody else's.
This genre-busting PS3 offering is turning with its quirky ragdoll, unique patchwork visual style, and revolutionary approach to level design. While you and three friends can simply tussle and hop through premade 2D stages, the game's true appeal lies in the ability to design and share your own levels.
The goal with the game is to have users creating tons of new content that will continue to keep the game active long after release. There is a group of set levels ready to play out of the box; and even a single-player offline mode for those who don't want to experiment with the community ideas and simply want to play it like they would a traditional platformer.
Characters
This text was taken from a post at the original PSU LBP forum by user ZW and modified to fit the current state of the game.
Affectionately dubbed as "Sackboy" (or "Sackgirl" ) by Media Molecule developers; they're tiny little creatures that are able to run around the world's horizontally scrolling levels of the game, overcoming obstacles as they go. Using the controller, you're able to move your Sackboy around the levels, jump by pressing the X button, or grab onto items (or other Sackfolks) by pressing R1. Simple controls combine with cute design to make Sackboys adorable right from the get-go.
The enemies range from little robots that simply roam from left to right to spectacularly complex beasts that pose quite a challenge.
By default, Sackboy is made out of a drab, brown burlap material, but there are tons of ways to customize your personal Sackboy on the fly. By pressing the square button you can access a menu where you can choose from different heads, body materials, and accessories. With just a few clicks of the X button, you can outfit your Sackboy with a fancy top hat, a superhero cape, a dandy Wyatt Earp moustache, and a pirate's hook hand. Additionally, downloadable content packs of costumes are available.
Performing all of the standard actions is quite simple, though moving between multiple 2D planes, such as jumping from one block to a block technically behind it, take a little getting used to.
Each button on the direction pad represents an emotion for your character (up = happy, down = sad, left = worried, right = angry), and interacting with others in different states of emotion will offer unique results. Two happy characters will high-five, for instance, whereas they wouldn't if one were unhappy. You can also tilt the Sixaxis to control your character's head or torso movement; it's fun, but actually easy to forget about. None of this is fundamental to the core gameplay; it's just there for deeper and funnier character interaction.
Creation
This text was taken from a post at the original PSU LBP forum by user ZW and modified to fit the current state of the game.
Creation couldn't be simpler: You and up to three pals (online creation mode is currently inoperable) all hop into an expansive 2D stage (although most levels feature three distinct planes) and start designing the layout in real time.
Once a player has decided to manufacture something, they simply need to tap the square button and bring up the menu. Once the HUD is active, users can then scroll through a series of material and item types and pick the things they want to work with. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of pieces to scroll through.
Once players have selected their background and item types, the creation process begins. Each object is entirely physics-based too; so if a ball falls from the sky and lands on a hardwood floor then it will react just as it should (as will all objects). Once users have chosen what they need, they can further customize them by adding stickers, changing their position, or erasing parts of these objects entirely. Players can even put items together to create new working contraptions; cars, carts, you name it. You can place as many objects as you like in the world until the thermometer becomes full.
In addition to the huge number of stickers that are available, players are able to upload their own designs (using a PS3 Eye or PS2 EyeToy) to their sticker albums for use on any object they create in the game. The game is even smart enough to have stickers wrap around 3D objects in an intelligent manner.
Simple objects can easily turn into quite complex ones with the help of some simple helper parts and tools that greatly expand the depth of creation in the game. For instance, creating an object on the outside edge of another will cause them to merge when you finish their summoning, resulting in a shape that is the combined result of the two basic forms.
Other tools in the game include a simple bolt that will help you mechanically attach one object to another and cogs which add movement to your object. It's important to note that multiple players (offline only) can work on the same object (or create separately) at the same time in LBP.
You can move objects into the foreground, center, or background of the level. For example, if you wanted to add wheels on either side of a piece of wood, you could do so simply by making sure that one set of wheels was set to the opposite (that is, far) side of the wood. The depth of object placement is fixed in the world, and you can choose between preset distances by pressing the shoulder buttons on the Sixaxis controller.
So what do you use all of this customization for? The easy answer is just to mess around and have a good time. The more compelling answer is to create objects you can share with your friends. Any object you create can be sent to a friend, who can then add to or subtract from it, and send it on to someone else, essentially creating an endless cycle of creativity as the object moves around from player to player.
The best thing about this entire process, though, is that you can build entire worlds populated with funny gadgets and obstacles in minutes. LittleBigPlanet is one of those rare examples of finding something that really is limited only by your imagination.
Controls
Gameplay Controls
- Circle
- Cancel/close menus
- Cancel/close messages
- Remove jetpack
- X
- Jump
- Square
- Pop-It Menu
- R1
- Grab
- R2/L2 + analog sticks
- Arm Movement
- Left Stick
- Move Sackboy
- Sixaxis
- Move head/torso (select with R3)
- D-Pad
- Change Sackboy's emotions
Editing Controls
- Circle
- Cancel
- X
- Select
- Square
- Pop-It menu
- Tweak menu
- R1
- Increase depth of object
- R2
- Decrease depth of object
- L1
- Shift object forward one layer
- L2
- Shift object backward one layer
- Right analog stick up/down
- Re-size object
- Right analog stick left/right
- Rotate object
- D-Pad
- down
- Switch between fly and walk mode
- up
- Toggle between pause and play mode
- left
- Rewind the editor
- right
- Fast forward the editor
- down
