Stryker3292 is regaling the PlayStation.com forums with tales of the PlayStation Experience truck at Summerfest.  Sounds like it’s the PlayStation Day build; and they’re showing the new English Country Garden, the “elephant” level, the “cathedral chase” level, and others (at least 8); and no level creation beyond stickers and such.  Stryker even mentioned a few crashes, so I’m sure Media Molecule QA still has work ahead of them.

I’ve included Stryker’s pictures here, in case Photobucket gets tired of showing them (Stryker, just let me know if you want them removed):

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TheSixthAxis and a few other places are posting images of someone playing “LittleBigPlanet Beta” showing up on a PSN Friends List.  As was the case back in April when something similar occurred, I wouldn’t consider Friends List screenshots as proof of anything.  That said, we do have this from the David Smith interview with Eurogamer:

David Smith: Yes. A beta trial is really important for us to make a game like this. We already have trials in progress! It should gradually grow to include more people.

So I’ll direct all of my skepticism at this youngster instead.

Eurogamer has posted today’s interview with David Smith. A few interesting bits:

• “A beta trial is really important for us to make a game like this. We already have trials in progress! It should gradually grow to include more people.”
• “30fps at 720. The game uses a lot of filmic techniques like depth of field and motion blur, so this fits the game pretty well.”
• “You can just select a simple sort of ‘camera tool’. Take a picture of your invention and it simply adds the object to your inventory. You can create as many as you like (until the game runs out of memory).”
• “As it stands, we have a special material in the game which floats in the air and can make ’spacey’ sorts of levels.”
• “We’re currently totally focused on the beta trial. We’re not at a point where we can make a final decision on a demo. It depends on how the trials go.”
• “I think invisibility trumps laser eyes.”

[update: Quite a popular interview.  Reported by Gaming Today, PS3 Fanboy, ThreeSpeech, PSU, videogamer.com, Play.tm, gamesradar, TheSixthAxis, Qj.net, N4G, videogaming247, playstadium, … )

Our local Sackboy is back from vacation.  Read his story.

• First of all, this music video gets honorable mention for extensive use of They Might Be Giants.
• GameTrailers’ “Bonus Round” Episode 23 Part 2 previews Sony’s E3. LittleBigPlanet was an obvious topic, with the following exchange:

KEIGHLEY: One game I’m really excited about, Brian, is LittleBigPlanet, which I think could be — we’ve had a chance to play — I think everyone here unanimously agrees that’s going to be something pretty special.

CRECENTE: Yeah, I think LittleBigPlanet is going to be amazing; but I also think that it’s a sign of where, in some sense, Sony is headed with some of their games. They’re really starting to step outside the box, and come up with these games that are just so different, like from thatgamecompany and some of the other –

KEIGHLEY: flower, which we’ll see at E3 –

CRECENTE: — Right, which is amazing. It’s neat to see that they have decided that they want to not only come out with triple-A titles like Metal Gear Solid 4 or support them, but also come up with these new experiences that are completely untested. And I think that’s it’s going to really serve them well in the coming year.

• PopSci.com has a short piece on LittleBigPlanet.  Favourite quote: “If you can watch the gameplay demos without smiling, I have the unfortunate task of informing you that you have no soul.”
• From Kaz Hirai’s part of Sony’s Mid-Term Strategy Meeting, it’s good to see that LittleBigPlanet is still a Major Game Title from SCE WWS in FY08.
• If can make it to one of the scheduled stops, anyone can play a pre-release build of LittleBigPlanet on one of Sony’s PlayStation Experience trucks.  It looks to me like LittleBigPlanet is only on the second truck, whose only remaining stop is the Milwaukee Summer Fest over the July 4th weekend.  But, as they say, “We’ll be updating both trucks with new games throughout the year”, so keep an eye out for Sackboy on the side of a semi at a music extravaganza near you.
• A little further East (and North), Sony will be “conducting sessions and showcasing LittleBigPlanet” at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival held August 10th-12th.
• LittleBigPlanet is #3 on PS3Informer’s “Five PS3 Games to Watch For at E3 2008″.
• Harmonix’s Chris Foster thinks LittleBigPlanet is “on the right track” balancing user-generated content constraints.
• PlayStation World magazine has an article entitled “Homebrewing For All” about LittleBigPlanet and the rise of user creation in games, but I think the author was a bit misinformed (there’s a lot of incorrect info floating around, so I hardly blame him).  In it, LittleBigPlanet “has no discernible story, no bosses”.  “With LittleBigPlanet, we will see the onus placed on those playing the game to come up with their own content.”  I don’t believe that the author knows that any levels are actually shipping with the game, and certainly hasn’t seen the boss battles and branching storyline.  Worse yet, the comments so far have zeroed in on the very things which are incorrect.  I would hope that any magazine called “PlayStation World” is on Sony’s radar, and the PR guys will send some info their way.  I’m not sure that this would help, though, since the article has a “leave game development to the professionals” slant.
• Eurogamer is having a live interview with Media Molecule’s David Smith on Wednesday July 2nd at 4pm UK time.
• Trophies for LittleBigPlanet now confirmed.

When and if the August issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine hits the shelves near you, it’s definitely worth a read.

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[UPDATE: The link from the Media Molecule blog to this contest has been removed “as the competition wasn’t official.”]

[FURTHER UPDATE: Don’t Panic now says “…there has been a change in the circumstances of the competition beyond Don’t Panic’s control. We are no longer able to offer to include the winning character design in the retail version of LittleBigPlanet.”; click over to the contest page for the full statement.]

The sidebar says “See your design used in the game” and “Win a copy of LBP and a PlayStation 3″, so the stakes are pretty high. Click over to the contest, grab the template, and send them your Sackboy designs! (Read all of the rules and regulations first, of course.) Voting begins on July 14th, so even if you’re not artistic, you can throw your support behind the one you’d most like to play with.

One interesting detail from the brief:

Your character will be in good company - so far, 20 creative visionaries have contributed their level designs, including: Build, Kate Moross, Peepshow, Trevor Jackson and Yuko Kondo.

As previously expected, PS Nation did run an interview with one of the folks a Media Molecule as part of podcast episode 66. From around 38:00 to 1:17:30, Andrew from PS3Fanboy interviews Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey.   A lot of the interview is also posted on PS3Fanboy. One interesting tidbit:

MARK: Sometimes you show things that later on you decide you have to change or remove. And some people have already gone off and had whole conversations and created websites about that one particular feature. But hopefully all the changes that we make are for the better; so hopefully no one will be disappointed. A good examples of that was the fluff, or the collectables in the game. In some of the early videos, you used to collect these kind of sponge balls. And it changed to something else, and eventually it ended up as these translucent bubble things (which I won’t tell you too much about); but that’s just an example of how having such visibility on the development process can be a bit confusing for people sometimes.

ANDREW: Has there been a vocal outcry against the change of these little bubbles?

MARK: Not that I know of; People there are asking “What do you collect? Is it fluff, is it bubbles, is it sponge?” We don’t know, maybe it’s all, maybe it’s nothing. It gives people something to argue about.

I guess we’ll stick to calling it “aether” for now.

A warm Summer day in Paris, an opening keynote speech from Mark and Alex; what could be better?

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We’re going to do some work on the site, so the updates may be infrequent for a week or two.  Please don’t delete those bookmarks; we’ll be back with lots of exciting new stuff before the beginning of July, and you’ll be sorry if you miss it!