[Whoops,LittleBigPodcast episode 16 came out while I was working on this post. LittleBigPodcast team rocks! 
]
Happily,episode 15 of the LittleBigPodcast has finally arrived! Glad to hear that Austin and Daniel have overcome the various technical difficulties and are producing the podcast again;each installment is more polished than the last,and the pace and enthusiasm make it a joy to watch.
More happy news sits in Media Molecule’s blog: Spaff promises a new episode of the Media Molecule Podcast “soon”. After forty+ days and nights,we were beginning to give up hope. After all,there were only three DevFaces before they suddenly stopped. Just in case you suspect that the Media Molecule Podcast is somehow not awesome,here are our favourite bits from episodes one and two:
Episode One (Danny,Kenny,and Moo):
- Apparently British people don’t know what to do when it snows,and they don’t grit the roads enough. (May I suggest beet juice?)
- The QA dept of “size one”needs “a boss”(still?),but the Molecules would gladly “help test”early builds of the games to which they’re looking forward.
- Moo needs help and has no power.
- Victor likes to complete games in one sitting.
- The Molecules went “a bit nuts”with Team Fortress 2.
- The very special nature of the “gold shorts”was revealed.
Episode Two (Danny,Kenny,and Mark [Healey])
- Being a Creative Director involves a lot of thinking and getting annoyed with people.
- Mark had a child and Kenny got engaged!
- The LBP team is actually the most huge team in the whole universe,really.
- The host of the video game BAFTAs was actually funny for once.
- Danny was an Estate Agent,almost deleted the email requesting an interview,and his CV was initially placed in the “no”pile;so don’t be shy about applying for one of the open jobs. Except the Community Manager one,already doubly taken.
- Mark is a big fan of Bill Hicks,correctly remembers the mini-XMB-style tool from the GDC demo,was in the Army Cadets,left art college after spending his grant on a disk drive for his C64 (I recall delivering thousands of newspapers to buy my Indus GT;totally worth it),is responsible for almost all of the creature design in Dungeon Keeper (and minion-slapping),and has never really been a huge games player;but has had his love of games rekindled by Flower (which can be played one-handed while holding a baby [for two-handed games,LiBiPlJoe recommends the gamer daddy's best friend]).
- The much-missed ice danger didn’t quite feel right,and they didn’t have time to finish it. Plus it got annoying breaking out of the ice cube only to land on more ice.
- The frying pan slap!
- The story of layers.
- Replacing DevFace with the podcast. Luckily the mention of DevFace didn’t involve any cursing of LiBiPl.net for our desecrations thereof.
- Black and White trivia:Alex did the audio engine,and at one point in development you could have a human Creature (but it just looked wrong).
- Sackboy used to hold the creation tools in his hands,and carve through materials and stuff.
- The feature-that-didn’t-make-it that we were the most interested in during development of LittleBIGPlanet:Creative zones! While playing,could use creative tools in certain spots,standing on magical create material. Hard to make it work,and Danny says he couldn’t think of enough good uses. Used the concept of collecting material throughout the level,which was mentioned in various demos. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that this would make a wonderful expansion or spin-off,although it would take a lot of work to balance and might have a more limited audience.
- Danny was born in 1984,and got into the top 3% of Killzone 2 multiplayer at one point.
- Ancient Frog. World of Goo.
- You can’t sell a BAFTA.