Anything you believe is unsuitable or inappropriate for the game should be reported immediately. By posting it here the only thing you’ll do is encourage more people to look for it and insodoing encourage more people to create levels that people will take offense at. Content such as [...]]]> First, some wise words from Sam Protagonist:

Anything you believe is unsuitable or inappropriate for the game should be reported immediately. By posting it here the only thing you’ll do is encourage more people to look for it and insodoing encourage more people to create levels that people will take offense at. Content such as this will be moderated when it’s reported, so make good use of the reporting tool.

Please stop using forums and comments to tell the world about offensive levels.  Just report them, and then deny the creator the attention they’re looking for.

Over on the EU PlayStation forums they’re taking a vote on whether to keep the already-created content when the Beta ends.  I have no preference myself, but a lot of people are quite bent out of shape about losing their work; I expect that we’ll be seeing the published levels retained.  To make it clear:

Please bear in mind that what we’re talking about here are levels that have been uploaded already, any save game data, offline creations or progress cannot be transferred into the full game.

So yes, we will have to go through the tutorials again, and you can’t keep any of those naughty levels that you’re afraid to publish.

MusterBuster also gives confirmation of the Beta end time: October 12th at 23:59 GMT.

Over here in the States, USA Today is giving away 15,000 Beta keys.  I personally don’t think this is a good idea.  If most Eurogamer and GameSpot readers don’t seem to be able to understand what a Beta is, what are the chances that USA Today‘s readership won’t be completely turned off by any flaws they encounter?

The article there has some nice quotes from familiar faces, but nothing too ground-breaking.

With the recent giveaways, it seems that just about all of the core fanbase is in the Beta now.  Are any of our US readers still out in the cold?  Due to entering most of the contests, we actually have a few extra, so just leave us a comment!

First of all, the LittleBigPlanet News Site is showing off the official boxart for the USA [thanks Brian!].  I can’t decide whether I like the UK packaging better or not.  I like the USA crowd better than just showing two Sackboys, but the use [...]]]> Lots to report, before anything starts coming in from PAX:

First of all, the LittleBigPlanet News Site is showing off the official boxart for the USA [thanks Brian!].  I can’t decide whether I like the UK packaging better or not.  I like the USA crowd better than just showing two Sackboys, but the use of the sticker art on the UK box is very appealing (and I love Sackboy holding the craft Earth).  One thing about the USA box, though:  It looks like it’d be easy to convert to a three-layer cardboard stand-up store display:  Just make the craft Earth with patches the back layer, the Sackboy crowd the middle layer, and naked peace Sackboy the front layer.  Frankly I’d be surprised not to see just that in my local GameStop in a few weeks.

System Seller and Emblematic Character

Mark Valledor, a “marketeer for LBP”, has told Advertising Age magazine that he wants Sackboy to become “the next emblematic character for the PS3″.  I’m sure this’ll depend on whether LBP is seen to really be a system seller or not.  (Link is to Eurogamer article in case you don’t have a subscription to Advertising Age)

Associate producer Eric Fong thinks LBP will sell PS3s as well, or at least that’s what he told Gamesindustry.biz.

Qore

Episode 4 should be dropping sometime at the beginning of September, and we’re eager to see if Veronica Belmont has retained her right big toe.

Japan

GameXtract has posted some scans of the latest LittleBigPlanet coverage in Japan’s Famitsu magazine.  Worth a look, even if you don’t 日本語を話す.  I notice they continue to call Sackboy “リビッツ”, is that the official name?

Australia

GameSpot Australia posted a new hands-on early this month.  There’s a pretty good description of the controls, as well as their impressions of the first couple of levels and some Create time.

GameSpot Australia’s Crosshairs episode 21 focuses on LittleBigPlanet heavily as well.  Starting about half-way through, they go into a lot of detail about their time with the game (and more than a few good words from Nick Robinson).  Not just a “look, it’s cool” preview, this is actually worth watching for any LBP fan.

Australian games site Gameplayer wonders whether LittleBigPlanet will show Microsoft the folly of their restrictive Xbox Live policies [warning: interesting read, but very crude graphic].

Gameplayer also has posted an extensive hands-on, calling it “a guide to building your own level.”

Scotland

WonderwallWeb’s hand-on preview from Edinburgh points out a neat level feature (that I haven’t seen much talk about):

When first playing through the levels they will seem very linear, with a beginning and an end, but with closer inspection you will notice sticker boards dotted around, if you have picked up the matching sticker from other levels you can use it to open new areas which may hold extra goodies to use in game or during customization.

Scotland’s Daily Record has a nice preview as well.

DarkZero’s hands-on preview from Edinburgh includes screenshots and details of their attempt at building a complex vehicle; definitely a must-read.

PS-cubed’s hands-on answers the oft-asked question “Is the Play part actually fun?”:

Given that these core platforming mechanics are the foundations upon which this entire experiment is built, it’s important that Media Molecule get at least this bit right, and happily they acquit themselves handsomely; the controls are simple and nicely weighted, the physics floaty yet consistent, and the gameplay and puzzle challenges enjoyably tricksy.

Norway

Another LittleBigPlanet voice actor revealed: Harald Eia!  [thanks BasketSnake!]

Denmark

GameStadium got a demo in Leipzig from Leo Cubbin and Jim Unwin, but only took a picture of Jim?  The interview unfortunately confirms that there aren’t many plans for pre-order goodies in Europe.  We can only hope that the same goodies will available some other way.

Benelux

PlayStation Only has posted a screenshot showing a number of LBP trophies.  It looks like there are at least seven for simply completing the story levels.

Forums

Goodbye sponge and fluff and aether, Sam says it’s officially “bubbles” now.

Curious about the music in the trailers?  AKIRA-UK is maintaining a very informative threat over on LBPCentral.

Elsewhere

TheSixthAxis tells us six cool things about LittleBigPlanet, with links to Sam’s posts on the forums where they got the info.

Gotgame’s preview of LittleBigPlanet gives us the phrase “comfort food platforming”.  And another article reminds us that console user-generated content isn’t restricted to LittleBigPlanet (or, indeed, the PS3).

Joystiq got in touch with both Canadian and American PR folks to confirm that LittleBigPlanet is definitely, completely, really, truly a Blu-Ray-only release.  I’m sure this changes nothing, and we’ll be hearing “I thought it was a downloadable game” well beyond the end of the year.

No real surprise, the readers of Scrawl have voted LittleBigPlanet their most anticipated game this year.

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a short article about user-generated content, which of course talks about LittleBigPlanet:

[GameTrailers editor-in-chief] Satterfield said a lot of eyes will be on LittleBigPlanet in particular to see how it performs. If it does anywhere near what people expect, he said, it’s likely other developers will follow suit.

GameSpy has a confusing positive/negative preview; I have to admit I’m not sure exactly what the author was shooting for, but I gather he’s looking forward to Playing more than Creating.

Newsweek’s Level Up’s N’Gai Croal caught up with Mark Healey to talk about receiving the Game Critics Awards for Best Console Game and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game.

PlayStation Disorder has a long page of Leipzig coverage, calling LittleBigPlanet “one of the best casual games I have seen so far.”

PlayStation Direct, however, is concerned that the hype will give way to criticism, and suggests lots of DLC.

IGN gives us a list of 10 Sackboy costumes they’d like to see. [thanks Capn P!]

Over on Flickr, Pavel Hruboš gives us a glimpse of the moderation reporting screen.

Then PS3Fanboy expressed their concern, as they had heard something different.  And the internet continued to explode in rage and confusion and speculation.

Now our good friend Sam Protagonist (Hi Sam!) has [...]]]> First there was a blurb on CVG that user-generated levels in LittleBigPlanet would be segregated by region.  And the internet exploded in rage.

Then PS3Fanboy expressed their concern, as they had heard something different.  And the internet continued to explode in rage and confusion and speculation.

Now our good friend Sam Protagonist (Hi Sam!) has stepped forward to let us know what is hopefully the final word on the subject.  I hope he doesn’t mind us reproducing his post here:

Hi all, as many of you may have heard already in an interview at Leipzig the senior producer for LittleBigPlanet announced that the game is region locked. This is in fact not the case, and all shared levels in the game will be available worldwide. The confusion arose out of regional differences in how moderation will work as there are different legal rules each region have to play by, and at one point this looked like it may require the game to be independent in each region – however this has been worked around and there will only be one region for the game…. a LittleBigRegion.

Apologies for any confusion over this issue, however I’m pretty sure you’re happy with the result.

This does bring up some interesting questions, however.  How does a global moderation system actually work?  Since consumers in different regions are sensitive to different things (e.g. the cliché of Americans fearing nudity and Europeans fearing violence), how do you manage a global server?  I doubt we’ll ever get full transparency into the inner workings, since most good moderation systems avoid letting users know enough to trick the system, but I am curious to know whether it’ll be a lowest-common-denominator system (anything offensive to anyone is blocked) or have individual flags for regions (so the “They Saved Hitler’s Brain” level is okay in NA but blocked in EU, and “Topless Trampolines” is okay in EU but blocked in NA).

Where to Play

In case you haven’t noticed, I added a “Where to Play” page.  I’ll be updating this often as I get more info.  I just added the All Points West festival, where VIP tickets get you “Access to the LittleBigPlanet tent [...]]]> Lots of stuff piling up, so here goes…

Where to Play

In case you haven’t noticed, I added a “Where to Play” page.  I’ll be updating this often as I get more info.  I just added the All Points West festival, where VIP tickets get you “Access to the LittleBigPlanet tent to be the first to play the hottest unreleased game for PLAYSTATION®3 and see exclusive performances”.

Competing Strategy Guides?

Over at GameStop, we see that Penguin Putnam Books will apparently be releasing the Little Big Planet[sic] Official Strategy Guide on October 14th.

But at Amazon, we have BradyGames publishing the LittleBigPlanet Signature Series Guide on October 29th.  (Thanks to Oxoc for pointing this out!)

I’m not a big strategy guide consumer usually, but I wonder what these books will bring to the table.  If they can help me get past the Hard version of that castle climbing level, they’ll be worth their weight in gold.

More Awards

In the GameTrailers Best of E3 2008 Awards, LittleBigPlanet was nominated for Best Online Game (Resistance 2 won), Best PlayStation 3 Game (Resident Evil 5 won), and Best of Show (LPB?) (Resident Evil 5 won).  And of course, LittleBigPlanet won Most Innovative Game.  The GameTrailerians may be addicted to shooting aliens and zombies, but at least Sackboy gets some recognition.

This year LittleBigPlanet is nominated for the most Game Critics Awards of any game (Best Original Game, Best Console Game, Best Social/Casual Game, Best Online Multiplayer Game, and Best of Show).  We’ll know the winners on Tuesday.

LittleBigPlanet also wins the VideoGamer.com E308 award of genius innovation.

GamePro gives LittleBigPlanet a silver medal in their Best of E3 Awards, but still seems to think there’ll be a downloadable version.  Sony needs to set the record straight.

In an effort to split from the pack and stir up some controversy (and pageviews), DailyGame.net opted to designate LittleBigPlanet as one of its “Most Disappointing Games of E3 2008″.  They take up the “professional game developers are paid for a reason” approach, and disagree with every other E3 attendee by declaring the gameplay not fun.  As a reference point, Resident Evil 5 was on the list too.

Comic-Con

It’s hard to keep track of the Comic-Con videos, so here’s a few links:  Popping Sackboys and the sticker challenge (3:15), Electric spikes and brainy enemies and the giant wheel (4:01), Dressing up (0:09), Controlling your emotions and arms (1:07), Humpty dumpty and the waterwheel (2:43), and Too far away (0:15).  Are there any others?

LBPCentral FTW

The LBPCentral fansite‘s been around longer than LiBiPl.net, but did get rather quiet for a while.  With LittleBigFan gone, and with the help of some great Comic-Con coverage, it’s now become a very active hub of LittleBigPlanet fandom again.  They’re even interviewing Media Molecule with questions from the forum users.

News from Sony’s Australian “Pause” Event

GamePlayer caused quite a stir in reporting that better levels designers will get more storage space:

If their scheme works, users who upload the most popular levels will be rewarded with more space. It’s common sense, really — when lurking on YouTube, do you look for the videos with five stars, or with one?

On the other hand, if you wanted to play Devil’s Advocate, you could accuse Sony of some subtle social engineering here. After all, server space is so cheap these days that it’s effectively free. Just think of GMail, and Flikr[sic], and all those sites that let you upload files that are hundreds of megabytes in size — for free.

I have to argue with the “server space is so cheap” part, considering that Sony will most likely have to coordinate multiple regional level databases, synchronization, redundancy, etc.  Gmail is ad-supported, Flickr is a subscription service (if you intend to upload a lot); do we want LittleBigPlanet to be either of these?

If this sort of more-space-for-the-popular scheme is put into place, I can only hope that everyone will have enough space to have a chance to become popular.  And that anyone who is popular for all the wrong reasons (offensive content, bait-and-switch descriptions, etc) will have their extra space revoked.

IGN Australia gives us some more detail on the creation tools:

Objects themselves are comprised of a good number of what the game calls “basic materials”. These include all the raw elements that comprise the single-player game, specifically: cardboard, metal, sponge, stone, wood, glass, rubber and the immovable and gravity-free dark matter. These, as well as more than 2000 other objects, are selectable through the Popit menu’s Tools option. You can flick between vertically scrolling screens filled with a huge variety of these level-making essentials. All have their own real-world physical properties — something you’ve no doubt heard and seen in action in video form. Thankfully, it’s just as much fun to toy around with the physics as you’d imagine.

The whole article’s worth a read for us aspiring level designers.

The Age’s Screen Play blog has quite a comprehensive article, with lots of old and new info:

There are also a few more fantastical but easily understandable additions like “bubble” material that floats, and “dissolvable” material which is great for attaching to proximity-based triggers or physical switches to activate exciting events such as prizes falling from the sky.

A thermometer style gauge on the side of the screen acts as a simple gauge representing each level’s memory restriction.

Levels can be almost as wide as you like and infinitely high, but there obviously needs to be a limit on the amount of elements in each stage to keep file sizes reasonable for uploading and sharing online. Adding hundreds of objects seemed to have little impact on the gauge, but items like music made it jump appreciably.

He says Sony is extremely unlikely to ever charge for additional levels because of the huge amount of free levels that will be available (some of which will be created by Media Molecule as both “official” and “unofficial” creations.

But of course the game has plenty of scope for other downloadable content allowing Sony to extract more money from players and to drastically change the experience. Things like gravity changes allowing space-themed levels and weapons or tools for Sackboy to have deeper interaction with his environment immediately spring to mind.

“One of the things that Media Molecule are very keen on is seeing what the community
wants,” says Nick.

Media Molecule‘s very own Alex Evans made a guest appearance on 1UP’s epic end-of-E3 podcast.  Alex joins the poolside group around 46 minutes in, and we get [...]]]> [Note: The 1UP Yours podcast is rated R, or M, or 18+, or whatever.  Especially this one.  So don't go listening if you shouldn't.]  [Also note: Possible spoilers.]

Media Molecule‘s very own Alex Evans made a guest appearance on 1UP’s epic end-of-E3 podcast.  Alex joins the poolside group around 46 minutes in, and we get to hear a few interesting things:

• 1UP’s Garnett Lee calls LittleBigPlanet his E3 Game of Show.
• A Sony internal Beta test is ongoing; at E3 the press was able to play some of the levels created in the Beta.
• Social networking features to help select from the thousands of levels; you can favourite other players, etc.
• The new trailer with the romance story: video maker in Liverpool made the level as well.
• Built-in levels relatively easy compared to the brutal platforming being churned out by testers.
• “Lowrider” level has a companion level “Drag Racers”
• When you attach a “brain” to an enemy it takes control of the limbs..
• A big multi-stage transforming boss made of 120 switches was in the version of the game shown at E3, but no one thought to ask, so no one got to play it.
• Victor, a 19-year-old Swede who works for Media Molecule, built the big boss.
• Vehicle may break, and still continue to run as a broken vehicle would.
• Someone else at the table asked the question which vexes me: “How the h*** do you QA this game?”
• Although an Ueda-san-designed level would be amazing, Alex “can’t possibly comment” on the possibility of one actually being in the game.
• The company doing the new Rag Doll Kung Fu game have captured the style, and upgraded it to HD.
• During the Paris GDC keynote, Mark and Alex showed footage of a chaotic eight-player romp through the English Garden level.
• Media Molecule’s approach to these trade shows?  “We show everything we coded yesterday”
• SHANE: LittleBigPlanet II or content packs?  ALEX: Both.  I hope both.
• If someone stays in a level, that instance stays open as others join and leave.
• Alex wants to create a Resident Evil level after the game ships, and coins the term “triple-M” as the rating.  Apparently both Kareem and Alex have a dark side.
• There’s a lot to do with music and sound: remix and tweak the 8-track music, sound effects speakers that can be glued anywhere (and made invisible), sounds triggered in various ways.
• Kenny and Matt do the sound; they’re awesome.
• Francis did the modelling and animation of Sackboy.
• Garnett thinks the Media Molecule folks don’t sleep.
• Alex says that after release, “We need to crank on the downloadable content.  We’re never going to have a holiday, because of this game.”
• Apparently Miyamoto saw LBP on the E3 show floor and was impressed.
• At some point, Media Molecule did actually talk to Nintendo about LittleBigPlanet.
• There’s a bank vault that has to be blown up, on “Uncle Jalapeño’s level”.

Alex leaves the podcast at around an hour and seven minutes in, but there’s more of interest at the very end:  Stephen Totilo, N’Gai Croal, and Shane Bettenhausen all join Garnett in declaring LittleBigPlanet their E3 Game of the Show.

So, for example, what we’re trying to do with LittleBigPlanet is almost iTunes meets eBay in the sense that once an individual or a developer has qualified by producing certain levels or certain add-ons, they will then [...]]]> David Reeves, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said some interesting things in a recent interview with playstation.com:

So, for example, what we’re trying to do with LittleBigPlanet is almost iTunes meets eBay in the sense that once an individual or a developer has qualified by producing certain levels or certain add-ons, they will then be able in the future to exchange these and make money out of them. Eventually, it’s feasible that you might well see the first LittleBigPlanet millionaire!

Even if you charge less than one euro, it doesn’t take many downloads if you’ve got a really strong LittleBigPlanet level for people to be able to make money. It’s a great way for people to show others what they can do.

Some of the community is obviously very concerned about things like this, having assumed that user-created levels would always be exchanged for free.  I can see both sides of it, but it would complicate things quite a bit.

Once a user-generated level has monetary value, then “you copied my level!” becomes something lawsuit-worthy.  Same with moderation of levels due to complaints; if I’m making money selling my level, then someone finds it offensive and has it removed, they’ve disrupted my revenue stream.  The moderation system itself could become a competitive tool, if I can keep getting all levels similar to mine removed.  Copyright infringement, although already a concern with free content, becomes a bit more serious if there’s money being made.

I’m betting that Sony will find the eBay model untenable.  It is possible however, that players who make really good levels might be contacted by Mm/Sony with a “Do you want to make a level to have us sell?” message; if the player-created levels they put up for paid DLC are of a consistently high quality, I could certainly see an iTunes-style approach working.  The main concern would be a potential community revolt, when the best creators stop putting out stuff for free.

Keeping in mind that Mr. Reeves said “what we’re trying to do” (and therefore I assume none of this is settled yet), what do you guys think?

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

Best quote:

VERONICA BELMONT: I’ve been sucked into the whole LittleBigPlanet phenomenon. I would pretty much give my right big toe to try it out at this point.

Other things of interest:

Then Kotaku, with a mildly NSFW title and graphic, reports on the planned moderation for user-created levels:

Folks from Media Molecule told me at a recent event that LittleBigPlanet has a pretty robust [...]]]> First, the preview deluge continues, with 1UP’s Garnett Lee and Kotaku’s Brian Crecente each trying to prove that they love LittleBigPlanet more.

Then Kotaku, with a mildly NSFW title and graphic, reports on the planned moderation for user-created levels:

Folks from Media Molecule told me at a recent event that LittleBigPlanet has a pretty robust tool built into it for reporting problems. The reporting tool allows gamers to stop the action instantly, take a snapshot of a scene and send in the picture with a report of what they see that’s wrong. The report is filled out by selecting from a number of fields. The form lets you report just about anything, be it copyright infringement, pornography, illegal activities or, shudder, copyrighted pornography.

Media Molecule’s blog delights us with a behind-the-scenes look at the results of Alpha-quality facial animation code, filed under Sackboy Chews.

PSU makes kikanny’s LBP theme their Theme of the Week.

And finally, someone known as RACTOD has posted a music video for Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” using LittleBigPlanet trailer footage. Reminds me of the hours of fun putting together my “Paper Moon” video. This pinnacle of the craft, however, remains GrimReaperO’s “Sackboy’s Song”; which appears to be lost to the mists of time. If anyone has a working link to the “Sackboy’s Song” video, please share it in the comments.