The LittleBigPlanet pre-release Saga

[Arwin]

the way LBP is now, the experience is pigeonholed into side-scrolling gameplay. this will have some serious impact on long term motivation. there are only so many things you can do with side-scrolling gameplay and the industry started with side-scrolling games 30 years ago!

Maybe, but don't forget that LBP has a lot of features not supported by most other side-scrolling games ... (It also doesn't support everything every side-scrolling game has ever supported, mind you). Also, very few side-scrollers supported up to four players, on or offline, realtime physics, etc. ...

And very important, the combination of the "rapid development tools" and the probably tens of thousands of people who will be building stuff for this game, the ease of working together whereever you are in the world, the openness of the community, and the expansibility (MM will be adding a lot of stuff over the next year I'm sure), makes this really something that's more than just a 'build your own super mario bros 1 clone'.

i think LBP will have a very strong but short pike of success. you just don't have enough options to support new ideas and gameplay over the course of months or even years!

I don't think you've given the available options or even available online levels nearly enough time to make this judgment!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

don't get me wrong! LBP is fun and still could evolve into a system seller. but i really hoped this could be a "blizzard style sandbox" for consoles. you know like the map-editors in starcraft and warcraft 3...

the way LBP is now, the experience is pigeonholed into side-scrolling gameplay...

1) Have you not seen the Tetris level? LBP is way more capable than what's been shown. At the moment it's lack of imagination that's creating side-scroller after side-scroller.

2) How much flexibilty was there in the Blizzard editors? What game genres did they break out into, and how much variety was there?

 

[h0munkulus]

[...]

I don't think you've given the available options or even available online levels nearly enough time to make this judgment!

certainly true. it's more a gut feeling then a fact based opinion!

another thing that adds to this feeling is the lack of competitive play options. having great, never before seen levels is one thing. enjoying them over multiple playthroughs another!

i miss a tournament mode. where you can chain 4 or 8 levels together and whoever performs best wins...

 

[goonergaz]

This is great, you see someone thinks they're limited to certain things then someone else says you're not.

It's all about this sort of basic feedback which will expand over time, people feeding off each other - simple comments or ideas will spark other ideas in other people.

An example would be the Lemmings comment - brilliant - then I thought how about a level with a ball a bit like marble madness where you'd have to guide a ball through a level? See, one idea sparked off another.

A question for the jammy beta testers...could you have an object (say a ball) be empty (or have something inside - I guess it doesn't matter) - and when you make contact with the ball it might turn into something else? Did that make sense? I'm thinking of hiding the orbs (or whatever they are) inside random things - a bit like in Mario where some blocks contain coins (and even as I type yet another idea comes to mind!)

 

[patsu]

certainly true. it's more a gut feeling then a fact based opinion!

another thing that adds to this feeling is the lack of competitive play options. having great, never before seen levels is one thing. enjoying them over multiple playthroughs another!

i miss a tournament mode. where you can chain 4 or 8 levels together and whoever performs best wins...

What do you mean by competitive play options ? Your scores are tallied for every level. So you can indeed compare them with active players. It's also time shifted in the sense that your friends' scores will be reported to you on the fly. You may also compete by the number of lives (Some levels end once you died too many times).

As for tournament mode, as long as you form a party. All of you run through the levels together. So you should be able to know who won by tallying the number of times who won (That's what I did with a stranger last night). No prizes are given though.

As for other advanced features you requested, there are supposed to be "brains" for you to incorporate simple logic. Scripting and such will probably have to wait until enough people request for them (and creators outgrow the current editor).

EDIT: Gah.. no one answered my "follower" questions. Have to try it out myself someday.

 

[wco81]

Lode Runner would be awesome.

Yeah LBP2 should be fully 3D, like a Mario64 world, instead of basically a sidescroller.

 

[wco81]

My idea of competitive play would be a race, either to finish the levels first or to get items before the other team does. Or you may have areas where after one team reaches it, the other team can no longer go through, maybe shortcuts or wormholes which are good only for one person/team and you activate it by solving some puzzle or performing some tasks (getting x number of items or scoring a certain number of points on an acrobatic stunt) before the other team.

Certainly the racing through the levels can be more of a contest against the clock and you measure your performance against others in a leaderboard. That is, you don't have to race against other teams at the same time. But it's more exciting to have a competitive foil which you can see right there.

In some racing games, you can race a ghost of the best times. But it's not the same as actually racing the other competitors contemporaneously.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A question for the jammy beta testers...could you have an object (say a ball) be empty (or have something inside - I guess it doesn't matter) - and when you make contact with the ball it might turn into something else? Did that make sense? I'm thinking of hiding the orbs (or whatever they are) inside random things - a bit like in Mario where some blocks contain coins (and even as I type yet another idea comes to mind!)

You can destroy an object and replace it with a different one. There's a video of a genie lifting up and putting down a box, and each time he lifts it there's a different object underneath. I don't know that there's a 'randomize' device, but you could build an off-screen mechnical randomizer that alternates around switches.

 

[patsu]

I think they made the right choice though. Starting with the current presentation allows them to focus the player experiences. In a full 3D world, you'd have your co-op players going in all different directions (already happening even in a large LBP level). The camera will zoom out to accommodate all the players and you'll need to arbitrate which way to go. Plus you'll need to design a lot of stuff to fill a 3D world. Here, you "only" need to fill a few paths, thus guaranteeing a richer experience.

As Shifty mentioned, you are truly only limited by your imagination. The current sub-3D design is meant to channel your energy, you can certainly have other game types (e.g., puzzles, musical, etc.). The current limitation is the toolset but we know MM will evolve them anyway.

Right now they should just focus on fixing the "collapsing level" problem deepbrown encountered. It's a showstopper for many people. It's also one of the main reasons why I am not starting one right away.

 

[patsu]

My idea of competitive play would be a race, either to finish the levels first or to get items before the other team does.

Yes, you can already race in LBP. You get more points for being faster. You can also place loot at the end so that the first guy gets them.

Or you may have areas where after one team reaches it, the other team can no longer go through, maybe shortcuts or wormholes which are good only for one person/team and you activate it by solving some puzzle or performing some tasks (getting x number of items or scoring a certain number of points on an acrobatic stunt) before the other team.

Great ideas ! All these are possible already in the current version. The only thing not quite possible is teleporting to a new stage ahead of you. The creators solve that by launching the player to a different place via a catapult. But Heist 2 solved it in its own way that I find interesting. Basically, you pass through a spawn point (thus triggering it), and then the game launches the spawn point (instead of the player) far ahead of you to a pre-calculated position. This happens in the background (so some may not realize it). Next time you die, you actually teleport ahead.

Certainly the racing through the levels can be more of a contest against the clock and you measure your performance against others in a leaderboard. That is, you don't have to race against other teams at the same time. But it's more exciting to have a competitive foil which you can see right there.

In some racing games, you can race a ghost of the best times. But it's not the same as actually racing the other competitors contemporaneously.

Yes, I believe there is time measurements too (should the creator choose to use it). The less time you spent, the more points you get. But I haven't encountered a level that has a time limit yet.

 

[goonergaz]

Thanks for the reply shifty - that's just what I was hoping for!

patsu is spot on...2D now makes a lot of sense, people will already feel overwhelmed let alone giving them true 3d! I's also say if they go 3d you'd have to have splitscreen which could itself cause many issues.

Another Q...can you have an object that will disappear after a number of hits? e.g. a wall that might break after touching it 4 times rather than once.

 

[patsu]

There is another Game 3.0 application that has a full 3D virtual world and user-generated content (including talks of LUA-based user scripts). But it's late and being evolved. ;-)

In the future, I'd love it if MM experiment with the LBP camera (e.g., make it follow the owner only so that people can build their stuff secretly to compete in an arena/battlefield, kinda like StarCraft)

 

[wco81]

Why in a multiplayer online game wouldn't you have individual cameras for each player?

Either the world is 3D or it isn't.

NHL lets up to 12 players play 6 vs. 6 hockey (or it may be 5 vs. 5). Each have a unique camera. I think FIFA will do something similar with 10 vs. 10 games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think one of the key joys to LBP is the 4 player coop. Their starting position is nigh-on perfect. Additions would be nice once people have grown accustomed to the nature of the game, but at the moment focussing on that shared gameplay is all important IMO.

 

[patsu]

Why in a multiplayer online game wouldn't you have individual cameras for each player?

May be because they want us to stick together to build stuff.

I am usually one of those who wander away (even in an R2 co-op game) to play alone. I will be a bad MAG player.

I think one of the key jous to LBP is the 4 player coop.

For me, yes ! Even though I am a lone wolf in-game. I am contradicting myself isn't it ? A lone-wolf style player liking a 4P co-op LBP game and prefers to stick together ?
It happens ^_^ (MM, fix the lag !)

 

[cthellis42]

Someone's going to try their hand at an IWBTG translation, I know it! And it will be stupefying!

 

[patsu]

Wired has its Top 10 User-created Levels: http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/multimedia/2008/09/gallery_littlebigplanet_levels

 

[Arwin]

I was having some fun interior designing with this game. It's amazing how quickly you can get results compared to some software that's actually designed to do this kind of stuff. This was done really quick. There are going to be some amazing designs out there once the game has been released for a while! I manipulated the lighting with the candles, which are the only really good lights we have available in the beta right now. I actually have two giant candles on both sides off-screen to make the overall lighting look nice. I also put a glass plate behind the fire of the stove, but that's not visible right now probably due to my camera or the angle, but it looks rather nice. This is the result of 45 minutes of fooling around. The game is awesome. I think I'll never want to do anything else in my life than design stuff in this game ...

The idea I'm having for walking through a larger house is that you can walk through the door to the right and then end up in a new room, for instance, the living room, etc. Then some stairs and to the first floor, for instance. Well, I'll probably never finish something proper due to lack of time but anyway, maybe working in a team would be good eventually. And if I get really skilled, I could see me making stuff at an incredible pace too.

EDIT: looks like I'm not the only one. Check this out, it's beautiful!

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13048625&postcount=3512

 

[patsu]

I am toying with some classical gameplay in the Nausicaa world.

e.g., Herding Ohmus to safety by guiding a wounded baby Ohmu away from civilization and acid lakes
Ohmu. Somewhat like a Lemmings game.

* http://mehve.net/media/caps/movie/images/nausicaa_0147.jpg
* http://mehve.net/media/caps/movie/images/nausicaa_0127.jpg

e.g., Some sort of shooting game using Ohma (vs the Crypt and other waring machineries in the same manga)

Ohma the God Warrior
* http://thoughts-journal.blogspot.com/2007/03/tragic-characters.html
More here: http://www.utdallas.edu/research/spacesciences/hairston/nausicaa_end.html

The same characters can be reused by other Nausicaa fans for other games

 

[tirminyl]

Finally I get to join and enjoy all that is LBP Wired's top 10 will certainly come in use once I finish this download.