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PlayStation Move compatible with PS4, Media Molecule shows
During today's PlayStation Event in NYC, Media Molecule's Alex Evans revealed the studio has married the PlayStation Move controller with the PS Move, Sony's motion peripheral originally designed for the PS3. The Move was demonstrated as a sculpting tool with the PS4, among other things.Really, the entire demo was an artistic suite, showing the Move being used as a paint brush and to control two dancing avatars. The sequence eventually culminated in a full rock show where players used Move to control individual instruments. While not Media Molecule's next game, per se, the demo was designed to showcase the creative power of the PS4.
LittleBigPlanet 2 delayed to avoid launch-day patches, Evans says
Media Molecule delayed LittleBigPlanet 2 until next year because the developer did not want the game to be dependent on launch-day patches. Speaking with VG247, MM head Alex Evans explained the team wanted the retail disc to "perfect" and something the company could be "proud of," ensuring that folks who didn't have a PS3 connected to the internet would still receive the "full experience" without patches. "We could have shipped it and it would have been fine," Evans told the site. "However we realized that with just a couple of extra weeks we could make the game super amazing, adding the super onto the already amazing which exists today. This is something that will live forever and the delay, people will forget about." Strangely, at no point in the interview did Evans say, "Oh yes, and one more thing, the real reason we delayed LBP2 was to spite that Griffin McElroy. Muahahahahahahaha!" Seriously, poor guy hasn't stopped rocking in the corner, wracked with denial, since the delay was announced last month.
Media Molecule toyed with full 3D level design in first LittleBigPlanet
The original LittleBigPlanet was billed as a platform for platformers -- but what about those gamers whose favorite entries into that particular genre include Kazooies, Ratchets and Bandicoots? Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans recently revealed to Joystiq at Gamescom that an early build of the original LittleBigPlanet allowed for that kind of 3D gameplay, explaining, "LBP 1 had free depth and completely moving cameras, and the gameplay engine wasn't layered fundamentally." Evans added that while the developer "used to make levels that could travel into the screen," this feature was ultimately removed from the game. "It's really unconstrained in 3D. It's really hard -- I mean creatively unconstrained, it's really difficult to have something to push off," Evans explained. "We found our level designers wasted tons of time in 3D land, so we iteratively reduced it, first of all we reduced the scope, then we added the layers, and with each restriction we did, it improved the quality." According to Evans, the lack of 3D platforming wasn't due to a technical snafu, but rather, "entirely a game design decision." He added, "so when we go 3D, and I'm assuming at some point we will go 3D, the challenge we will have, and any other user-generated content company -- you know, I want to be one-upped, I'd love to see a fully-3D creation game. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying we haven't cracked it yet." Keep an eye out for our full interview with Evans in the coming days.
Media Molecule reveals LittleBigPlanet 2's more-than-just-music sequencer
The demo of LittleBigPlanet 2 that was shown at Cologne's Gamescom this week was similar to the build shown off to great effect at E3 a few months ago. But there was one significant level-editing feature that was being demonstrated for the first time here: a music sequencer that's also quite a bit more. LittleBigPlanet 2 Technical Director Alex Evans demonstrated the sequencer, which lets you arrange notes on a four-measure grid with the beat at the bottom and multiple octaves of notes running vertically. You choose from a selection of instrument samples including a honky tonk piano, acoustic guitar, drum kit, beatbox, and roughly 30 more that were shown in the demo (more are expected for the final game, Evans said). Notes can be built into samples, which can then be repeated and mixed further via a larger timeline object in the level creation screen.
Alex Evans answers 10 Questions from the Academy
Introducing 10 Questions from the Academy: A weekly feature from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences wherein significant figures in the video game industry provide their input on past trends, current events, and future challenges and goals for the entertainment software community. Alex Evans is a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and spoke at the D.I.C.E. Summit in 2009. He's worked for Lionhead Studios, co-developed Rag Doll Kung-Fu independently, and co-founded Media Molecule, developers behind the award-winning LittleBigPlanet. AIAS: How do you measure success? Alex Evans: The number of hand written fan letters from 4 year olds showcasing scribbly artwork they've re-imagined from your game. What's your favorite part of game development? Top'n'tail – the really fertile bit at the beginning, just messing around; and the final, final, tunnel of light where you actually ship the damn thing. The middle bit itself has phases: wherein you lost site of your initial good idea; realise what you've made sucks in several significant ways; rebuild it (several times); lose sight once more of the original idea; (hopefully) eventually recapture something of the original seed, by now actually usable; and finally enter the glorious 'tunnel of light' towards the end. All of these middle phases effectively only happen because of many, many hours of grind – or 'turning the handle' as my old math professor used to call it.
Alex Evans wants LittleBigPlanet 2 with backwards compatible levels
Media Molecule's Alex Evans told GamesIndustry.biz recently that he would "love there to be a sequel" to LittleBigPlanet. "If you look at online distribution for LBP, when the sequel comes along, what do we do with all that content? We can give [consumers] backwards compatibility with those levels." It looks like Evans sees a sequel as inevitable, though he's keen to say that currently everyone at Mm is still working on LBP. Evans also mentions that a demo for LittleBigPlanet will be released soon, allowing people who still haven't picked it up a chance to try it out. It's unclear whether any of the almost 2 million user generated levels will be playable in the demo, but it should "capture [the game's] essence." More additions to the game are also on the way, such as one that was originally planned for the game, but axed along the way -- sharing objects in a similar way to sharing levels. More features -- "changing the tools themselves, and changing how you share -- are coming."
LBP co-creator to speak at D.I.C.E. Summit
Media Molecule's über-charming LittleBigPlanet racked up a ton of nominations in the Academy of Arts and Sciences' Interactive Achievement Awards, so it's only appropriate that one of the major minds behind the D.I.Y. title makes an appearance at the D.I.C.E. Summit, where the awards will be ... awarded. Said mind is firmly housed within the skull of Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans, who will be delivering a speech at the event, which will take place in Las Vegas from Feb. 17 to Feb. 20.Evans' brain joins a number of other brains belonging to notable gaming industry movers and shakers, including EA CEO John Riccitiello, Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi and Valve's head honcho, Gabe Newell, who will deliver the keynote. We'd certainly like to see Evans bust out another entertaining LittleBigPowerpointPresentation, but we're not holding out hope. The D.I.C.E. Summit is serious business.
LittleBigPlanet beta levels will remain in the finished product
Speaking to 1UP, Alex Evans of Media Molecule apparently confirmed that the many user-generated levels from the LittleBigPlanet will remain in the final game. Earlier today, we told you about a poll that Media Molecule was running to decide whether or not those levels should stay. The voting will continue, but simply to gauge the reactions of the community -- though with 82% currently in favor of preserving the creations, it looks like Media Molecule made the right choice. So if you are in the beta now with an especially exotic creation, you can relax and you don't have to worry about losing your work.[Via Joystiq]
LittleBigPlanet beta levels will be transferred to final game
People's opinions in polls be darned, Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans has apparently confirmed to 1UP that the user-created levels from the LittleBigPlanet beta will be transferred to the final game. Evans tells the site that they'll continue running the poll on the Official PlayStation Forums to gauge people's reactions to the news, but it appears this is now a done deal.The LBP beta ends this Sunday, the game will be out beginning the week of October 21st.[Thank Erick M.]
LittleBigPlanet dev wants user-created content that make the game unrecognizable
In an interview on Edge, Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans talks about his thoughts as LittleBigPlanet is about to be shipped. He expressed his desire to see something radical out of the user-created content. Specifically, he wants to see more than just stickers. Not that there's anything wrong with stickers, mind you, but the man wants the game to become unrecognizable. "Stickers are fine, and they will be there, of course, but I want to shock myself. I want to be at GDC next year when someone does a LittleBigPlanet reveal and no one knows it's LittleBigPlanet."That sounds intriguing -- maybe we'll start seeing LBP content that's not remotely cute, perhaps even disturbing, in the future. Evans also talks about the effects of implementing the live level-editing feature and in-game logic-embed objects, so head over to Edge if you want to read the entire interview.
LittleBigPlanet features Facebook-esque tagging system
LittleBigPlanet has taken inspiration from a number of web sites, one of them being popular social networking site Facebook. In the LBP world, players will be able to network with others as they develop a persistent online persona. Players will be able to take pictures within the game, and those pictures will end up featured in the user's feed. "You'll have feeds of photos of you - levels that you've been in, photos people have taken of you," Alex Evans told GI.biz. "Then we take it even further, like Facebook. In any photos we know what kind of Sackboys were in it, who they were logged in as, so we put a box around their face which you can click and go and see that person. So if there's a cool level with a guy wearing an awesome costume, you just D-pad up to him and hit X, and now you can see his levels, his favorites."This kind of interactivity should be familiar for the millions of users of Facebook. Perhaps the blokes at Media Molecule are attempting to do to videogames what Facebook did for the web -- considering the success of the latter, that bodes well for LBP.
LittleBigPlanet fills up Blu-ray disc
Anybody who thought that the PSN-friendly nature of LittleBigPlanet meant the game could be offered as a downloadable title will probably dash that dream when they find out the game takes up 40GB. In an interview with GI.biz, developer Alex Evans explains the game will be "filling up" the Blu-ray disc.Evans explains there's a lot of tutorial content in LittleBigPlanet, narrated by Stephen Fry for English audiences. As we've learned in the past from Heavenly Sword and Ratchet, it's the (uncompressed and/or multi-region) audio that takes up a significant amount of space on the Blu-ray. Evans expresses that thanks to the Blu-ray, file size hasn't been a concern. This loose attitude to size for the disc's contents will not be applied to the player-designed content, however, which Evans says is "relatively compact."
LittleBigPlanet takes a big amount of space: up to 40GB on Blu-ray
Although Sony never introduced it as such, many assumed the Network-friendly LittleBigPlanet would be a downloadable game. That notion is impossible, it appears, as a new interview with GI.biz reveals otherwise. Media Molecule's Alex Evans says that "a dual layer is 40GB, but we're filling up the Blu-ray. One of the things on there is we're having a lot of tutorial content - basically there are two paths through the game, the player's route and the creator's route."The tutorial content will be extensive in LittleBigPlanet. "We're filling the Blu-ray up with is tutorials, and a lot of video stuff showing exactly how it's done, it's narrated by Stephen Fry and so on. It's really useful that thanks to Blu-ray we haven't needed to worry about file size, it's never crossed my mind." However, this doesn't mean the game will be bloated when sharing levels and creations on the web: "The game itself and the levels you produce are relatively compact."
Media Molecule teases new LittleBigPlanet reveal
The place: Game Developer's Conference, San Francisco. The date: March 2007. LittleBigPlanet was revealed to the world, some nineteen months before its eventual October 2008 release date. We'll be honest: we count ourselves among that group of people that Media Molecule developer Alex Evans says "didn't see it coming." Sony's knockout PS3 exclusive still excites us, and Evans, remembering that initial reveal, tells Eurogamer, "I want to do another LittleBigPlanet reveal that people don't see coming." Oh, you tease! Give us something!Evans elaborated, "It's still LittleBigPlanet, but people will be saying, 'I thought it was this - now you're telling me it's this as well?!'" So, we thought LBP was this – namely, an uncommonly creative console game with an unprecedented level of user-generated functionality – but Evans wants to tell us it's something else as well? A time machine perhaps? The alchemical secret to transmutating lead into gold? LittleBigPlanet PSP? What?%Gallery-1943%
LittleBigPlanet team talks about Phil Harrison's 'influence'
Phil Harrison will be missed. His groundbreaking "Game 3.0" keynote at GDC showed Sony's exciting and innovative ways forward in the online community. After accusing Sony Japan of not being forward-thinking regarding the online sector, he left Sony and joined Atari.Harrison's message wasn't simply the creation of marketing folk, however. He genuinely believed in online communities, and without his support, LittleBigPlanet wouldn't be the game it is today. According to Alex Evans, one of the co-founders of Media Molecule, "[Phil's] influence on the game early on ... was hugely useful to have." The development team was focused on the gameplay, but it was Harrison that talked about the online potential LittleBigPlanet had. "He was very instrumental in telling us to think about what it would mean to have user-generated content - to think about what that means for the community."
Media Molecule co-founders talk about LittleBigPlanet at GDC Paris
Alex Evans and Mark Healey, co-founders of Media Molecule, revealed some information on the development of LittleBigPlanet and how the idea came to fruition at a keynote at the Game Developers Conference in Paris. Healey remarks on how he doesn't believe one needs a team of 200 or more people to make a "great, fresh and successful" game, naming Brain Age for the DS as such an example. Profits from games, Healey believes, will be increased by adopting a model of "user-generated content and a willingness to release early and often, combined with people accepting change, accepting patches." Server access to LPB was also revealed to be free and it was even hinted that gamers can potentially sell self-generated content. Later, Evans sat down for an interview with Gamesindustry.biz and said influences on LBP were drawn from "this interesting timeline of user-generated content" such as the God game genre and games like Shoot-'em-up Construction Kit. Evans was "amazed" that people in the industry resonated with their idea of "creative gaming", commenting that Media Molecule had a "much more open and transparent process with the publisher (Sony)" and this was for them, "defining features of the development process." Currently, the LBP team at the stage of "improving the quality and the polish" and promoting LBP; the pressure on them is a double-edged sword -- driving them forward at the same time while putting a large weight on their shoulders, especially with their relatively small team of about 30 people. Finally, the co-founder sounded rather modest about LBP being seen as a lead title on the PS3, claiming he had "no expectation(s)" in the beginning and it was "just ... ambition ... we didn't know we'd succeed", and that the "ultimate test" is "when the game is shipped, that's the best time to judge it."
Alex Evans of Media Molecule talks up LittleBigPlanet
Here's an interview with Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule, the developers of LittleBigPlanet. The gameplay footage in the video is mostly old news, but Evans spits out some really good narrative that'll give you more of an idea about the open-endedness (it's a word for today) the game offers. A very interesting and creative part of the interview comes when Evans is talking about creating a "race" level where everybody sprints to the finish -- but the creator of the level put the sign that says "finish" on wheels, so it keeps "running away" from the sackboys. That's really funny and rather creative. He says the game should be done this Fall and it's got an October date slapped on it, so let's hope that remains the date of release.
LittleBigPlanet creators to deliver opening keynote at Paris GDC
We can't wait to get our hands on Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet. The release is still a while away, so we're anxious to hear more information about this upcoming PS3 creation game. Mark Healey and Alex Evans, co-founders of Media Molecule, will deliver the opening keynote at the upcoming Paris GDC. According to the press release, "their talk will touch upon the ways in which game developers can incorporate creativity into their designs, and the future of user-generated content as illustrated by their upcoming title, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3."While PS3 Fanboy won't be attending the conference, we do hope that some intriguing newsbits will make their way out of the conference. Who knows? Maybe they'll surprise us with an early release date (we hope!).Update: Paris GDC is the second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, and is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris .
