LittleBigPlanet Sequel Already In the Works

Now that the delay caused by a rogue song has come and passed, the LittleBigPlanet servers have been turned on, and creations are beginning to filter in. A BBC feature on the game revealed that plans are already underway for a sequel. Another report suggests that they're looking at other methods for expanding the game as well: "With the game just hitting stores, it's too early to start talking about sequels, but Media Molecule already is looking into how they can get more creative tools into the hands of their users. 'We can release new levels, new stickers, new content,' Evans said. 'It's pretty clear to me that we have to move in a fluid direction about what's a sequel and what's not a sequel.'"

Comments

Yes but!

[SupremoMan]

Will it contain a music composition set to the excerpts of the Old Testament? The Torah? The Vedas? Come on the suspense is killing me!

Re:Yes but!

[sxeraverx]

You know, it might, but if it did, it probably wouldn't get pulled for those.

New Content, eh?

[YAJoe]

We can release new levels, new stickers, new content...

I'm surprised. ' I thought the whole point of this game was to have paying customers do that for them. While they are at it, may I suggest songs about Feklar?

Re:New Content, eh?

[somersault]

I'm surprised. ' I thought the whole point of this game was to have paying customers do that for them

Cynical much? The point of the game is freedom and creativity. Did you complain when they started to include level editors in Worms? Do you complain when id and Valve release SDKs for their first person shooters? I mean sure it is a way of making their game more popular, but not in a lazy way. It's a lot more work for them to make the game that flexible. Can you imagine all the extra polishing and testing that would be required? Probably not, otherwise you wouldn't be so sarcastic.

We never would have had Team Fortress or Counter-Strike had it not been for mods for Quake and Half-Life respectively. In LittleBigPlanet's case it seems like it will be more just a level editor than an ability to make actual mods, but it has already enabled users to create some awesome stuff. If they add in user scripting (if it isn't already there) then mods will be possible.

Re:New Content, eh?

[sxeraverx]

It's scripting, Jim, but not as we know it. The "scripting" in LBP is all physics-based.

Re:New Content, eh?

[somersault]

This is true. I meant more scripting to be able to directly attach flags and behaviours to objects, spawn objects as a result of certain actions, make characters fly etc. If they have stuff like wormholes, and pressure pads that cause other actions to happen in there then you could possibly build a capture the flag or football type game though, with a mechanical scoring system. Will be interesting to see what is possible :)

Re:New Content, eh?

[cxreg]

You can do most of what you suggest in the current version of the game that you can buy today. Really. The only missing element is portals.

Re:New Content, eh?

[somersault]

Yeah, I'm just waiting for it to be released over here in the UK. My pre-order is due on November 5th :)

Re:New Content, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... the game has nothing to offer me unless I do work to create the content? Suck. I pass, byebye

Re:New Content, eh?

[somersault]

No, actually there is single player content too, I just think that the level editing and creativity involved is meant to be as much of what makes the game fun as the actual playing through the levels.

Why do you think Garry's Mod for HL2 ever got popular? It's because people enjoy messing about with cool physics engines. I didn't bother much with Garry's mod beyond trying it out and shooting a few watermelons, but with LittleBigPlanet the level editing is meant to be pretty good fun, and it will be much easier to share your creations or download other ones, which makes it a bit more appealing. Even for an antisocial geek like me.

I'm quite happy for you to pass though, you don't sound like you'd bring anything interesting to the table. I've enjoyed making my own computer games as well as mods for other games in the past (levels for Quake and Half-Life, a mod and weapons for Quake III, bots for Counter-Strike) I'm going to enjoy LittleBigPlanet no matter others think about it. Funnily enough, I think the majority of people who actually try it will love it though. It's the sort of quirky game that even non gamers can appreciate (you know, like all those people who bought Wiis probably would like this game, though it looks much better than any Wii game ever did, and the Wii probably couldn't handle the physics engine adequately either). Hardcore platform gamers can make insanely difficult levels for other hardcore gamers, and those who just want to see what cool machines they can create can do that. I'm thinking about making a football (the soccer kind) level with automated scoring. Not sure if that's even possible. but it's worth a try. I'm not really into football, but engineering can be fun :p

Byebye!

So much hype

[Kenoli]

I wonder if I'll ever heard about littlebigplanet again.

Little big enthusiasm

[FornaxChemica]

Critics are maybe raving about it but it doesn't seem gamers are all too excited or interested in the game. Could it be a future commercial flop? Any numbers yet, sales or pre-orders?

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in America, where the big man has brainwashed everyone in beliving that:

a) if it's not on Xbox, it's not good.
b) it's ok to ship a turd, if you give it a 3yr warranty.

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[sanosuke001]

I pre-ordered it months ago. It's one of a few games I've been eagerly anticipating for ANY game platform. It's the first group play game I've been interested in, actually. Sony has always had trouble in the "party game" dept and this seems to be a step forward.

Nintendo always had Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, etc and recently Rock Band and Guitar Hero have come out in this "genre." I never liked The Guitar Band games and the Wii is too much of a Fad (and the controller seems sluggish at best to me; I don't really like it) so getting Sony or MS to get some good group games is nice.

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[MyDixieWrecked]

I can't speak for the rest of the gamers out there, but I got the game over a week ago (my roommate bought it from some store that broke the street date... we got it about 5 days before the original release date) and I have to say that the game is absolutely amazing. Several of my other friends also got their mits on it and they love it. It's practically worth buying a PS3 for, assuming you get the $150 credit from sonystyle.com when you sign up for a sony creditcard, since it doesn't really have any big reasons to buy it and the current version of the system won't play PS2 games (wtf?).

In fact, since I'm moving out in november, I ordered a ps3 and LBP so I'll be able to play it when I move.

It really sucked that they didn't start the servers until today, though. I've been playing for a while and haven't been able to partake in any online play with any friends or get any user-created levels.

The main flaw of the game is that when you make levels, you can't help but make the most offensive levels possible. I won't go into too many details, but we started out making a lot of dick levels and moved on to creating a hitler on roller skates level that shits tiny hitlers on rollerskates that are on fire. We couldn't stop ourselves, and we've made many, many more offensive levels.

I think this is going to be the game that pushes PS3 sales. Too bad there's only one or two other PS3-exclusive games... the PS3 is just a glorified blu-ray player for the most part.

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a major gaming website and all our users are extremely excited for it. It's rare to get PS3 hype as most of our members are Xbox 360 people. I got to try out the beta and for the first time, my girlfriend actually enjoyed playing video games.

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, Mr. anti-Xbox-troll, nice to see you again, made your obligatory post in this discussion already or will you entertain us more?

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. It's a side-scroller with a level editor.

Where have I heard that before? Oh, right, a DECADE AGO when such games were released on the PC. There are complete toolkits designed around the concept. This "game" has two things going for it: it's in "HD" (big deal) and it's for a console (also, big deal). Yay.

Come to think of it, I remember playing a game that came with a level editor back in 1984 under DOS. Wow, way to catch up to the times, Sony.

Want to grab a sidescroller with a level editor for Linux? sudo apt-get abuse

Oh, but that one actually allows you to mod the game to create new objects and new behavior - without modifying the game engine. And it's completely Free.

So congrats on getting a game that's treading new ground, that's already been covered for OVER TWO DECADES with the PC.

Re:Little big enthusiasm

[deek]

Oh please. It's a side-scroller with a level editor.

Where have I heard that before? Oh, right, a DECADE AGO when such games were released on the PC.

Spoken like someone who hasn't actually played the game. Well done for speaking so knowledgeably about something you've had no experience with.

There has been no sidescroller game that has had 3 levels of depth. None have had such realistic 2D physics (it's 2D, because objects cannot fall toward or away from the screen). None have had such realistic material behaviour. Well, ignoring the dark matter material. ;)

Sure, LBP is a sidescroller, but it's a fair few generations ahead of the games back in 1984. Sure, Abuse allows you to create new objects, but you have to be a programmer to do so. LBP allows anyone to create levels, without having any programming experience. LBP allows you to create things and test them right away. LBP will soon allow you to have multiplayer editing sessions on the same console. Soon, it will allow that via the network. That's just amazing stuff. Never seen before, as far as I know.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so sick of the endless gaming posts on Slashdot.

Hey guys: get a friggin' life.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could get a brain and learn that you can disable any particular section with stories you are not interested in.

Re:Who cares

[EmperorKagato]

Gaming is life.

Video Games have expanded the Entertainment Industry successfully. Video games have become so successful that even the Motion Picture industry is becoming jealous.

set to the excerpts

[nimbius]

of DRM raping your freedom to play otherwise fun games without being treated like a common crook.

I'll be buying it.

[Dr. Manhattan]

It looks like a fun game I can play with my kids, and let them get creative about it. The graphics look very nice, almost everything I've heard about the gameplay itself sounds good, and the level editor sounds really interesting. I'm not a big gamer, but this looks like a very cool package. As Penny Arcade put it, "Duke came with an editor called Build that changed a) what was possible, 2) the time it took to complete a project, and 3) the set of people who could come to grips with level creation. As Duke stalwarts long after Quake was delivered, we would routinely jump online, grab twenty levels, and then spend the rest of the night devouring them"... "and there's already more [LittleBigPlanet] levels than you could ever play.".

I'm not picking it up immediately, of course. I'll be getting it for xmas. That may not inflate their early sales figures, but they've got a sale lined up.

Network Lag

[AsnFkr]

Hopefully next time they can get a launch out the door without horrid unusable network lag like this one is having. I wouldn't mind if it didn't actually effect the single player mode or have an option in the game to shut off network access. In order to play the game I have to shutoff the network access for the entire PS3. Otherwise, the game is fun!

Worth the Wait and the $60 Price Tag

[Justin Hopewell]

I got the game last Saturday, and when I'm not playing it, I'm thinking about it. If you have any creative juices flowing through you whatsoever, you'll get a kick out of this game. Even if you make a crap design, the physics engine and amazing graphics make up for your lack of skill. There are a few annoying quirks with the editor, primarily dealing with attaching/detaching objects to one another and some camera issues, but once you learn how to work around them (just like any game editor) you can come up with some pretty amazing things. Even when its frustrating, you're having fun. And this is just the level editing side. The levels that come with the game are all very impressive, and even more so when you realize they can all be created using the in-game editor. They even left switches and other objects visible in the stages (in an aesthetically pleasing way) so that you could see how they make objects interact with each other, and use that knowledge to make your own crazy devices. Online co-op with a friend was usually only laggy in the menus, and not during the actual levels we were playing. I think the lag will be cleared up once the server capacity has leveled out a little. I was surprised and couldn't stifle my childish laughter when I saw my friend talking through his Sackboy's mouth, which was moving dynamically to the words he was saying. I can't recommend the game more. I have been waiting for something like this since I started playing my N.E.S. in 1987, a game construction tool that's easy, flexible, and most of all, extremely fun!

Speaking of level editors

[Anonymous Coward]

How about some mouse support for the in-game editor? Or perhaps some sort of Windows-based client that allows you to template out a level and export it to a LBP format.

Personally, I was part of the beta and I found the in-game tools and options to be quite robust, but not that easy to manipulate with a joystick.