Although it only came into existence on the Playstation 3, Little Big Planet, and Sackboy, have soon become Sony mainstays. Taking a hand-crafted approach to a platform game, with charm bursting out of its every orifice (and Stephen Fry providing the perfect narration about said orifices), it was an insta-hit, with four player co-op, plenty of puzzles to conquer, and perhaps most importantly, and incredible level editor that engaged a huge community, and has led to a never-ending supply of free, user created levels for the game. Seriously - there are millions of them. And they're not even all naff.
Adding in four different playable characters, a bad guy voiced by Hugh Laurie, and a whole raft of improvements to a level editor that was already best in class, we were so excited about Little Big Planet 3, we braved the British public transport system, and headed down to London to have a chat with the game's lead designer, Jonathan Christian, about creativity, co-op, and all things Little Big Planet 3.
How did Sumo Digital come to be involved in Little Big Planet 3?
So, Sumo worked on the Vita Cross-Controller DLC Pack, and Sumo were fairly heavily involved with the Vita version as well. At Sumo, there are quite a lot of people that have worked on [Little Big Planet] in the past - I myself have worked on it since Little Big Planet 1, doing the level packs. We've also hired ten of the top community creators as well - those guys have built a lot of the levels and tools and whatnot. And as you know, we have a very big LBP community!
Yes - some of the community levels are insane! I can see why you'd hire from them too, because those guys know things inside out.
Yeah - definitely!
Are all the levels in the game made using the same editor you ship it with?
Yeah - everything is! There's no cheats whatsoever. We've even added the ability to make your own adventures now, so you can have a world map, where you can put down each of the levels and connect them and give them a kind of unlock structure. [You can make] power ups you collect as you go through, and quests and such. Previously that side has been sort of closed off to the community - but now you can do that too.
So it's exactly the same? There's no differences at all? Not even any mouse compatibility - you do everything with DualShocks (Playstation controllers)?
We use Dualshocks, yeah. It's really important because we need the tools to be really robust and accessible, and if we don't use them all the time, they're never going to get there. Because you can only really get to that point by putting them through their paces and using them constantly to develop the stuff that you guys want to build at home.
Everything you see before you can be created, by you!
I mean, one of the things you realise when you try and play other games that have a similar sort of creation aspect to them - like Disney Infinity - is that it doesn't even come close to Little Big Planet. In terms of usability, in terms of features, in terms of anything. They just don't have the same scope at all.
It's probably a lot to do with the fact that we do ensure we build the game with the tools. Well, maybe they do too, but we're really conscious to not cheat. I mean, it's probably tempting to, but we don't.
Can you make cutscenes in the editor?
Yes.
So all the cutscenes we see in the game...
All the cutscenes and everything you see in the game is made in the editor. The layers really help with making cutscenes, so we can create really impressive depths. And we've obviously got new characters, new voice actors and we've got the animation tweaker which allows you to play any animation across the entire game on any character at any moment.
Talking about the different characters, does everyone have to play as a different character, or can you have four Sackboys, four Oddsocks or various other combinations in the levels?
In our story mode, the predominant way we do it is you'll have, say, an Oddsock level, or a Toggle level, and all four of you will play as that character. The reason being we wanted to create levels that were really focused around the abilities. Of course, in create mode you can do what you want! You can create a level involving all the characters, or you could swap between them at will, and we give you the technology to do that. We do have areas in the story mode that are explorable with Sackboy, and once they're unlocked, you can then explore with a different character and get to places you maybe couldn't get to with Sackboy. And they're really cool, but obviously the more focused levels are more focussed around a character's ability.
Each of the different characters has their own abilities
In terms of difficulty, what sort of level are you aiming for with Little Big Planet 3? I thought Little Big Planet 2 was a lot harder than Little Big Planet 1.
Really? That's interesting.
Maybe it was just me! But we were playing it and dying a hell of a lot more than on the first one. Whereabouts is Little Big Planet 3 going to sit in terms of difficulty?
So... erm... I would say it's in the middle? The actual motifs themselves - the dangers - aren't probably as excessive, but we do have life-limited check points throughout the entire campaign. So you've got fewer lives to complete each level, but the levels are easier, if that makes sense.
It's one of those awkward things though if you've got those checkpoints, and a naff person playing along with you, because they end up sapping all of your lives...
[laughs] Towards the end it definitely gets harder, and for the real hardcore we also have some challenge room levels. What these basically do is they give you a really mean situation - there's one level where Sackboy gets minced up into eight mini Sackboys, and you control them all at once. And to get through the level is hard enough, and you'll get rewarded for that, but the additional challenge is getting through the level with all eight surviving, and you'll get even more rewards for that. We've tried to kind of cater for the people who like a more hardcore challenge as well.
Little Big Planet 3 is launching on both the PS3 and PS4. Are there any big differences between the two formats?
So PS4 is 1080p, Playstation 3 is 720p. All the visual assets and character models for Playstation 4 look loads better - you can kind of see [Sackboy's] stitching and he's really kind of touchable. In terms of extra features, Playstation 4 allows you to attach video trailers to levels, so you can make a level and you can promote it by giving people a little thirty second teaser trailer. The Playstation 4 also has Touch Pad support, so when in create mode you can paint stickers, draw materials out or draw a path for moving things around the level.
That's handy. I always go round all the levels sticking stickers on everything - that's how I play Little Big Planet.
[laughs]. You also have an exclusive model on the Playstation 4, which is the 'Interactive Live Stream Sensor', and what that allows you to do is to build experiences, all based around the idea that your level can be interacted with through the live stream. So you put the chip in, you assign a key word - whatever key words you want - and then when people are viewing that level, they can put in the keywords you've chosen and trigger events in that level. So you could do a "Twitch plays Pokemon" style level in Little Big Planet, with a Sackbot that you have to try and get through the level. You could put that up as a creator and broadcast that level and see if the audience manage to complete it.
It's crazy - the amount of stuff you can do just blows your mind. I'm so glad you said there's more in-depth tutorials for it, to give you a better idea of where to start...
See, on the tutorial front we've got the new Popit Puzzles, which is really a full single player experience, where you'll be using the Popit and tools through what are basically puzzle levels. And they're really cool. It kind of gets you used to how the Popit works and how some of the tools work. We've also got second screen functionality as well, so when you highlight a tool it'll automatically, provided you've got the app running, play a little video telling you how to use it.
Puzzles are a key part of the Little Big Planet experience.
Is it only Sackboy that can use the weapons/gadgets, or can the new characters use them too?
All the powerups in the game, just Sackboy can use - so the Hook Hat for riding on rails, the Blink Balls for teleporting, the wind gun... When you collect them they get added to your Sack Pocket, and you can use them throughout the adventure. Obviously as a creator you can use that technology as well. So you can create an adventure where a player collects one of the old powerups, the grapple hook maybe, in level one or level two or whatever and then you can equip that any time from this inventory.
And you can make your own power-ups as well?
Yeah, you can make your own as well. So we've got a new thing called the Blaster Handle, and you can stick that to an object, and Sackboy will then hold that handle, and the aiming and stuff comes automatically. But then you can nail on logic or whatever. The idea itself is actually quite simple - it's just a handle. It's kind of what you do with it then. You can make it as simple and complex as you want. You can make your own power ups too - you could even make your own Zelda or Metroid or whatever, where you accumulate them throughout and use them to unlock secret areas and stuff. There's a lot of things you can do.
And all the creator stuff from the last games carry through? Including the music maker?
Everything, yeah. We've added new instruments as well!
That was another really cool thing too. If you wanted to try and recreate a game, you could effectively do it, soundtrack and all. Although I guess from a copyright perspective that can be a bit of a minefield. Do you ever have to take levels down for infringing on things? Or do you operate a more hands off approach?
Erm. I don't think so. The copyright holders are usually quite good about it, thankfully.
I mean, I think some of the best levels we've played have been inspired by other games, like Little Big Dead Space. That was a really good one. And Bioshock - that was a fantastic level. And they've done cutscenes and stuff and make it all look like a massive high budget game, but done in a Little Big Planet style... Normally, the Little Big Planet games have loads of things to collect. Do you know how many there are in the entirety of Little Big Planet 3?
[laughs] I'm afraid I don't. A lot. There's a lot of stuff to collect. There's a lot of cool costumes and accessories. There's probably more than... well, I know there's more than LBP2.
Another impressive thing we'd heard is that all the DLC you've bought will carry over to Little Big Planet 3 as well? So if you've bought the Marvel packs or something like that, it'll all carry across?
Yep, yep. I mean, we're working on a few little things we've seen in the past, but from the launch window, yes.
And that's technically cross-platform too, so if you buy it on the PS3, you can get all the DLC stuff on the PS4?
Yep.
How do you carry your save across?
The save data on PS4 - the basis for that is done on the Pins you've unlocked on LBP1 and 2. It knows from those basically what to give you.
And does it carry your custom character over from the games?
Erm. It won't do, no. Not onto the PS4. Obviously the Pins can only go so far. It only knows what things you've unlocked, but not that.
Brilliantly, all the characters can have costumes, too.
Can you tell us a bit more about how the Level Links work?
OK, so you can make a progression using Level Links. You can also now make a progression using the adventure map system. You could, for example, do a more traditional LBP style progression where you complete a level and it unlocks the next one on the map. Or you could use a Level Link to kind of move directly into it. We don't use Level Links like we did in LBP 2 - in that they were more used when you ran out of thermometer space mainly. Now we have a dynamic thermometer which basically means that as Sackboy moves throughout the level, things are loading in, so the thermometer is constantly moving up and down based on where you are and what's in the level at that instant. This has allowed us to make levels that are much bigger, and the actual boundaries are huge compared to previous games.
That's another thing we were going to ask - in the previous games, you often found yourself hitting the item cap pretty early.
With the dynamic thermometer, you basically have an entire LBP2 level, or thereabouts, that can fit in the area surrounding Sackboy. And as you move, the objects you leave behind will basically be destroyed and the thermometer will come back down again.
Is there any scope for character co-operation in the levels? Like, can the bird (Swoop) carry Sackboy through the level, for example?
Yes! We've got a kind of new hub level in the Story Mode where you can kind of cooperate and grab other characters and whatnot. And in Create mode, obviously, you can build your own experiences that could revolve around that, or switching characters, or whatever you want to do.
So there's more freedom in create mode, but there's going to be less co-operation between the different character types in the story mode?
Erm. Yes. In a nutshell, yeah. We wanted to create the levels for the characters so they were all focused around one character. We have areas called hubs where you can share the same space with the characters, so you can play as Sackboy, and you'll eventually unlock more characters to use in that space as well so you can get to secrets and whatnot. But we really wanted the game's character levels to be focused around the unique gameplay of that character, because they are very unique. And as soon as you start to add in characters - so you can play as Sackboy and Toggle and Swoop - you get some cool interactions between the players, but the level isn't as focused. But yes, we do have some levels in there that do play around with that a little bit, as well as in create mode.
There are some cool possibilities - we saw a level with Sackboy riding Oddsock through a derby style level in the trailer.
Oh yeah yeah yeah [laughs].
Have you done any testing on families and kids in terms of age ranges? How young have you found it can go down to?
Erm. We have run quite a lot of user testing with youngsters. The youngest was probably... 7 or 8 year olds? They were getting on fairly well with it. Obviously they died a few times, but they kind of grasped the concept and persevered and got through. I think kids kind of learn quicker than adults anyway, and some of the kids were better than some of the adults who were playing! But yeah - I definitely think young, youngish kids can handle it.
It is a really good family game, because everyone can play together.
Obviously create mode's good too because you can just go in there, it's a sandbox, and you can kind of just experiment, and play around with things and it kind of works how you'd expect. And you can do some really cool stuff that's quite simple too!
It can get a little chaotic though when you're all trying to make stuff at once!
[laughs] yeah!
