Last night was a LittleBigPlanet night. I didn’t know that it was going to be a LBP night, but when I sat down to play, my cat pinned me to the couch and I wasn’t able to leave for hours. Besides, when Stargrace and Sirhyl stopped by the Pod of Love, ready to play, how could I not?
Things went pretty well when it was just me and Sirhyl, but when Stargrace popped in, we ALL had problems. I dunno what the deal is, or if this morning’s LBP patch fixed it, but with three, we just weren’t in control. My character would be zipping around, or go in some mystery direction… it was very hard to complete anything.
The other issue is the camera. The camera is the hidden extra player in the game, and this is the player who wants you to die. Unless all three people stay really close, the camera struggles to show everyone – and even a missed jump that leaves someone at the bottom while everyone else is at the top can do this – it becomes so zoomed out you can’t see or do anything and just have to eat a death and respawn.
We played solo after that, but even though we weren’t playing together, the achievements we made and levels we finished got flashed to each other’s screens, so it was nice. I followed them to some user-made levels which are designed to give you certain trophies, and those were kinda cool in a god-mode kind of way.
Afterward, I finished the creation tutorials and set to work on my first level, the EQ1 dungeon of Befallen as a platformer. It will be a level dominated by a huge well, and as you go down each dungeon level, there will be new puzzles to solve to cross it in different ways.
The mechanism in the picture above is a test of a swing that will get you over the top of the well, but can then be made to fall down to the bottom in a secret way that will simplify the second level well puzzle somewhat.
The picture at the very top is a rockfall trap, after it has been triggered. Watch the ceilings, all I’m gonna say.
The hard part is going to be figuring out how to make the boss battle at the end. Looking at other people’s levels have given me some ideas, but it needs to be epic. The original dungeon of Befallen had bosses each level, but there’s a complexity meter and I think, especially for my first try, best just try for one decent one.
The stuff you can do in LBP is amazing, especially given how simple all the individual bits are. The story levels are just astounding and are great examples of how to put these games together.
My “Pod”, decorated with found items and pictures of me and my friends. I wish I could figure out how to get those pictures off the PS3 and on to a computer where I could do something with them – Stargrace as Zombie Bride was particularly cool – but I guess I better work on getting better at taking pictures off the television with my camera.
What with Rock Band 2 and LittleBigPlanet, my PS3 is finally getting used to play games. It must be pretty happy :)