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Joystiq

LittleBigPlanet creator hints at controls patch, backflips

by James Ransom-Wiley on Oct 7th 2008 4:00PM

Media Molecule boss Mark Healey admits that LittleBigPlanet's controls can be frustrating. "The Z [axis] movement is an incredibly hard thing for us to get right. There's times when it annoys me actually," Healey told Eurogamer, ~~echoing sentiments shared by other PlayStation 3 developers that have struggled to put games in motion.~~ [Update: Oops! Healey's actually talking about moving between the foreground and background planes (thanks Colin!) -- the motion controls still are wonky though ... ]

Media Molecule seems confident a software patch could do the trick. "There's definitely room for improvement and we've got the channel to be able to do that as well. I'd really love to be able to do backflips and all kinds of things with my SackBoy, and there's no reason why we can't add that and refine that." LittleTombRaider? NinjaBigGaiden? Yes please.

Source

Tags: lbp, littlebigplanet, media-molecule, PS3, sackboy, z-axis

Reader Comments (31)

Could never get enough LBP.

*Nom nom nom*

Cue hoards of brainless Xbots chanting "LOL, LBP is not perfect..."

I wonder how much Microsoft pay them to worship that pile of steaming sh1t the XBox360?

I dunno, maybe as much as Sony are paying you to bash what is a perfectly good console?

Daniel owned you.

Did you just try and do the "slow clap" at the wrong time?? a la "Not Another Teen Movie"...

As i look down i have yet to see one "MS' paid bloggers" say anything ...much less a horde.

Hey nice preemptive swing & miss though.
*looks around* Maybe the horde waits?

Congratulations, the next time you have a consumer item fail on you, you can thank idiots like Daniel, you endorse companies like Microsoft who made the decision to launch early at the expense of reliability.

Ideally, there would be multiple move sets for sackboy, but you would could be forced to use a different one based on the level in question (or not, as the creator decides)

Allowing for deeper custom stage construction

I'd like to see user adjustable physics for at least the character, if not entire levels. I know a lot of people have expressed concern over the floaty jumps the LBP chacters make. Being in the beta I can tell you it's not as hard to control as people (who've never even played it) make it out, but it does put limits on level design as seen in that video where someone attempted to recreate SMB 1-1. If the devs would add sliders to control the physics of the character then that would open up the possibilites even more.

I like your idea as well. Maybe you could basically have series of checkboxes for levels that enable/disabled things like wall jumps, double jumps, back-flips, etc...

I love the Beta so far, but it really would be nice if Sackboy had a slightly bigger repertoire of moves. I wish he could duck, or move along things that he's grabbed onto, or wall jump, whatever. Even just one more move would open up a lot more gameplay possibilites.

Cue hoards of brainless Xbots chanting "LOL, LBP is not perfect..."

I wonder how much Microsoft pay them to worship that pile of steaming sh1t the XBox360?

What r u guys twins? The 360 is definitely not crap...That's why I have one....along with a PS3 your the idiot, you let loyalty to a company who doesnt give two f**ks about you dictate your opinion....Me along with the rest of my sensible Joystiq brethren (Yes that includes Fenix...lolz) get to play everything and hold an actual valid opinion...

Now IMO I think LBP will be great the creation elements look wonderful....The platforming does look rather crappy so I'm GLAD that the developers realize this and are attempting to fix this said problem. Maybe my opinion will change wen I get to buy and play the game.

More "slow clap" error ...

*brushes the intellectual apple on furry pelt*
Trolling's not easy son. Take it from me...

*Drops apple and goes off to cry in a corner ...

nude*

If you ask them "you want ice cream cone?" both of them say yes.

+1 for bm. Mario Twins = winnar.

Enter exponential growth of LBP news as TGS and release draw near.

More please :P

Also, we want post ledge grab "climbing"

Actually, the dev is not talking about motion controls at all. He's talking about moving back and forth on the z-axis of the game itself. It's a 2.5D game, with 2-3 levels of depth. (Yes I'm in the beta.)

The only thing motion controls are used for in the game are for aiming where your guy looks or leans. So adding motionplus support wouldn't really fix the problem anyway. :)

-Colin

You also use the motion control to take off the jet pack! A quick shake will do it!

While I'm loving the beta, besides some obvious pre-release bugs and crashes, this is annoying, especially when try to perform jumps or manipulate objects in different parts of the Z-Axis.

Still, I got my PS3 for this game and I don't regret it.

"LittleTombRaider? NinjaBigGaiden? Yes please."

Ugh.

As much as I am loving the beta, I have been frustrated a number of times to the wonky z-axis controls (continually getting sucked back to the 3rd plane). I am very pleased to hear that they are aware of this and planning a patch.

Also agree on the ledge climbing, or just climbing of grabbable surfaces in general.

It took me about ten minutes to master the Z axis movements. (In fact, the level I'm working on uses it quite a lot as a way of solving simplistic 'puzzles'.) I'm really surprised it's still giving the devs trouble.

I've heard people complain about the z-axis issue, but they've done a wonderful job implementing it as it is. In the MM levels, I haven't felt frustrated or like I was getting screwed over by it. Good level design will take it into account.

The climbing on grabbable objects would be nice, but I wonder if it would break any of the levels that'll ship with the game?

Durr, that was unclear. *MM* has done a good job implementing it - I'm sure it was tricky.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've been frustrated from the Z-axis movement! OMG Sometimes it just doesn't work... Play LittleBigColossus level and try getting on that horse. Chances are, you won't get it the first time, and it's so annoying.

Same here. Its not a game killer for me at all, but I have many doubts about casuals getting into the action with such an awkward control scheme at times.

The Xbox 360 deserves any ridicule it gets. Never before have I seen a product with such a high failure rate.

My Playstation 3 gets used hard and has never let me down~ Majority of 360 owners are on at least their 3rd box.

Stay on target. Stay on target.

Seriously, I love my PS3 (and own no other console until Jasper comes out), but stop with the 360 bashing in a post that has nothing to do with the 360. Live and let live.

Yes, and that was very relevant too.

yeah, a flip or something would help running through levels. if the jumps aren't lined up exactly right you some times just miss the mark

Had this been a 2D title, the term you are looking for would likely be "Z-sorting". (Determining the order in which objects occupying the same X,Y location on the screen are displayed.)

sounds good to me

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LittleBigPlanet creator hints at controls patch, backflips

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Posted: Oct 7th 2008 4:10PM Negatron said

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