Wednesday, 08 July 2009

• Unleash Your Inner Game Designer

  
  

  
  Little Big Planet is groundbreaking. 
  
  Never before have gamers had such a graphical, intuitive, and quality game design opportunity on their hands.  I remember the good old days spent on my computer, many years ago, trying my hardest to program my own RPG with those RPG Maker series of products.  I'm not attacking RPG Maker or any of its versions (exactly the opposite, those guys were awesome, still are, and it's all for free!), I'm simply saying that gamers haven't had such an immersive and dynamic shot at creating their own game until Little Big Planet came along.
  
  

  
  

  
  

  Now I realize I've likely already ticked a few of you off, and a bunch of you may be fuming over the alternatives to video game design gamers have had and probably haven't utilized.  Very well, let's go there.

  
  

  If you recall there was a series of RPG Makers put out for the PS2 a few years ago, culminating in RPG Maker 3.  For anyone who gave those games a shot I applaud you; there was certainly a strict order in creating and implementing events that needed to be followed or your game simply would not run correctly.  Though not requiring you by any means to know code or the like, RPG Maker was still basically a tool system driven by tons of menus and was unforgiving when it came to programming orders and operations.  If one of your events, scripts, dialogues, etc. was inserted incorrectly by overlapping other things or preceeding something it shouldn't be, you would have to run the game over and over to figure out where it was locking up and why.  For your typical teenager or pre-teen, that was an instant buzz kill that certainly squashed my enjoyment.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  Now arrives Little Big Planet.  Yes, it's a game!  Yes, it comes with its own levels and characters!  Yes, you can change anything you want, build nearly anything you want, and even play through the end product with friends!  It's truly an achievement in giving us the tools we need to realize our visions without bombarding us with menus and game lockups.  There is still a learning curve to all of this, but your average gamer can jump in head-first and expect to bob to the surface before drowning.  The tactile and graphical nature of the programming is huge in that it allows those new to this whole concept to sort of stay within the element of the game world while creating and having fun.
  
  Have any of you guys tried out Little Big Planet or seen what people have been creating with it?  The God of War level is absolutely insane and really shows what you can do with this baby.

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