Subtitles at beginning by Sukuke/Kidd, fixed up by Noid I love customization in video games. Custom stages, tracks, characters, songs, it doesn't matter. Any customization is fine by me, but LittleBigPlanet took it to a whole new level. By letting you create your own, well, levels. Platformers, Collect-athons, Shooters, Racers, the only limit was your imagination. And, of course, the Thermometer. But, this lovable Sackboy that we've grown so attached to didn't originally look like what it does now. At least not until the game was well into development. In fact, there were so many important changes to this game that occurred in development that I had to include them all in this video. So sit back, grab a snack, and let's begin discussing the development of LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet began as a completely different looking game called Craftworld. And while it did have the same general ideas as LittleBigPlanet, a 2D Physics-based side-scrolling puzzle-platformer, other than that, it was a completely different game. The original main character was a boxy, placeholder creature called Mr. Yellowhead, who was actually an unlockable character in LittleBigPlanet. The controls for Craftworld were inspired by the creator's previous game, Rag Doll Kung Fu. And shortly after Rag Doll's release, Media Molecule's co-founder Mark Healey, Dave Smith, and Alex Evans, along with others, left Lionhead Studios in December of 2005. During this time, they created a prototype of Craftworld with the arms being controlled by the Right Stick of the controller and the legs being controlled by the Left Stick. To finish a level, Mr. Yellowhead would have to pass [through] many different physics-based obstacles, By grabbing, pushing or rolling them around the game world. With the prototype in-hand, the team showed off their new game to Phil Harrison, head of Development at Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. During the pitch, they chose to have a live, playable demo with a vague pitch. Deliberately toning down the play-and-create aspect of the game. Mostly because they thought Sony would find that aspect odd for a console game. Instead of finding it strange, though, Harrison found it incredibly interesting and asked why they hadn't explored the idea further. While this pitch was meant to be 45 minutes long, it went on for three hours and at the end, Sony agreed to fund the game's development for six months. At this point though, the team didn't know what direction to take their game now. Would people understand the point of it, or even liked the idea in general? But following the presentation, they did feel better knowing that Sony was happy with what they had done so far. At this time during development, there was a ton of concept art drawn for the 'Craftling'. The original name was Sackpeople. First, we have a mixture of a Sackperson and Mr. Yellowhead. Then, there's a more Sack-version of the last concept art that loses the yellow part, but keeps the head design. These next pieces of art are more squarish, and even shows that eyes were considered to be able to fall off. This piece is slightly random, but you can still the square design on the bottom left. Another craftling design here is actually in color, with different outfits. These even got to the point of getting 3D modeled, along with some other designs. This concept art is a mixture between the squarish-ness and the final design. And at this point, it starts moving toward the Sack we know today. These pieces show many different designs, like Wood People and what looks to be early designs of Homestar Runner characters. But amidst them are some craftlings that are starting to become sense[ful]. While they have a more rounded look to them, their legs are different because they aren't separate pieces sewn on like in the final game. They also have some designs for costumes too - which even includes Mario. This kind of design-look was kept for a long while, and even made it to some early gameplay footage like this one, which is actually the earliest footage that we have of the game. After being developed further, Sony called them back to present what they had created in what Healey called, "a 'Dragon's Den' style scenario". After the second presentation, Sony proposed a deal. Media Molecule would develop the game now entitled LittleBigPlanet, in exchange for being exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and giving Sony ownership rights of the Intellectual property. The team agreed and Media Molecule became part of Sony in February of 2006. Even with the game being only developed for less than a year, Sony felt the need to show it off at the Game Developers' Conference (or GDC) in 2007, and while Media Molecule knew this, they had no idea they would actually be part of the keynote themselves. After arriving in San Francisco, Healey realized just how much Sony was devoted to this "LittleBigPlanet", and knowing this, both comforted and pressured the team to create a game that has far exceeded what they thought it could be. During development, there were plans of making the game fully three-dimensional. In fact, an early build had what Alex Evans called "free depth", and completely moving cameras. He even said that the gameplay engine wasn't layered fundamentally, and that levels could travel into the screen. However, Evans stated that this freedom was really hard to develop, but was creatively unconstrained. Over the course of the development, they reduced the 3D land by reducing the scope and adding layers. And with every restriction, Evans said that the quality was improved. Now that we know how LittleBigPlanet went through development, let's look at some of the early footage of the game and see the differences. The first round of footage, I would dub as Craftworld. Now just so you know, this is all pre-rendered video and not actual gameplay. But this doesn't mean that the features in the video weren't planned for the game. In fact what's in the footage is the original thoughts of what the game would be. This video was made 5 months into development, so even before GDC 2007. First off, the narrator of this early build is definitely different than the final game, and he refers to the world as Craft World, which is run by craftlings instead of Sackpersons. [Hello my friends. Welcome to an amazing place.] [A place where everyone comes to play and create.] [Play and create what?] [Dreams, my friend.] [Welcome to a place, unlike any other.] [Want to find out more?] [Let's go straight to the heart of this incredible thing.] [Craft World.] [This is the heart where everyone's accepted.] [As you will see, it is a place of infinite magic.] [See all these dots?] [Each of it's craftlings orbit the craft.] [Ahh.] [Over there is a craftling.] [Let's see what he's up to.] The first thing you'll notice about these craftlings, is that they look more plump, have small legs and overall just looks very different to the final Sackperson. Plus this craftling's animation seems more bouncy. The pod he's in looks very different than the final version, too. And instead of a PS3 (PlayStation 3) controller, it has a strange machine that controls the Pod. The Pop-up Menu is also mechanical in this build compared to the final game, where it's just a Pop-up [animation]. Also in this footage, when there are four people in the Pod, the craftling takes them to his personal created level. This level is in the Pod's basement which isn't at all like the final game, since custom levels are on a Moon in the final version. Now in this footage, there's a short amount of video showing one of the earliest levels that we have, that was not designed for testing. It's a cliff in a Blue world with a car. The sackpeople can move their arms and head and you can see a glowing dot where they're looking and a guide when they're moving their arms. The interesting thing to note about the guide is that it actually takes into account physics. So could sackpeople have originally been able to throw objects? According to the narrator, players would collect 'sponges' to get creative, so it sounds like the player would have originally collected sponges instead of bubbles, and apparently you would have spent them on creative tools, too. So now let's move on to footage that was made slightly after the last one, that all called the 'New Sack build' because the original, stubby, model was changed to look more like the final version. You can see the difference at this point here. Though the model still uses the bouncy bobble head animation. Also when grabbing an object, Sackboy's arms seem to be able to stretch further in this build than the final game, and you can see this Sackboy collecting sponges, too. Just like the Narrator said in the last build. There's some more concept art that comes from this new Sack design. All of them are Sackboy deaths, including Arms ripped off, legs being eaten, strings being pulled, crashing through wood, popping, and my personal favorite, slamming into the ground. Some of them even made it into 3D animations like slamming into wall, getting crushed, and falling from great heights. What's interesting is that falling or hitting a wall doesn't kill a Sackperson in the final game, though. The next build we'll see, believe it or not, was shown in 2011 at the LittleBigPlanet community meetup. First off, it shows a control screen which has some different controls. R1 is Grab, which is normal, but Circle is Pick up and 'Toggle Tool' Even though Circle is only used for canceling the selection, in the final game. And by tool, I mean that Circle was used to pick up things like Jetpacks, which is shown in the build, though is automatically picked up in the final game. Also, even the official control sheet in the final manual says that right stick isn't used, but in this build, it's used to grab objects and even move the arms without having to hold down L2 or R2. Sadly, we can't read the rest of these controls, [L1:Jump, R1: Grab, O: Pick up, X: Jump, LS: Move, RS: Grab/Move Arms] but that's fine because we have plenty more to talk about in this Video. Firstly, the background is a cardboard wall, which isn't in the final game. And the HUD (Heads Up Display) for each player score is on the top right, and looks completely different. Now comes the real interesting stuff. A flying metal robot comes down at the beginning to say that the players with the most 'sponges' wins. With a way different speech bubble. So the players or in this video player starts the race and the level scrolls onto the screen. For some reason, this level felt familiar to me, so I googled "LittleBigPlanet trailer" and look what I came across. This video was the first trailer I personally saw of LittleBigPlanet, and this is the Exact. Same. Level. The only difference is the trailer has some added Decor (decorations) and less sponges. So this build is an early version of the level that was used in the trailer. There are a couple more changes between the two, like there are two wheels here in the early version, but only one in the trailer. The Skateboard Ramp is the part I most remember from the trailer. The flags shown here are different than what's shown in the trailer though. And actually, this build has a second ramp at the end. Perhaps removed from the trailer to make it shorter. And when you reach the end of the level in the trailer, it has the finished sign and it fades out. But in this build, there's a giant really creepy robot in the background. He says "What's this? Pesky little pip squeaks. I hope you aren't thinking of interfering with my plans. . ." "I'll be keeping an eye on you." Was he the original boss instead of the creator? And, there's a random key at the end and a finish sign. But, there's a second part of this footage showing another level. These things (tools) here are your popit. That's right. This is how you originally selected your tool, by pressing Circle near them. One of them is a paint bucket, because you could originally paint objects, but only a small portion at a time, and if you want to reach higher, you need the Jetpack. So it looks like in this build you couldn't fly in create mode, and the Jetpack was used instead. This hair dryer-like tool was used to cut objects too. And there's some weird last tool that they couldn't figure out how to use. The last part of this video shows an early tutorial on how to create levels. It's very interesting what they say. First, the 'Sackboy Zipper' was how you created things. And guess what? The levels were inside you all along. Aww. And when playing custom levels with friends, they would be transported inside of you. There's also five seconds of new early footage of LittleBigPlanet shown on GameTrailers, that shows a level with six Sackpeople in it. But it's unknown if the game was actually meant to allow more than four people to play together. I mean, they could have just been spawned in to test something, since even from early on, there were only four people in the level. The next bit of footage we're going to discuss is the actual presentation at GDC 2007. The first thing you'll notice is the changed Popit. The only options you have here are the Goodies Bag, a Gear icon (which was likely the Tool Bag) and a World Icon, which was perhaps used to Publish levels. Let's look at the goodies bag first. Which basically contains everything to building materials, to stickers. Though it is a bit different, as the shapes are chosen first and then the material. While the final game has you picking the material, and then the shape. When picking the material you're presented with this really neat menu where you can press up and down to choose the material, and left and right to make changes to it. Like size, and depth. One interesting thing to note is that depth in this build is way more than three layers. In fact, I counted 12 layers in all. In fact, you can really see it in this video, when the tree is being placed. After placing the tree, they start placing flowers and Decor anywhere they want on the ground (not possible in the final game). After this Decor, they move on to stickers which they say can be imported from the hard drive or taken by the Eye Toy, and while you CAN take pictures with the PlayStation Eye in the final game, you cannot import them from the hard drive. When they place a sticker on cloth objects, it reacts accordingly. Also unlike the final game. They also say that you can put as many stickers as you want in the level. But in the final game, there is indeed a limit. A little later in the video, they move on to an actual level, which just so happens to be the one that we saw in the trailer. One interesting thing I noticed, is that when the Sackperson is sad in this build, he (or she) walks differently. In the final game, no matter what emotion a Sackperson person is using, they will always walk the same. Another thing; Photos are taken throughout this level and put on the screen, and then moved to the lower left-hand corner. In the final game, the photos from a photo booth don't appear on the screen. Instead, the screen simply flashes and the photos make their way into the photo booth's 'Photo Page' in the Popit. This next early footage that we have is from a build labeled 'Press Build - r(Revision)18596'. Firstly, the Popit is now roughly the same as the final version. Except that it doesn't take over an entire side of the screen, like in the final. The Creative Mode in this build, though, is now called Edit Mode and has a box on the top left showing some meters that we have no idea what they do. The meters are labeled from top to bottom 'J' 'T' 'E' 'B' H'. It's interesting though on the back of the box in both the PAL and North American regions, there's a screenshot that has this 'Edit Mode' box with the meters. I always thought that was odd and now I know where it came from. The Pause Screen is also different. It's a lot simpler because the options are put under 'Categories' in this press build, instead of everything being on the same screen in the final game. Another interesting thing is that you couldn't get hurt while in Edit Mode, in fact, in this build you actually have to change into play mode in order to fully test a level. This specific video was made in order to show off Danger Tools, and it's actually quite interesting how much changed. First off, the Danger Tools are in the Goodies Bag, instead of the Tools Bag, even though the Tools Bag is in the Popit menu. In fact, the Tools Bag only carries Backgrounds, Global controls like lighting, darkness and fogginess, and gameplay kits. This video showcases electrifying, burning, and freezing an object. But, this Freeze Tool is not present in the final game. Originally, a Sackperson would have stepped on the ice and if they stayed too long, he (or she) would have been frozen until the player shakes the controller. Sadly though, due to the fact that this hazard caused network issues when playing online, it was removed from the final game. You can even see the sort of problem in the footage because when the Sackboy freezes, the game takes a second to load it. The last bit of footage I found is from CES 2008. First off, this version has a new Collectible that has now a mixture of the final bubbles and the 'sponges' from before. I read that these Collectibles were named 'fluff'. The Pause Screen is different too. Some of the options look to only be for this build, like 'Reboot game'. At the end of this video, there's also a piece of concept art for the Metal Gear Solid Sackboy costume that looks nothing like the final DLC. Alright, now that we're done with that, Unused Stuff here we come! For a change of pace, let's actually start with unused text. First, there are some early descriptions of each of the game's themes, showing what they originally were called during development. The Gardens was called the English Theme, The Savannah was called the African Theme, The Canyons; the Mexican Theme, The Metropolis was USA Alley. The Islands was the Japanese Theme, The Temples was the Indian theme, and lastly, The Wilderness was the Russian Theme. Needless to say, there's an obvious pattern since each of these themes took place in those regions. There's also some unused dialogue from a character who lives in his kingdom in the clouds. This character apparently travelled the world, learning creative skills, and was going to teach them to YOU in the form of tutorials. It looks like he was meant to live on the moon and provide creative challenges as well. A bit of information about these tutorials is left in the form of some text. What looks to be the first tutorial would have taught you how to remove Stickers and Decorations. And like the final game, you would have learned it from videos. There's also various other pieces of unused text too, like debug settings, cardboard bike, Fire, Ice, Electricity and Gas. Some dialogue even some mention of being slapped to bits. On a more interesting note, there's actually a ton of unused text from a removed theme called the Seaside Theme. In fact, this theme was shown in some early footage from before. It was likely meant to be between The Gardens and the Savannah Theme, as you take a Submarine at the end of 'Skate to Victory' and get shot out of it at the beginning of the Savannah. Little did we know, that there was an entire level between the two, that we were missing. The objects that were collectable in this level are as follows: Wooden Crab, Big Seagull, Barnacle, Tentacle Arm, Basic Building stuff, Pirate Ship, Spiky Turtle, Pinwheel, Angry Angry Pirate, Seaside Pearl Clam, Light Grabbable stuff Thing Motief, Leg Monster, Puffy Monster, a grabbable floating object, Seagull Friend, Big Seaweed Cluster, Seagull, Round Creature, and a Turtle. Many of these objects are actually in the final game and collectible when you get out of the submarine in The Savannah. Some dialogue from a character likely in the Seaside Theme is of course unused too. Apparently, the main enemy of this theme is a Mermaid, whose spit has infected the water and turned it into Gas, which has mutated this character's parrot. It looks to be that the goal of this theme was to reach Zola's Land, while stopping at various places along the way, like Skull Island where you could have hunted for treasure. This character even mentions having a sub (submarine) which makes it even more likely that this theme was indeed between The Gardens and The Savannah. There are actually three other removed themes too, but we'll get to more of that later. Instead, let's look at some unused icons. First up, if you look back at the early footage, you'll see that when you pick a material, the shape icons become that material. In the final game, they are simply white. Left in the game there are tons of these early icons, Also in the game's files are icons for unused materials. These materials can't be used in game, as only their icons remain in the files. And speaking of materials, There's an unused ice material too. We don't know if it's related to the removed Ice Hazard or not, in fact we're just guessing it's ice based on the way it looks. These next icons are placeholders for the music tracks available in the final game, and they also have different names for the tracks. Though these icons may not be in the final game, the final My Advice track uses a similar design for it's icon. Another thing; Even though these unused fish decorations look very similar to their final versions, you'll notice that they are colored very differently, and speaking of changed colors, This is an early Magnetic Switch which happens to be black with purple for lights, but other than that they look pretty much identical to their final counterparts. And on the subject of switches, this icon shows an early switch with a wooden lever. So does that mean that Sackpeople could originally grab wood? There's also some unused icons for the tutorial objects, the Circle button, the Analog Stick, and an early Cog Wheel, that has a bolt already in the center. This other unused icon is of a simple generic creature that can actually be seen in game by performing a glitch with the Paintinator emitter. Also, remember the early bubbles called 'fluff'? Well, it just so happens that there's an early icon of the purple one still in the game's files, and let's not forget Stickers. Of which there's one in the game that was never used, and that happens to be this Ice Cream Truck. Now remember when I said that we couldn't see the rest of those options in the early build shown at the 2011 LittleBigPlanet meetup? What just so happens that the control screen shown there is in the game's files, added to what we already saw originally you could jump with both the X (Cross) and L1 button. A very odd choice, and speaking of stuff left over from early builds, this fork-and-knife texture is from the GDC build as you can see here. There's also a ton of early popit icons. Some of which you can actually see in early footage. An interesting thing is that the PlayStation Eye is still called the Eye Toy in this icon, and not to mention some of these icons never found their way into the final game. And once again speaking about icons, There's some PC Editor icons in the game too. Some of it happens to be from Mac OS while others happen to be from Windows XP. These are likely debug icons, and perhaps they were part of a computer-based Level Editor that the story levels were built with. Oh, and also, there's some hand-drawn icons with them too. Now this early Pod Logo is very interesting as it calls the Pod the 'Puter'. Some other various unused graphics are as follows: a placeholder image of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a faded map of the World, a Shoe print, an Indian texture, and an orange square with 'Pos X' (Position X) in the middle. A bunch of numbers divisible by 16, a HUD tester, a Water texture, an early loading icon, and a reflection of an early version of The Wedding background. Now let's move on to some more unused graphics, but instead these were meant for some scrapped materials. These first few look like they were meant to be associated with the Japanese Theme, while these other ones seem, pretty generic pattern wise, these last few though are definitely more interesting. First, this material looks kinda like Popcorn. But it's probably not actually Popcorn. This next one is some blurry multicolored Glass, and lastly, this material is Lava. Whether it's only meant to look like Lava or if it was meant to act like it too, is unknown. But we do know that this is not in the final game. Now despite having a ton of DLC that was released over a long period of time, There's still some unused DLC in LittleBigPlanet. this first is a Bumblebee costume, meant for the design of Sackboy Competition pack that was eventually scrapped. Another piece of DLC is a clapper board and Beret meant for some other scrapped contest, likely having something to do with video editing. Also, Like the crown in the final game, a pink Ribbon was meant to be given to contest winners, But this never came to be. Costumes for Ratchet and Clank, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy, and a Big Daddy from Bioshock, were all planned DLC for LBP. But they never came into fruition, until the sequel. These outfits were also changed in one way or another when they would later release for LittleBigPlanet 2. Lastly, some text in the game reveals that Parappa the Rapper, was intended for a costume in LittleBigPlanet. But its textures and icons are nowhere to be found. There are also some unused models in LBP, one of which is a Radio Tower. It's contained with other models pertaining to the Pod, so it's thought that it would have appeared on one of the planets. Next up is a Spring. When you place it in game, it actually works as it should, responding to physics, which is pretty cool. Now this unused creature is called a 'Walker', (walker_chassis.mol/walker_head.mol) not much is known about it, so let's move on to this Glue model, which was intended to be the tool the player used to connect two objects together. In the final game holding X (Cross) while the objects are touching does the same thing. Lastly, there's a Collectable Egg (collectable_egg.mol), which is actually an early version of the Prize bubble. Thinking to the final game, remember what happens when you collect all the prize bubbles in the level. What do you hear? [Rooster Crow] A rooster crow. Could this be connected to the fact that the Prize bubbles were originally meant to be eggs? We don't know, it's all speculation, but it does make sense. Now you remember that there was originally meant to be Ice Hazards in LBP right? Well the tool that accomplishes this is actually still in the game, and it's called the Freezatron Tool. But sadly, even if you hack its way in, it doesn't work. In fact you can't even get it out to use it. Bummer. But that's not all we have on the Ice Hazard. There's also some unused sound effects associated with it in the game. Take a listen. [Ice Hazard sound effects] Alright. Remember when we were talking about the removed level English Seaside? Well, I think it's time to talk about those three other removed levels. These levels were Russian Theater, American Midwest Train, and Japanese Window. Each of these levels are mentioned in various places in the game's files. And they originally had a background with it, and associated music. Sadly the backgrounds for these themes are long gone, but the music is still in the game. In fact, you've likely heard them before, as the tracks were later re-added as the Media Molecule Music Pack 1, and Monster Pack DLC. The English Seaside track was later called Tea by the Sea, Russian Theater's was called Party Ghouls, American Midwest Train's was called Well Trained and Japanese Window's was renamed Wise Owl. But while you may have heard these before, you haven't heard them with the levels' ambience included. In LittleBigPlanet, a level has a track for ambience, like birds chirping, and a track for the music itself. These scrapped levels still have their ambience tracks in the game, so let's take a listen to exactly what these levels would have sounded like had they not been removed. [Unused Level Ambience/Music sound effects] So that's the Beta of LittleBigPlanet. While I've come to expect any first game in the series to have a lot of changes, I never expected this many, but the changes between Mr. Yellowhead and the Sackboy were very much needed and because of it the game has become an incredibly successful series, and though having four extra levels in the original game would have been fun, it still can't take away the fact that this first game was (and still) very much is, super fun. So this has been Beta64, with the LittleBigPlanet Beta. Thanks for watching.
i miss the old days when i first got my playstation 3 and littlebigplanet was the only game I had. I was in middle school at the time and this game was my world. Played the ever-loving fuck out of it. 2 was a brilliant addition, too. Absolutely loved it. Three fell sort of flat in my opinion.
I loved how the levels always looked like some sort of DIY play. I remember one of the MM picks was a Dead Space level that had plastic soldiers in the background to show the ship's crew and cardboard cut outs for monsters.
The new games don't seem to have that as much but it's probably only because they added more tools to allow players to customize the look of the stages. I can also recall a Legend of Zelda dungeon that wouldn't have been possible to make in the first game.
Little big Planet is still the only game I ever went out of my way to get a platinum for. People complained about its floaty controls and being too complicated for casual gamers to make big stuff for, but I fell in love with it.
I was in my late 20s when the first came out and I'm still a fan at 36, so you never really grow out of this kind of stuff. It was the only game that brought back that childhood feeling of reading comics under the covers or playing out a war in the backyard. This game was perfect catharsis for me. I can't wait to see what MM can do with dreams, because I have some coma nightmares I would like to make real as therapy.
This is the game that made me want to get a PS3. No regrets, and making levels for it really influenced what I wanted to do in the future