Crafting a Dekonstruer 2

Hello internet peoples welcome to a look inside MY THOUGHTS ON LIFE, no not really but it is my thoughts on a ton of things related to my classes and assignments, so yeah. Well you may have noticed on Sunday I posted a blogs taking a look at the game atoms that make up Pokemon X, found HERE. Well in this blog I'm going to take a look at another game's atoms, the game I'm going to focus on is one of my favorites, Little Big Planet 2.

So Little Big Planet 2 is this super cute puzzle platformer made for the PS3, PSP and PS Vita that features a cute, customizable mascot character which players control and maneuver through multiple levels. All the games in this series clearly reflect the series Tagline 'Play, Create, Share' with a huge emphasis on User-generated content. The game's tagline directly relates to the games core elements; Playing, either playing alone, playing with friends or online, Creating, building your own levels and costumes using the in-game content creator and Sharing, sharing online your creations and findings to the world. This is a great and everyone in my opinion should play it, like right now.

So enough talking about the game itself now time to see what actually makes this game absolutely amazing!

PLAYERS

 

Players, like in the pokemon series (which I talked about in my previous blog), are absolutely essential to the development and the game mechanics. Little Big Planet 2 places a huge emphasis on user-generated content which contributes to a major aspect of the game. The game places a huge on players creating their own content and sharing it with the online with the LBP community. The players are the most important game atom in Little Big Planet because it dictates how much extra content is available in the game and supports many aspects of the game where it requires 2 or more players to access special areas and special items.

 

In addition, the online community of Little Big Planet 2 is essentially nothing with the players that roam it. There would be no activity or content on it without dedicated players. This game places alot of power in the hands of the players and supports their endless creativity. For this reason I'm 100% sure that the Game Designers main focus was the players and their gaming experience when designing this game; It really makes you feel accomplished as you play, create and explore. There is such a dedicated fan base of LBP that people take the time to create cosplays and plush toys of the mascot and create Youtube videos and channels dedicated to the game.

 

OBJECTIVES/GOALS

 

There a few goals of Little Big Planet two of which are directly related to the Players and how they interact with the game and other players. One of the main goals in LBP is obviously completing all the challenges the level curators assign you at the beginning of each level.Every level has multiple stages and a unique goal/ objective. One of the side objectives of this is 100% completion of the level and locating the bonus level key (Although there isn't on in every level or stage), which rewards the players for the amount of completeness they achieve.

Another goal of LBP which ties in nicely to the games huge emphasis on the players is the optional goal to create your own content; whether it be costumes or levels. Players have the option to create their own level and stages becoming the curator of their own world where the only limitation is the player's imagination. The game really encourages players to dust off their creative side and build some crazy and fun levels as well as mix and match clothes to create your own unique costume and look.

One of the final goals of this game directly relates to the previous goal, the game designers didn't want players to simply create a level and leave it to gather dust in a dark corner of LBP's world. No,  the game creators wanted players to interact with each and share their creations with the world. Another optional objective of this game is to take your magnificent, unique creation and spread the love around the world. The creators wanted players to create, share and explore others creations.

Personally I think one of the games goal was to reintroduce a sense of wonder and Awe, as well as encourage creativity in gamers, which I think they nailed it head on and really need to hurry and release a Little Big Planet 3 so I can enjoy the creative juices (eewww that sounds kinda gross when you put it like that) out of it.

RULES/MECHANICS

 

So there are only a few rules of LBP which mostly pertain to specific areas in the game where you need certain stickers to activate the switches which You either got in the previous level or is hidden somewhere in the next level, or multi-player sections of levels. Basically LBP is a standard run and jump puzzle game with some serious improvements, and numerous options to customize. There are a few restrictions on what kind of content is appropriate for release on the online community, not to stifle the player's creativity but instead to protect players online from being abused or discriminated against.

RESOURCES

There are a number of resources available in Little Big Planet 2 which range from their content editor to the character costumes, to the decoration stickers to even the trigger stickers. All of these are available to the player either after they have unlocked them, found them in the level or bought in DLC. All except the content/level editor can be accessed from any point, level, area, etc in the game, meaning players literally can change anything about their character or the level art (Can place stickers anywhere and everywhere, as well as edit the placement of stickers already in the level) whenever the player feels like, although there are aspects of the level that cannot be changed.

SEQUENCING

Sequencing is very important in LBP because the gameplay and storyline are revolved in a linear progression where players can only move on in the world once they have beaten the level or previous stage. Grant you this do in no ay prevent players from going back and replaying beaten levels to increase their high score and received goodies. The sequencing in LBP helps to create a sense of order and direction in a game where you can play around, edit and create to your heart's content or you know until you get bored.

PLAYER INTERACTION

 Player interaction is an absolutely fundamental atom of Little Big Planet 2 not only are there sections in the levels that cannot be access unless there are 2 or more players playing, but the online community and shared player levels would be nothing with players to interaction with them and other players.

Little Big Planet was a not a game designed to be single player with a multi-player element added into it after, no this game, which thrives through player-created content, and player interactions, was clearly designed to be a mass multi-player game with single player elements attached to it (or at least in my opinion, I could always be wrong but honestly it doesn't seem likely). The multi-player of the game is so much fun and so entertaining you could play it for hours, and still not have enough of clingy to the other player while they are trying to sing across something or backslapping another player to get them out of your way. The game has specific sections where multi-player is require which mean players and their friends can go on adventures together and not have to worry that the game isn't supportive of their friendship, but actually encourages their teamwork. 

 The level editor that allows players to share their creations with the world is one of the most significant aspects of the game that allows players to interact with each other and explore the others creative side which isn't possible in most multi-player games like Mortal Combat or Mario Party where your main goal is to defeat or best the other player. Little Big Planet 2, instead, encourages cooperation and friendships between other players through it's sharable player-created levels and online community, bringing LBP players together since 2008.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Little Big Planet 2 is an amazing game that really puts the controls into the player's hand, quite literally. It's fun, imaginative and encourages wonder, awe and creativity. In my opinion more games need to be made like this and they definitely need to make more Little Big Planet games. If you haven't played this game yet go out and get it right now or find some friends who have the game and go play it, like right now!