Media Molecule show Nintendo how to make a platform game
Posted by Matt on October 5th, 2008
After finally getting my hands on a beta key I quickly downloaded the 900 MB online download and jumped into Media Molecules pre-release of its much anticipated sandbox platformer. I apologise in advance for the grainyness of my screenshots, after hunting for a way to take some half-decent screenshots without rigging a computer into the PS3 I’ve linked to various online videos, at far higher quality than I’m able to take. So bear in mind that the custom levels in the video’s within this post are from people who have been able to spend more time in the game world than I have.
The first thing that struck me was the first-play intro credits (see video below), its a subtle tutorial on customisation, animation and use of the six-axis as you jump and run over sweeping platforms with images of the developers being the game. Before we go any further I must mention Stephen Fry, his fantastic narration and voice-overs really ease your learning and play within the game. I cannot think of a single more perfect person who epitomises the humor, or the British ‘soul’ that the game has to it. The voice-overs are done in a similar style to his role as the ‘book’ in ‘The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’. Just playing with the initial tutorials had me grinning from ear-ear.
Once you’ve done the basic character customisation, of your rather unfortunately named avatar (Sackboy) it’s time to visit your ‘pod’ a customizable selection screen that you can jazz up with collected game items. There’s plenty of choices here. You can jump straight into playing those standard levels that we’ve seen time and time again on demo’s or you can get started with building your own creation. If you’re feeling really adventurous you can jump into the online world and start playing other peoples creations right from the get-go. I really don’t recommend that though. If you’re planning to spend a long time within this world then it’s a place to be savoured and enjoyed like the finest 3 course meal. The perfect appetiser is the intro levels, they give you an idea of just what can be created while teaching you the basic jumping, swinging, grabbing, pushing, and pulling techniques as well as giving you a good overview of the physics and objects within the game. The other advantage of playing these initial levels is to collect items that can then be used within your own game world, It’s an attraction far greater than the normal ‘save the princess’ goals of traditional platformers (that’s not to say you couldn’t make one!). By playing the game you get actual in-game ‘stuff’ you can keep and use as much as you want. That’s one hell of an incentive to play.
When the web was created the connections that people had to access content were relatively slow, only able to transfer small amounts of information and images over long periods of time. Now with cheap broadband technology available, and hundreds of Internet providers selling people fast connections there’s really no limit to the kind of content that can be made available. Even better – as the connections and speed have improved so has compression technology – what once used to take up several Cd’s worth of images and video – can now be optimized to run live ‘stream’ across a broadband connection with hardly any download needed.
The massive proliferation of broadband technology in the UK has meant more and more people downloading audio and movies to their computers, through download sites and file sharing – This activity hasn’t gone unnoticed and SKY was one of the the first to launch it’s movie on demand service direct to a users home computer. It meant they didn’t need a TV, they just downloaded a small piece of software, and then went to the sky website to download and watch any movies in the sky schedule. Content would then be downloaded for users to watch at a their leisure . The benefit of this is that the user is no longer tied to the television, they can download and watch movies while carrying out other work on their laptop, or simply just free up the television to be used by the family members. Sky sneak advertising into the actual player itself – while movies are being downloaded and within the interface of the sky player other adverts appear, (not while watching the movie, but while you’re browsing for items to download) They know that with enabling users with technology to skip adverts they also have to compensate that revenue with enabling other ways to get targeted information to them. All the time the users are downloading movies and browsing content, sky is pulling back their viewing and surfing habits, and storing the data for a later date when they can create even more targeted advertising and sell more products directly to that user.
I’m currently testing a couple of ‘download and play’ broadcasting technologies. The first that has the potential to become widespread in the UK is the BBC iplayer. The BBC is still working out the finer points of its technology, but it’s basically very similar in functionality to Sky’s download able service. BBC programs up to several weeks after broadcast are published through its iplayer service for users to download on their computers. Content retention is time-limited by the BBC’s choosing, the BBC has a very healthy dvd library, and it’s spent a long time working on anti-piracy measures, and making sure that content expires after certain periods of time so that users still have a valid reason to purchase dvd based content.
digital television (to record, rewind, pause live television) combined with internet based technology to give the consumer access to premium content, downloadable music, or the latest films. This is still just the beginning, but downloadable content just doesn’t really cut it when the consumer lives life in the fast-lane – they need content directed to them, personalized for them, connected to their lifestyle, and they need it anywhere they are. So far progress on the iplayer technology has been fairly slow, delivery of content through the player is incredibly slow, and although the speed is set to increase as more users adopt the player – so far – apart from the quality of the content there is little to differentiate it from the more established SKY download services.
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