Tue, Oct 07, 2008 | 12:22 BST
Media Molecule boss “annoyed” by LBP controls
Speaking to Eurogamer, Media Molecule co-founder Mark Healey has said that LittleBigPlanet’s current controls “annoy” him, butthey may be altered after the game ships.
“The Z [axis] movement is an incredibly hard thing for us to get right,” he said. “There’s times when it annoys me actually, but we can work on that if we want, and refine it.
“But on the whole, we got to a good place with it I think, because we wanted to cater for my mother and someone that’s a hardcore player, so it was hard to get the balance there.”
The exec expanded on the matter.
“There’s definitely room for improvement and we’ve got the channel to be able to do that as well,” he said. “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.”
More through the link.
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Posted in: Hot, PS3, PSN, Platformer, Puzzler, Sony
Tags: littlebigplanet, Mark Healey, media molecule
17 comments
#1
Psychotext
07/10/08, 12:25 pm
I bet you morriss is laughing his arse off right now. Before he was an idiot when he was talking about the controls being iffy… now he has the backing of the MM head honcho.
#2
No_PUDding
07/10/08, 12:35 pm
Not only is it awesome that the guy can admit that (obviously Ex-Lionhead). But this is most likely a resposne to those criticisms.
And I don’t even think I was involved the that conversation with morriss, because I realised then it’s not a platformer akin to MegaMan where pixel perfect matters.
#3
Psychotext
07/10/08, 12:38 pm
lol… ex-lionhead. Nice one.
#4
No_PUDding
07/10/08, 12:44 pm
He is ex-Lionhead.
#5
Psychotext
07/10/08, 12:56 pm
Never mind pud. Never mind.
/pats head
#6
No_PUDding
07/10/08, 12:58 pm
I don’t get it, which part do you disbelieve.
Mark Healey was from Lionhead.
#7
morriss
07/10/08, 1:28 pm
I’m saying nothing.
#8
deftangel
07/10/08, 1:37 pm
Have to say I don’t get it either!
#9
Psychotext
07/10/08, 1:54 pm
It was the “admitting issues” thing that made me laugh. You make it sound like it’s drummed into you in Lionhead boot camp.
#10
No_PUDding
07/10/08, 2:03 pm
Lionhead boot camp xD ‘How to be a fan favourite but a PR nightmare’.
Yep, well that was intentional.
#11
Gamoc
07/10/08, 3:35 pm
Don’t get it, I like the controls.
#12
Esha
07/10/08, 3:57 pm
I like the controls too.
I know why he’d say that though, I suppose. It’s an artist/creative director thingy. I’m an artist, and something can be absolutely brilliant but the most minute of flaws will result in this:
IT’S TERRIBLE. HORRIBLE. A MONSTROCITY. A CRIME AGAINST ART. BURN IT! BURN IT NOW!
Without that, one’s work never improves.
I still don’t agree with him, though. Bah!
I’m just glad he said that the problem exists and that he didn’t apologise for it. I always envision a dev with his hand in the cookie jar when that happens.
#13
ecu
07/10/08, 6:03 pm
I bet you morriss is laughing his arse off right now. Before he was an idiot when he was talking about the controls being iffy… now he has the backing of the MM head honcho.
A lot of people had a problem with the x-axis. Personally I didn’t, but I haven’t played the game as much as I’d like.
The complaint that most people made about the controls is that it’s too floaty, which is not what he’s said here. The floatiness is just part of the game, it’s no problem, and people shouldn’t expect Super Mario-ish controls because it’s not how the game was designed. The same as people who play Halo shouldn’t complain that you can’t turn around as fast as you can in Half Life.
#14
morriss
07/10/08, 6:47 pm
I never said they were floaty, I said the x-axis was borked ‘and’ it was floaty!
#15
Syrok
07/10/08, 6:55 pm
I think you both mean the z-axis
#16
morriss
07/10/08, 6:57 pm
The one that goes left to right.
#17
Syrok
07/10/08, 7:00 pm
That is the x axis, though. I thought most have problems with the z-axis. Surely wakling and jumping in a straight line isn’t to hard (apart from being floaty)
Edit: Actually that can be a problem. It’s still the z-axis though.