Tag Archives: Mark Healey

Media Molecule has said this morning that deciding not to do another LittleBigPlanet was similar to a child leaving home, adding its now added 1.5 million users since the PSN outage. Find a full report inside from the Develop keynote by Lewie Procter.

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Develop organisers have announced that the opening keynote of the event, a chat with LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule and ex-SCE WWS head Phil Harrison, will be the main headliner later this month. Harrison, who first brought the company to Sony’s attention, will interview co-founders Alex Evans, Mark Healey and Kareem Ettouney for a session called “Living Inside a Molecule” on July 20.

Develop takes place in Brighton between July 19-21.

Mark Rein. In a bubble bath. Playing with Halo and Gears of War dolls. Enough said.

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UK bossman for PlayStation Ray Maguire has told GI how “fantastic” the BAFTA win for LittleBigPlanet is.

Maguire was speaking at the Children’s BAFTAs last night in London, saying: “It’s absolutely fantastic.

“LittleBigPlanet is one of those games that comes along and it’s absolutely unique. It’s unique in the way it’s formed, it’s unique in the way it touches consumers, the way it allows them to contribute to the art form itself. It’s as much a part of adult entertainment as it is kids’ entertainment and that’s one of the special things about it.”

Media Molecule boss Mark Healey said the win for LBP “means a lot” to him and the studio.

“It means a lot,” said Healey.

“It was always an early ambition to make something that appeals to adults and kids, specifically that adults and kids could play together and have fun and I suppose winning this some way confirms that maybe we did that.”

Find more through the link.

Media Molecule’s Alex Evans and Mark Healey revealed at GDC 09 that LittleBigPlanet is only really half finished.

“We still feel like we’re halfway through the development of LittleBigPlanet, to be honest,” said Healey.

“I claim that LittleBigPlanet is potentially a game creation package, which isn’t finished if you like, but potentially.”

“We want LittleBigPlanet to be something that enables people to make games, not platform game levels.”

The least-finished part of the game is the content creation side of things, said Evans. Read what he has to say about that, and more, over at Eurogamer.

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.

Speaking to Kikizo, Sony’s Pete Smith has said that a 3D approach to LittleBigPlanet may not have even been possible, and that plumping for a 2D design wasn’t a “copout”.

“Part of the beauty of the game being 2D is that it keeps it really simple, and that really helps,” he said.

“If you were trying to make your own gameplay in full 3D, there’d be a lot more to consider. I don’t know if it would be possible, but there would be a lot more to think about. We don’t see 2D as a copout.”

There’s a big interview through there Media Molecule’s Mark Healey and Alex Evans, as well as Sony’s Pete Smith. Take a look.

Kicking off Paris GDC this morning, Media Molecule boss Mark Healey has said that massive teams aren’t necessary to make big games, GI reports.

“One of the interesting things about the titles shown here is that the team sizes vary quite a lot,” he said, showing a list of game concepts in his keynote. “I think there’s a misconception in the games industry at the moment that you need 200 people to make a game now because technology is so amazing.

“But actually, some of the recent very successful games had teams of about four or five people – for example, Brain Training.”

Alex Evans, also of the LittleBigPlanet developer, added: “I believe that was a very small, focused team. And when you go through the breadth of our industry, it’s really staggering that you have casual games, role-playing games, you have MMOs, you have educational games, puzzle games, social games – the breadth is completely insane, and that’s just a huge inspiration for us.”

More through the link.

According to this PS3F report, Mark Healey and Alex Evans – co-founders of LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule – will keynote Paris GDC this year.

“Their talk will touch upon the ways in which game developers can incorporate creativity into their designs, and the future of user-generated content as illustrated by their upcoming title, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3,” said the developer in a statement.

Paris GDC is the second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, and is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris .