Just a couple weeks ago, we held our annual LittleBigPlanet Fan Meet at the Eurogamer Expo in London. A handful of Molecules, dressed in pink stripes and wearing big grins, attended the show, met with fans who exchanged their fan art for exclusive T-shirts, and gave them the chance to earn special in-game pins.

Thanks to our friends at PlayStation, we were able to take over their PlayStation Access area for the afternoon. After getting their hands on their shirts (and giving Alex Evans a high-five), the eager line of fans bundled inside the room, and we held an expanded developer session. John and I led the proceedings, showing off all the new elements of the recently released Move Pack: the create tools, new story levels, cut-scenes, and mini-games. John then opened up some of the levels from the pack, and from LittleBigPlanet 2, in Create mode, showing everyone how they were put together, and what made them tick.

John plays with one of the crowd!

Fans gaze upon the Move Pack.

After some multiplayer challenges and a weird and wonderful Q&A session, it was time to say goodbye to everyone for another year and head off to the official after-party. There, we took over a big TV and challenged party goers to beat us at our own game!

By the end of the party, it was clear that it was impossible to take a normal picture of John.

Thanks everyone for coming along. We had a great time, as we always do, and we’ll be sure to see you all again some time next year!

Everyone get excited: We have some Scheduled times for our LittleBigPlanet 2 Move Pack sessions at the Eurogamer Expo this weekend. Please come by the Sony Access area on the show floor (you’ll see it behind the PS Vita booth area!) to sign yourself up and say hello! :)

Friday

• 15:00
• 15:15
• 15:30
• 16:00
• 16:15
• 16:30
• 17:00
• 17:15
• 17:30

Saturday

• Fan Meet: 16:30

Sunday

• 13:00
• 13:15
• 13:30
• 14:00
• 14:15
• 14:30
• 15:15
• 15:45
• 16:00

See you there!

Leaving it to the last minute? Us? Never.

The Eurogamer Expo started today, games as far as the eye can see for everyone to play, yay!
As usual we will be there this weekend to say hello to you all!

We’ll be doing some developer sessions as part of the PlayStation Access area on Friday and Sunday, talking about the new Move pack and giving people the chance to ask us weird and wonderful questions.
On Saturday we will be having a fan meet, where you will be able to High Five the one and only Alex Evans, and get your Touching Royalty pin! This is your chance folks!

Fan Meet

The Fan meet will be at the PlayStation Access area on Saturday at 16:30 until 17:30.

If you bring us a piece of LBP Fan art, no matter how terrible yo think it might be, then there might be something in it for you*  - hint hint!**
(*until we run out of cool things to exchange!)
(** you really should bring some fan art)

If you attend the fan meet, you can also get your Fan Meetup pin!

Move Sessions

If you’re interested in attending a session and hear us talk about the Move pack, and answer some Questions, then you can book yourself in by heading to the PlayStation Access booth and asking about LBP sessions! We have sessions on Friday and Sunday.

Party

If you happen to be going to the Eurogamer / Sticktwiddlers party on Saturday night, then you’ll find us there too, along with some LBP related challenges to undertake!

See you there folks! Tweet @thespaff for more info or if you get lost!

We’re looking for another Experienced Bug Blaster to join the company! Working closely with the rest of the Studio you will be responsible for ensuring our software meets the high standards that we set ourselves as a company, your responsibilities will include:

• Provide testing on all areas of our games across the complete development lifecycle.
• Strong emphasis on early testing and providing feedback on functionality.
• Testing new development tools and server technology and documenting their features and usage.
• Creation of test cases in line with the functional test plan set out by the QA Manager.
• Create documentation on game features and functionality for use internally and externally.
• Working closely with other internal and external testers and test teams providing guidance and help where necessary.

You:

• 2 + Years working experience in the video games industry. We need someone who ideally has shipped at least 2 AAA console games.
• Experience of working internally with development teams is highly desirable.
• Excellent problem solving skills, application of knowledge and an ability to understand often complex and intricate game areas and principles.
• Exceptional attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently and responsibly and to take ownership of game areas and ensure they are tested to the highest possible standards.
• Be an excellent communicator within our internal team and to our QA outsourcing partners and beta testers.
• Strong team player and communicator; both written and verbal.

Read more and apply here.

We’re looking for two new friends, come and be our friend?

3D Animator

We are looking for an experienced 3D Animator to come and join our team, and blow our collective heads to smithereens with their ability to bring meshes to life!

Audio Programmer

We are looking for an experienced Audio Programmer to contribute towards making one of our exciting new projects sound amazing and do ingenious things that will leave other games blushing. As an integral part of the audio team, in addition to the de rigueur audio engine management, pipeline development and implementation duties, this role is focussed on realising the audio-centric features in the game.

Apply over here: on the Mm Jobs page!

The paintings below were created by Jim Unwin (http://jimunwin.com), designer of LBP’s User Experience, also known as the guy who makes hundreds and thousands of teensy icons to fill up your Popit. Even better, they were created in Move Paint, a new tool in The Move Pack (out now!) that allows you to paint your own stickers, or create masterpieces of modern art by using the Move Motion Controller like a glowing digital paintbrush…

Have you tried painting with Move yet? Link us some meisterworks folks!

The latest update for LittleBigPlanet is out today! The LittleBigPlanet 2 Move Pack combines the PlayStation Move controller with the world of LittleBigPlanet, and with five giant story levels and seven side levels, this is LittleBigPlanet’s biggest DLC Pack pack to date!

The LittleBigPlanet™2: Move Pack features a new story mode – The Rise of the Cakeling – in which a rogue cake threatens doom and destruction, and you Sackfolk must once again attempt to restore peace to Craftworld. This time though you’ll have a brand new toy to make things easier, The Brain Crane; a new powerup that allows you to control objects with the power of your mind, freaky!

A new suite of new creative tools give you the power to create your own Move games, record fluid motions, and paint your own stickers, whilst a boatload of new stickers, materials, decorations, costumes, music, sound and sequencer objects will vastly broaden your creative palette, and make your Popit heave at the seams.

Move pack is out today and comes in at $9.99 / £6.29 / €7.99. Find out more about the Move pack over on littlebigplanet.com

If you’ve ever wondered what goes on inside Alex’s mind when he’s in a meeting about stuff and things, then wonder no more.

Fireproof studios, one of the extended LittleBigPlanet family members, turns 3 today!

Fireproof are the most excellent artists behind the 3D rendered animated backgrounds in LittleBigPlanet 2, such as the Cosmos arcade background below, and numerous DLC packs including the forthcoming Move pack. I think you’ll agree that those backgrounds go a long way to adding flavour to LBP2, and to all of your levels.

Happy Birthday Fireproof, thanks for being awesome! x

Regular blog readers will have noticed we were recently tinkering in our fridge, installing a PS Eye disguised as a carton of Orange juice; as you do.

The setup, known as Fridge Cam, is part of our new Intranet, providing snaps of fridge pickers, for no particular reason, to our Intranet homepage. The PS Eye is hooked up to an old laptop sat on top of the fridge. Software running on the laptop is activated by movement - so every time someone opens the fridge door, it saves a photo every second for ten seconds to its hard drive. An Apache web server with a simple PHP scripts then serves out the photos and a JSON feed to our Intranet… It’s already snapped about 5000 photos.

Let’s take a look at some of the pics that have been snapped so far…

Read more