If you’ve had your head in the sand, or something far worse, for the last year or so, then the words LittleBigPlanet may not mean a thing to you. If this is true, then maybe I can explain and get you excited about it reaching the Alpha stage of development.

2008 will be the year that Media Molecule release their game, LittleBigPlanet. At it’s heart, it’s a platform game that will go a long way in spinning that very old genre on it’s head. Exclusive to the Playstation 3, LittleBigPlanet will let players build their own playable levels with the aid of their in-game character, affectionately know as “Sackboy.” They can then share these levels with other PS3 owners, and even complete them co-operatively with 3 other players.

Allowing players the freedom of creativity, LittleBigPlanet looks to be a game with almost ultimate re-playability, and in essence shares something in common with another likely September release, EA’s editor driven game, Spore. O.K., the release date of LittleBigPlanet may not be official yet, but the hinted date of September looks to be in Media Molecule’s sights. Their most recent official blog update tells us that LittleBigPlanet is nearing the Alpha stage of development:

We’ve been slaving away pushing LittleBigPlanet toward the Alpha stage of its development cycle. Basically this means all the cool stuff we said will be in there should be playable, even if it isn’t pretty enough to release.

The game seems to change every day at the moment and it is very exciting to be able to sit down and play what feels more and more like a complete experience.

With Beta testing the next step from Alpha, there couldn’t be a better time to sign up to Sony’s Beta Trial Programme. You never know, you may just get the chance to play one of the most exciting PS3 titles of 2008 before it’s released.

Source: MM Blog

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Here we have a new walk-through of LittleBigPlanet, showing the lovable emotions of a dino “Sackboy”, how you can give your creations away as prizes, and the game’s community aspect.

LittleBigPlanet is charming. The ability to create your own physics based levels and share them among the Playstation community is an exciting prospect.

In this following Gamespot video you can see the world map where you can share your levels with the Playstation Community. The ease of finding other’s levels and the ability to narrow the world map so you can share your creations with particular locations is pretty sweet.

Furthermore, Media Molecule explain how you can give away your creations as a prize. The more intricate the object, the harder you’ll want to make your level so only the select few can win it. This takes creating, sharing and playing to another level.

More LittleBigPlanet footage is to come tomorrow, hopefully showing off the “Play” feature of the game.

*Update* From an image straight out of CES we can now see that LittleBigPlanet will have 50 unique levels on release

Moreover, here’s another video from the Official Playstation Blog, showing the creation and playing of a level from start to finish.

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