LittleBigPlanet

This morning I met With Anthony Evans to make plans for Podcasting work at Hatton, more of which I'll discuss in a later post. But during the morning I happened to mention a game called LittleBigPlanet.
If you're not the Playstation3 fan that I am you've probably not come across this, it's also not available till at least March '08! However, it's worth looking at as I believe it has some good potential for modelling work within ICT (If your school has those kind of resources!).
The game is essentially a platform game with small friendly looking characters who jump around collecting stuff. So far, nothing original, but the real hook of this game is it's creation element. The tagline for this game is "Play, Create, Share." which should demonstrate that the creation is a substantial part of the game.
What makes me think of this in terms of modelling within schools is the simplicity of the tools and the wonderful levels of realism generated. Real world physics combined with familiar materials mean that models can be built in the game that are extremely accurate and could be copied from or based on objects in the real world. For example, models could be built in class, using cereal boxes, cardboard tubes, yoghurt pots etc and then easily modelled in the game. They will look and act the same, but in a virtual environment. Check out the video to see the developers playing with it at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year:



When the QCA says that pupils should "understand that a computer can represent real or fantasy situations and that these do not replicate the original exactly" I guess they weren't looking that far ahead!