LittleBigBang : The Evolution Of LittleBigPlanet

[EDIT: highly recommended to follow the link above and watch it ‘fullscreen’ in HD. then you can actually read the names of the little people floating about!]

Here is a video which gives some insight into how Little Big Planet ( and Media Molecule! ) evolved from next to nothing into what it is today!  This was generated from our source control repository using a awesome tool called codeswarm. Each dot represents a different file, and they “swarm” towards the user who edits them. So not only do you get to watch files move around, you can see when various members of the team joined ( roughly! ).

Timeline events of note:

0:00 : In the beginning were Dave and Alex - February 2006! At this point the company was 6 people - Dave, Alex, Mark, Kareem, Chris and Francis
1:10: We have a build server! As time goes on you can see a cluster of bright white dots around the build server, because no-one else ever touches them. Largely meaningless, but pretty.
1:17 : Almost every source file in the project surrounds Jon as he changes our v2 vector class GetX(), GetY() and GetZ() accessors to getX(), getY() and getZ() to match with the Sony vector libraries.
1:56 : Luke resaves every level in the game for some reason, and adds texture compression for loading win.
2:03 : Luke adds “plan” files, which are mini files extracted from levels representing one object - when you send your friend an object in the beta, it’s sending a plan file. Your inventory is made up of lots of these!
2:11 : The build server is going great guns with multiple different builds happening nightly, an on-demand Deploy build, and a continuous integration server.
2:21 : Craig is making lots and lots of toys for you to win as you play through the main game - plans again.
2:30 : Bang up to date - the sudden musical and visual cutoff is an intentional nod to the fact that this project is not a dead entity, will not fade away but an evolving organism by you the community with your content, and by us at Media Molecule as we support the game in a variety of ways; a bricolage of media and emotion, a juxtaposition of form and function, blending the old with the new in a mystical symbiosis of code, art, talent and win. In a mirror.  So there we have it - essentially a lot of dots moving around but it’s quite pretty and also a little bit informative. EDUTAINMENT.