Last week during the Game Developers Conference, I swung by Sony's event space near the Moscone center to check out Puppeteer, an upcoming platforming game from Sony's Japan Studio.
I had a chance to play through a few levels of the game, and really enjoyed myself—the whole thing has a very LittleBigPlanet—like charm, but it actually controls much more fluidly than Media Molecule's game. In Puppeteer, you control a little puppet-boy who gets a pair of magic scissors and sets off on an epic adventure. He picks up different heads over the course of the game, and can swap between them to gain special powers and unlock bonus areas.
The whole thing plays out as though it's on a stage, meaning that you don't so much move through levels as have them move around you. It's basically a 2D platformer, though the levels do a good job of creating the illusion of 3D. The audience cheers when you succeed and "oooh"s when things go wrong, and it all feels like watching an insanely elaborate stage-play. I found myself charmed by the whole thing.
The video up top, which Sony sent along, shows some of the game in action. Here's another one:
Puppeteer will be out on September 10th and, curiously, will be budget-priced at $39.99.