Parsons Students Conduct LittleBigPlanet Game Jam

Sony Computer Entertainment America and Parsons The New School for Design are co-hosting a game jam in which students from the school will compete to develop the best and most innovative levels for the upcoming PlayStation 3 title LittleBigPlanet. The competition, known as the LittleBigPlanet Game Jam, will impose a strict 24-hour timeline for development. More than 120 students are expected to participate. “We are thrilled to be partnering with some of the most imaginative talents in the world at Parsons The New School For Design," said Scott Rohde, vice president of product development, Worldwide Studios America, in a press release. "The LittleBigPlanet Game Jam is the perfect way to showcase the original and innovative aspects of LittleBigPlanet as well as the exceptional design abilities of the students at Parsons." Working in teams of five, the student developers will have only 24 hours to build a game level using LittleBigPlanet's easy-to-use creation tools. At the end of the 24-hour period, the teams will present their levels to a panel of judges, who will include professional developers from Media Molecule (the team that created LittleBigPlanet), Parsons faculty, and members of the media. The winning Game Jam levels will be featured in a specially branded Parsons section within LittleBigPlanet when it launches this October. LittleBigPlanet is a community-based game that allows players to play, create, and share levels they build with other users throughout the world via the PlayStation Network. Players have the power to move anything in the game's glued and stitched-together 3D landscape; they can design and build objects or entire locations for others to view and play with. The game jam will take place September 21 and 22 in New York City at Parsons. The students’ backgrounds range from technology to music, fashion design, illustration and photography.