Somethin's Cookin' (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) [Updated with level recording]

[Trindall]

Title: Somethin’s Cookin’
Forum ID/PSN: Trindall
Location: North America/Canada West coast



Overview
This is a level I put together as a competition entry dedicated to movies and thought I'd start promoting it generally.

The 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" opens up with an animated short about Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman that turns out to be a part of the movie itself.

I recreated the animated short from the movie in this level adding in a variety of gameplay elements and activities to keep things fun. The level is intended to recreate the look and feel of the cartoon and as such the challenges are generally easy to moderate in level depending on your own skill.

If you haven't seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit or just want a refresher on my source material you can watch the four minutes of the movie that my level is based on from YouTube.

Original Clip
[Watch YouTube Video]
LBP Level
[Watch YouTube Video]





I appreciate any feedback on the level and will reciprocate for those that wish with feedback of my own for the level requested. I hope that you enjoy the level.

[Coxy224]

Ah Trindall, a brilliant level you have here - simply superb (and unfortunately in the same contest as me <_< )
It's great, and I've played it enough times to have the high score as well!

Pros:
+ Great design of pretty much everything!
+ Gameplay lends itself well to your movie
+ The race section is good
+ The "big lady" is clever
+ The opening section is great

Cons:
-It is possible to climb up the "big Lady" at the end and see that she has no head.......
-The power-up cancellations after the race are actually very easy to avoid.

Overall I rated it 5 stars and hearted. And hated you for making such a good level!

Can I get feedback on my Halloween Town Level please : )

[Matt 82•]

Great fun. Had me laughing all the way through it. I might just watch that film tonight as that cartoon always has me in stitches.

Really well designed. Certainly one of the best 'movie levels' available.

Brilliantly directed. I had 2 gripes.

1- I wasn`t always sure what was happening. When I came out of the oven I ended up in a big wheel. I guess it was a washing machine, but wasn`t too sure. Wasn`t sure what the number grabbing part represented either.

2- The baby doesn`t storm out in a huff at the end smoking a cigar.

Great stuff though. Well done, and good luck in the competition.

EDIT- I see from the video that it`s you running around the room. Now I see that, it`s well done, though maybe a bit hard to make out if you`re just playing the level without the refresher.

5 stars, hearted with a brilliant tag.

[Trindall]

Cons:
-It is possible to climb up the "big Lady" at the end and see that she has no head.......
-The power-up cancellations after the race are actually very easy to avoid.

Overall I rated it 5 stars and hearted. And hated you for making such a good level!

Can I get feedback on my Halloween Town Level please : )

Thank you for the good feedback on this. Yes the ‘big lady’ has no head as in the movie you seen in the background that it was actually an actor in stilts, a large dress and big ‘toon’ feet. I put the feet in at the end the same way so that you can see it is just a movie prop.
(Plus for those who explore up there can find their way to a score bubble cache.)

I’m going to have to lower the invisible rubber shield so that you have no choice but to go through the powerup cancellator thingies.

I'll happily pound on your level more tonight and I'll get you some proper feedback on your Halloween level.

Brilliantly directed. I had 2 gripes.

1- I wasn`t always sure what was happening. When I came out of the oven I ended up in a big wheel. I guess it was a washing machine, but wasn`t too sure. Wasn`t sure what the number grabbing part represented either.

2- The baby doesn`t storm out in a huff at the end smoking a cigar.

Thank you for the positive words.

Yes I think that the level can be strange and disoriented to those who aren’t a bit familiar with the movie and I have a ‘Weird’ tag on the level for that reason I think. I had a hard time translating that kitchen in to 2.5D space and had to do some interpretation.

The number grabbing section was an attempt to add some gameplay to an area that didn't have a lot going for it. In the film Roger Rabbit just flies around the room so I wanted something game related while flying around the room, thus the number grabbing race section.

I’d have liked to show Baby Herman as the terror that he is but at that point the thermo was getting way too high and I think the sweet-er Herman is a better fit for the friendly oriented LittleBigPlanet player base.

[Loius]

Great movie, and great interpretation.

The number-grabbing part, as was said above, seemed weird. 'Specially with plasma flying around.

The knives were awesome.

[groble]

okay just played, I gave it 4 stars but wanted to make some comments.

+ The knives sticking into the wall were really cool, I liked the entire knife section.
+ Over all the level design was very good
+ The opening titles were very nicely done
+ I enjoyed the twist at the end, very cool

- Most of the time I had no idea what was going on and the method to progress to the next section was often not very clear, for example climbing into the oven, I though I had to jump onto the counter and it took me a while to figure out where I was meant to go.
- I found it difficult to jump onto the middle of the spinning wheel.
- The rolling pin (I only know it was a rolling pin from your image above) confused the heck out of me I didn't know what was going on with it.

I think my general feeling about the level was that it was very well made but very confusing, It felt less like I was playing at times and more like I was just along for the ride.

[Morgana25]

I checked it out last night and thought you nailed the look of the original cartoon. Excellent artistic design and color choices there.

I did get stuck and couldn't finish the level. In the numbers grabbing section - I grabbed them and then nothing happened. I couldn't find a way out either..... I don't know if I did something wrong or if it's a technical problem. I'll try again tonight.

[Noroibito]

This was a really cute level. I watched to video and you related them very well! I agree though with the other posters about the number section feeling out of place. But other than that it was really good level. Successful so far!
4 stars/ Cute

Oh and can you do some F4F please? Can you give feedback on the series of levels in my signature below? I'd really appreciate that! Thanks!

[NinjaMicWZ]

I actually remember this short from back then... that was from a period where they were kind of trying to resurrect the pre-feature film cartoon short (and only ended up without about 3 or 4 cartoons :/).

This was classic... you 100% captured the essence of being a slapstick peon being battered around by a much smarter opponent in every ACME sense of the word. There was alot of variety put into it, and I was amazed at how you were able to turn the short into a playable and fun level with traditional LBP gameplay. Another touch I liked - actually bothering to make the mom huge and only visible up to the waist - a classic Tom & Jerry technique in cartoons like this.

Also... best looking intro credits screen ever, bar none. That made the level right there.

I also liked the catering shout out to LBPF at the end.

[Trindall]

- Most of the time I had no idea what was going on and the method to progress to the next section was often not very clear, for example climbing into the oven, I though I had to jump onto the counter and it took me a while to figure out where I was meant to go.
- I found it difficult to jump onto the middle of the spinning wheel.
- The rolling pin (I only know it was a rolling pin from your image above) confused the heck out of me I didn't know what was going on with it.

Thank you for the time in this level groble.

I went back and moved the prompt arrow to point into the stove to try and clear up the confusion for others. This is a good point, thanks.

The spinning wheel you talk about should be the big room that is spinning through half a revolution. While you can get onto the center of the wheel thing that is not the intended purpose of the room. (Though you can get up there to easily grab one of the bubble clusters.) I added a guide arrow at the start of the room to try and clear this up.

Yes, the rolling pin doesn't translate well into LBP. Roger Rabbit rolls around on the rolling pin for a while before flying into the stove. I thought that this was a good approximation.

I did get stuck and couldn't finish the level. In the numbers grabbing section - I grabbed them and then nothing happened. I couldn't find a way out either..... I don't know if I did something wrong or if it's a technical problem. I'll try again tonight.

Were you able to grab all of the colored balls in succession until they were all gone but nothing happened or did they not disappear when you grabbed them?

Those balls have logic behind them so that you can only grab them in sequence so its 1 - 9. However there is even more logic so that once they are all gone the room doesn't close and start rotating until all of the players are in the right side of the room.

There may be a very rare case where a stray, uncollected score bubble rolls into a spot where the retaining wall needs to be emitted and fouls up the works. I've don't what I can to eliminate that problem but with LBP physics being what it is you never know I guess.

However I did add in some clarification to the race sequence to help people understand the purpose of the balls.

I look forward to hearing if things work out better the second time around.

Oh and can you do some F4F please? Can you give feedback on the series of levels in my signature below? I'd really appreciate that! Thanks!

Thank you for the feedback. I'd be happy to play and give feedback on you levels. Give me a bit of time though as things are pretty hectic at the moment but it'll be a day or so.

This was classic... you 100% captured the essence of being a slapstick peon being battered around by a much smarter opponent in every ACME sense of the word. There was alot of variety put into it, and I was amazed at how you were able to turn the short into a playable and fun level with traditional LBP gameplay. Another touch I liked - actually bothering to make the mom huge and only visible up to the waist - a classic Tom & Jerry technique in cartoons like this.

I appreciate the play and praise, it means a lot since I'm a big fan of your creative mindset and levels.

Being a less creative type I do well at mimicry and reproduction rather than innovation. I wanted to be as close to the elements of the short as possible but this also ends up confusing those who aren't intimately familiar with this clip. (A large majority of players.)

With this level I'm trying to come up with a fun and easily accessible level for people to play that does not require a large time commitment and works without breakage.

The LBPF promotion angle of the level isn't something I would normally do but that group has been good to me for a good stretch of time and I'm happy to enter the competition.

[Spider-Jew]

Very cool level...the movie was awesome and you made an excellent interpretation of it. The kitchen looks so much like the one from the movie. Great job! You should add some flying birds when the fridge opens if possible...that was the only thing I could really complain about lol.

[Trindall]

Very cool level...the movie was awesome and you made an excellent interpretation of it. The kitchen looks so much like the one from the movie. Great job! You should add some flying birds when the fridge opens if possible...that was the only thing I could really complain about lol.

Thanks for the play through of the level. You are right about the flying birds as that was something that I really wanted to do from the start but by the end I was low on thermometer space and a bit at a lot on how to do it well.

Thanks again.

[Spider-Jew]

Oh, I know all to well the sadness of having a full thermometer with ideas left unmade

[Asbestos101]

I played this before I saw this thread, just popping in to say I really enjoyed it although it's not really always obvious as to how your supposed to die :P (oven in particular)

Good though, I saw it through to the end (loved the knife bit)

[Trindall]

I played this before I saw this thread, just popping in to say I really enjoyed it although it's not really always obvious as to how your supposed to die :P (oven in particular)

When the level was first out I was relying on the visual clues on the screen to guide the player but there were many still confused. So I put in a system of arrows to guide the player along.

When you played was the arrows there to show you where to go and if so were you still confused?

I appreciate the the positive comments on the level as it is really hit or miss with some people. Those familiar with the cartoon like the level a whole lot more than those who haven't seen it so if I do another level along these lines I'm going to make sure that it is not such a literal translation but more of a themed level with more gameplay elements.