#lbsa

110 - Dry tree by taka061

i said i wasn't going to re-archive LBP3 levels, since the real big changes (positive) are really from playing LBP1 and 2 levels through their native formats, and generally the damage to levels from drop in power from playing on the PS3 usually cuts into any visual improvements from being able to record in 60fps.

Buuuuut, Dry tree is one of my favourite levels (yes, yes, i know i say that all the time. look, i have a lot of favourite levels), and it's simple enough in presentation and audio that it felt safe enough, and, well, i just wanted to do it, and sometimes that's good enough.

All of taka061's levels are really strong, and they're just a top level creator, but there's something about this one that just ties all their strengths into a beautiful package wiv a nice little ribbon on top. Material choice and shaping is perfect. The layout is dense, but still manages to keep you moving wiv all its curves. The secrets are actually tricky to find, and the way they're right out in the open, but the paths to them are occluded through camera angles is just super cool. The length is just about perfect too, not so girthy where you feel like it's overstayed its welcome, but more than enough that you can really simmer in it. Everything has this sparceness to it that's just accented by the music. This level is fantastic.

There is one oddity to it. Now, like i said up top, i have played this and collected all the secrets before. i've got actual video footage, it's not just a misremembering. The savedata is the same as back then (that is to say, the level hadn't been updated post my initial archive recording). All that should mean that the logic in it is fine and accounted for. Except, it isn't. There's a bit of wiring for one of the secrets that's not wired up right. Also, the tag sensors were coloured wrong, despite the tweak menus being set to the correct colour. i kept doing recordings, getting all the secrets, and not having the counter at the end track them right. i wound up doing a little editing, because, like i said, we have video evidence that it's supposed to be working. But i have no idea what the heck happened there.

--------------------------

things are ok here? i feel like my mood is getting a little crumbly round the edges, but i'm still in a good mood? mostly? we'll see if the pattern holds as we're expecting and i have a crash sometime in the next few days. i'd rather not, but it would mean we'd need to revise theories as to whatever's been fucking wiv me the last few months. well, aside from everything, but everyone's dealing wiv everything, you know?

624 - sea side by hollybaloo

625 - little duckling by hollybaloo

626 - house by hollybaloo

none of these are by ouw own, wonderful @holly-baloo , but when i came across them on LBPfind, i knew i had to give them a whirl. i like to imagine they're from an AU Holly, one on a time line where we all got the childhoods we oughta done.

now, sentiment aside, like, as a pure level review girlie, and these are... well... look, they're clearly made by a kid, so you've got to put a bit of a curve on there. you can tell she had fun making them, and that brings some energy to the table by itself too. they're cute. they're definitely cute, and i'm sure her friends enjoyed playing them.

--------------------------------------

busy busy busy. always so busy me.

oh shite! i almost forgot! go check out holly over on the twitch!

also check out her gal moxxie! who, like holly, is also very cool and nice!

This level is super cute, very charming, has a fun little mechanic wiv the controllable SackBot friend, and the Asteroids mini-game you unlock by finding all the secrets is really cool.

It's also been stolen to hell and back.

The creator left the level copyable, and, well, tonnes of folx went and copied it and published it as their own, which is really crummy to do.

We actually played one of the copies on stream, and then by total chance played the original a few streams later wivout realizing. It was only doing episodes for the Streaming Pile that i finally noticed the creator names were different, and started some light digging.

The second time we only played a minute or so, 'cause i thought we'd accidentally repeated the same level twice, so i figured i'd do it up as an Archive video so the OG creator could at least get some late flowers.

Not a tonne to say about these levels except for they're absolutely gorgeous, and go way harder than it feels like LBP2 should have been capable of.

Both of them are relying almost exclusively on hand-drawn paint-mode stickers, wiv just a few necessary gameplay elements (switches and point bubbles mainly), which is just wild. LBP usually struggles wiv having too many stickers on screen, and a lot of times you'll see them getting pixelated, or sometimes not even appearing, but i don't think that happens even once in either level?

It's hard to pick which of the two i like more. RED MACHINE CITY is probably the more fun vis-a-vis playing of the two; it's a big chonky level wiv lots of interactions wiv the environment, and lots of searching around for secrets and progress points.

Buuuuut, Transparent is honestly just shockingly beautiful. To the extent i worry a bit that the video really conveys it, given how YouTub crunches things up, and also i was having to fiddle through a bunch of potential render settings at the time. Hopefully you'll get a good feel for what it's like, but the best option is, as always, playing it yourself, so go grab the both of them off the Dry Archive, eh?

------------------------------

539 - Silent Hill: Tribute by MonkeyButler

A pretty decent level hewing more to the film than the game (and maybe the one the last SH level was complaining about in its description?). Really liked the ranking system at the end, and i wonder how they pulled it off in LBP1. i've got a few ideas, and i suppose i could always just go in and check. Does feel a lil invasive tho' to go in their create mode when i don't have a necessity to do so.

540 - 黑色地獄 The Dark by KENBABE

Very kludgy LBP1 semi-hard level here, but a real good time for all of that. i feel kinda bad we broke it on stream, seeing as they told us exactly how not to do that, and i just wasn't paying attention. Ope.

541 - Mad Mansion by geosautus

This one definitely has its neat elements. The carriage at the beginning is real cool, i definitely liked the puzzle, and the graveyard beast was a great idea. Buuuut... dang was this an easy level to break. Lots of places where the physics can just fuck you over and hand you a softlock.

542 - Dream Bubbles: Skycity by Fotosynthesis1

From just a casual play standpoint, and i really dug this one a lot. Very cheerful, organic shaping to the level, and lots of places to run around and see. Archiving it, tho', was a bit of a pain, not gonna lie. Could be real tough to tell if i'd actually gone everywhere in any given area.

543 - Broken wheel and girl [ Japanese horror ] by keisama777

A bit of a weird one here. Mostly a haunted house where you're looking for event flags to trip so you can backtrack and trip some other event flag kind of deal? Some of the bits are really neat, if a bit gruesome, but the level just, kinda, breaks? You get to a point where all the lights go out completely, and they don't go back on unless you put a sticker up somewhere. Like, anywhere, any sticker, not something special already outlined in the level, and... why would anyone think to do that? i did, but i still don't know why it worked. Eventually you come to a point where a door gets stuck, and you just can't progress beyond that; which, ok, that's happened plenty of times before, but when i went into create to see if it was my fuck up, and there are just a tonne of bits, all blocked out wiv cameras for movies that... like, they're not triggerable? There's no leading logic to get them to start? There's a secret dev room that has no way to get to it, no teleporter or level drop outs? But there's a Sackthing down there that has dialogue, and there are prizes, and wtf?

544 - Muddy Malignance by Nexus_Prime73

i really, really liked the look of this one, but dang some of the gameplay bits were just kind of frustrating. i don't know if i was having trouble figuring out what was expected of me, or if they'd just not been playtested quite enough, but this one was a real struggle.

545 - [JPN] 青/緑 BLUE/GREEN by taka061

i'm gonna just wind up archiving all of taka061's levels eventually, aren't i? They're just such a great creator, and i love their style and elegance in presentation.

546 - A Cubist Nightmare by ninpy

i don't know about this one, really It's not bad, don't get me wrong, and it certainly has all of the ninpean hallmarks, but it just doesn't quite land as well as some of his others do for me. Might just be the b&w colour scheme, and just how all around dark the level is don't really let you get a good feel of how impressive the mechanical work is here.

547 - Breath of Sapphire by theflashback02

Visually this level is just gorgeous, even playing on ps3. And it definitely has some neat gameplay elements. Shaking the controller to cause earthquakes to open paths was really cool; feels like i hardly ever see anyone really using the sixaxis as a gameplay tool. Bringing in Oddsock at the second half, tho', and companion gameplay is always a little meh to me.

548 - Bamboo Boost by Velma4ever

Another banger from Melangard. Great visual design and presentation. Fun boost boots action. Just an all-round good time.

----------------------------------

611 - The Tower of Silence by alexsiro

i don't know why this level stands out so much for me, but it really is one of my faves. It's just so chill? Deeply cozy vibes?

i really like the material choices here, and the shaping suits the level really well. Like, most everything about the presentation here is top marks. The level does have a decent enough flow to it, and some fun gameplay, although alexsiro has put together a teleport if you fall too far, so it's impossible to actually die. i get it, and i don't mind terribly; i'd probably mind a lot more if you could fall all the way to the bottom, and then have to climb all the way back up if you missed a jump. Still, i could see some players being a little weird over that.

085 - A Realm Forgotten by Lockstitch

661 - Granite Gardens by Lockstitch

gosh, but Lockstitch's levels were always just fantastic. Interesting shaping, kinda geometric, kinda organic, excellent material choice, and a limited but extremely well-implemented palette of stickers & decos all add up to a visual experience that's distinct and interesting wivout skittering over to being distracting from the gameplay. That gameplay is silk-smooth throughout, low-end challenging, but maintaining a nice, quick pace. On top of all that, there's a fair amount of quite nicely done mechanical movement in all their levels, and i do love me some good old-fashioned mechanicals. Just a top notch creator.

----------------------------------------------------------------

i guess we played through the whole lot of @internet-toon 's Broken Safe of the Forgotten Archipelago on stream? Which i'm pretty sure makes this the longest Streaming Pile episode we've ever done?

Now, wiv all honesty, i probably should have chopped out the mid-stream break from this video, but i was tired and that would have been extra work. Still, maybe an hour-forty minute video could use a bit of intermission. At any rate, this one will always sit near to my heart; it just nails so much of what it's going for, and it has this, like, palpable melancholia and loneliness to it leavening the wonder of the setting (and knowing, broadstrokes, what it took to achieve it) that really speaks to me. Honestly, right up there wiv Chapter Zero by chronos453 for LBP experiences.

--------------------------------------------------

Our first LittleBite-sizedArchive batch of 2026! Woot!

089 - Caverns of the Lost by LittleBigDes

This one's a real charmer. Very much of a particular type of LBP2-era presentation that i really love. Solid gameplay, wiv a few (not very secret) secrets. Des is a long-time visitor to the Empty Room, and i've been blessed for knowing her. Her daughter sent me fanmail once, and that just tickled me to death. It's a shame this level never got it's promised follow-up, tho'.

119 - The Clock Repairer by Intangir85

A little bit clunky in its added mechanics, tho' certainly forgivable given how difficult it could be to implement those in LBP2. Was really glad to be able to revisit this one, as it was another that was broken when playing in LBP3.

520 - Seaside Hotel by NackedOcelot

A chill little hangout level from LBP1. Lovely design, and a solid build. A little small compared to others i've played, but i think it works better for that; some of the big house-style levels just wind up feeling a bit empty. Love the fireworks display from the balcony. Just all-round a nice level to visit.

521 - Coaster Inc by Pign

This is a really neat one, tho' the size and amount of moving objects really push the PS3 through its paces. There's a weird bit near the end where the coasters just kind of get stuck? Don't know if it's a dThermo loading thing fucking wiv the logic, or a faulty build, but it definitely adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings. Of course, that's just because it's (barely) escapable. If it softlocked the level, it'd be a very different story.

522 - Grab 'N' Graveyard by r2d2111

Wow... this one is really some kind of wow. Not always in the good way, either. It has a fantastic presentation, and some really fun and interestingly implemented mechanics, buuut... those mechanics can be fiddly as hell. Really easy to have momentum put you where you're not expected to be, and wind up eating a lot of deaths. Still, i never thought i'd play a level that had you rappelling wiv zombie guts, or plucking eyeballs out, so, like... that's cool.

523 - Silent Hill 1 Tribute by KilledByKangaroo

Honestly? This is a pretty decent representation of SH1 wivin LBP1. i mean, you have to be accounting for the limitations of create mode, but still, it was really neat. Even had a UFO ending, so that was cute. Was kind of funny how the creator was very specific about it being a tribute to the game, and not the movie, and i feel like it was in response to another SH tribute level of the era that had the temerity to include Red Pyramid Thing.

524 - THE LITTLEST BIGGEST EXCELLENTEST ADVENTURE [EST] 1 by Redfinio

Despite a title that feels like it's promising a meme level, this one is actually a pretty solid, and decently large early LBP level. A couple of tense bits like the steamroller, tho' nothing too difficult. Had a really good time wiv this one. There is one potential softlock in the level, tho' you have to be pretty unlucky, or playing kinda weird to get stuck in it. Like me. i did get stuck in it.

525 - Ocean Commotion [LBPCC1] by Chessguy

Holy crap, but it is shocking how good this level is. Just absolutely gorgeous, pretty tight, zippy gameplay, a few tricky spots mechanically. There is one section i could quibble wiv the setup some, but overall, just a really fun level to challenge yourself wiv. But even more than all that is just how well it plays even on the PS3. You'd think wiv all the motion and decoration that the engine would start to chug and you'd wind up wiv some nasty lag, or objects popping in and out, but i really didn't see any of that. Super impressive work from Chessguy.

526 - Head in the Clouds by KomodoBrothers

Another solid one from KomodoBrothers here. Lovely presentation, wiv some really nice colour choices, which is something i feel like doesn't usually get focused on as well as it should. Gameplay is fun, although it can be a little confusing getting the hang of just what they want you to do the first time through. It's one level where i'm glad they make the race an option on subsequent plays, instead of throwing you right in it first time; i feel like it'd get real frustrating until you've got a good mental map of things.

527 - Cardboard -NEW- by taka061

Yet another fun, intricate level from taka061. It feels a little more directionless compared to some of their other works, but the exploration works well enough here. i've always been a sucker for well done cardboard levels, and this is a great example of the type; there's lots of nice detailing work to help break up what can be a very bland material when it's used in broad swaths.

-------------------------------------