Mr. Yellowhead, from the Craftworld prototype of Media Molecule's PS3 game LittleBigPlanet, courtesy Gamespot

Going into the E3 Media & Business Summit, our Best of Show shortlist consisted of two choices: Rock Band and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. And until the last day of the show, the two titles were still our front-runners. Then we attended a closed-door showing of Media Molecule and Sony's LittleBigPlanet, followed by our first hands-on experience with the game, and we were reminded once again why LBP stole the show at this year's Game Developers Conference. It's got the creativity possibilities of a child's toy box, the charm of a Pixar movie, and the joyfully simple controls that were promised in the now-legendary GDC stage demonstration, shown here. We have no idea what our fellow Game Critics Awards judges will nominate tomorrow, but for us, the choice is clear.

During the Q&A portion of LittleBigPlanet's E3 demonstration, we asked founders Mark Healey and Alex Evans about Craftworld, the different-but-equally charming 2-D prototype that had convinced Sony to sign the startup to a deal, which they'd shown during a smaller session at GDC. Specifically, we wanted to know whether Media Molecules had any plans to further develop and release it. The response--which involved shock, stammering, a near-admission and ultimately a demurral--is transcribed below.

Level Up: The 2-D prototype that you guys did was also very striking. Do you have any plans for that? PSP? Playstation Network? A hidden unlock? Something else?

Mark Healey: [Laughs.] There's--we're not allowed to talk about that, are we?

Playstation publicist: No.

Alex Evans: Sorry, we can't.

Healey: But that prototype you saw, the physics in that is exactly what's being used here. This is almost that prototype, just with remastered graphics really, and the added extra layers.

Evans: It's funny; we've got actually two different extensions. We've got the one that kind of handles the layers and the 2-D stuff. But we also have a cloth simulator, we run everything through that, and that's actually fully 3-D. So if I grab a--

Healey: --the dragon head--

Evans: --yeah, the dragon head. Or you can decorate stuff, like the level. So what you saw at GDC, I can stamp these down in the world [shows cloth objects being laid down] and that's running through a fully 3-D engine. But you can attach it to your character, and that's not 2-D; it's running full 3-D.

Healey: That's one of the things where the Cell processor has really come into its own, actually, because we can just have one of the SPUs completely handle cloth. So you can fill a whole world full of curtains and cloth if you'd like, and it isn't going to make a difference to the speed. It's really nice.

We also asked Healey and Evans about how LBP handles moving player characters between the foreground and background, because while the objects are 3-D, the gameplay itself is 2-D. Here's what they had to say.

Level Up: How do you move in and out of the foreground and background?

Healey: That's a really good question. We tried to keep it really easy and accessible for people. It's like playing a 2-D platform game. What it does is try to automatically determine that for you.

Evans: So when you're creating stuff--sorry, the camera's f---ed here, sorry--this is really early code as well, I should say.

Healey: You remember some of the really old-school platformers, like Metal Slug, for example? There's platforms that look like they're in the background, but you can jump on them anyway. It's almost taking that philosophy, but actually putting it into a 3-D world. So it kind of automatically moves you back and forward. But we are still iterating on it a little bit, because there are certain situations where it's not perfect.

Evans: So I can jump up or I can jump down--

Healey: --and it will automatically move you from the front plane to the back plane. The good thing about that is that it means my mum can play it. I get really lost in 3-D games; I get really disoriented.

Evans: Sometimes [the foreground-background character movement] gets annoying in the current build. You'll see when you play it. Sometimes it's awesome, and you're like, "Yes, it did exactly what I want," and sometimes, it's pushing you backwards and forwards, and you're like, "No, go there!"

Healey: We're working on it.