Tearaway wasn't conceived as a platformer

Media Molecule's Tearaway on PS Vita has been a long time coming, and has gone through several iterations to get to the point it's at now, where it's generally impressing even the most cynical people at gamescom. But when work on the game first started at the home of LittleBigPlanet, it wasn't intended as a full platformer.

In an interview with Polygon studio director Siobahn Reddy talked about the game's beginnings.

"We had tried very early on, right at the beginning, we had tried a lot of it not being that full platformer experience," Reddy said. "It was kind of different prototypes of how to get that player outside of the game and the character inside of the game's relationship going. There were a lot of things tried out that getting the same kind of bond."

In fact, in an early iteration of Tearaway the protagonist was the player's finger poking through the back of the screen. This was scrapped for many reasons, not only the practicality of having to keep the Vita balanced on your finger.

It was a logical progression for it to evolve into a platformer, with a distinct Media Molecule twist. "Well, I mean obviously, we have the skills of making platforming games, so it felt like we had a good core then, to build this adventure," said Rex Crowle, lead designer on the game. "We've got great designers that can create that scenery to climb through and run on, as the messenger themselves was becoming more agile, so we knew we could make more of that."

Tearaway launches in November as a Vita exclusive.