LittleBigPlanet Karting

LittleBigPlanet Karting is a LittleBigPlanet spin-off which involves kart-racing. It was developed by Media Molecule and United Front Games, the creators of ModNation Racers. The game was released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 and was announced on March 22, 2012. It uses an entirely new game engine compared to the other LittleBigPlanet games released on the PlayStation 3.

In 2018, it was announced that the game's servers would shut down on July 10, along with the ModNation Racers servers.

Story
Main article: LittleBigPlanet Karting Story

Sackboy was out standing in The Gardens, when The Hoard showed up on their karts and started to hoard everything. The Narrator explains that all The Hoard wants to do is to keep everything, and to not create, play, or share with any of it. Suddenly, a member of The Hoard crashes his kart into the tree next to Sackboy, and falls to their death in a pit of flames, so Sackboy takes their old kart and chases after The Hoard with it.

Gameplay
LittleBigPlanet Karting is a racing game in which players race against a variety of human or computer controlled opponents across various tracks, with the goal to come in first place. Similar to other action kart-racing games, players can pick up weapons and items while racing that grant special abilities. Some of these powerups include homing projectiles, EMPs, grenades, and more.

The game features many of the traditional features associated with LittleBigPlanet. Various gadgets allow players to "bounce, grapple or grab" their way through race tracks. Players can play single-player or race against their friends in online multiplayer or local split-screen mode. The game also features race challenges.

Gameplay modes include Battle Mode, Waypoint Races, Treasure Hunts, Score Attacks, Free Roams and more.

Create Mode
LittleBigPlanet Karting features a familiar set of tools that allow the player to build their own tracks and arenas or customize their karts. Unlike most LittleBigPlanet games, the player can create levels in 3D, and even make their own weapons, a feature that later returned in LittleBigPlanet 3.

Server shutdown & Community Level Archive
The game was officially shutdown on the 2nd of July 2018. However, network data was successfully preserved for the game to facilitate the creation of a server emulator. And a complete backup of the player creation data on the server was also successful, however for now only a few levels are in a playable format.

Those few levels, and the network data can be found here: LittleBigArchive LBPK

Trivia

 * The loading screen mimics the loading screen of the first LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 's loading screen.
 * LittleBigPlanet Karting was originally going to be ModNation Racers 2, a sequel to ModNation Racers. It became LBPK because Sony thought i'd be better if the game was on a bigger franchise, knowing that if it was they'd sell more copies.
 * According to the game's Community Coordinator, a lot of the  LittleBigPlanet Karting  developers didn't care about the game, and some even hated making games in general.
 * Every 2nd world is a world only-appearing in LittleBigPlanet Karting, however Hoard, sweet hoard is also one of them.