"I'm excited about there being new characters. I like Sackboy but it's cool to have others alongside him," she adds.

She's not the only LittleBigPlanet fan to be excited about the new PlayStation 4 game. When Sony games head Shuhei Yoshida announced the game at Sony's pre-E3 press conference, there was a wave of warm, genuine applause from the audience.

The original series, from developer Media Molecule, was a forerunner of the current vogue for creative games that allow players to shape their own worlds — in this case, interactive video game levels. It was first released in 2008 and was soon followed by PSP and PS Vita spin-offs and a 2011 sequel.

This game is being developed by Sumo Digital, based in Sheffield, England, alongside Sony's XDev team.

The difference, as Natalie points out, is that Sackboy has been joined by three new friends who, in the grand tradition of video game quartets, each have their own strengths. In an introductory level of the game, each finds a way to solve a puzzle, using their own powers in cooperation with the others.