When the folks at the Sony-owned studio Media Molecule declared that they wanted to do something other than LittleBigPlanet, they weren’t kidding. While I’m sure that somewhere deep in the bowels of the English studio there rests a team working on a next-gen game, Tearaway on PlayStation Vita represents the studio’s very first foray away from Sackboy. It’s a different game from LBP, to be sure, but it also feels like only a half-step in a different direction, what with its cartoony look and cute, cuddly main characters. Either way, it’s decidedly a Media Molecule game, and that alone will appeal to a wide swath of the PlayStation faithful.

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I’ve finally been given the chance to play Tearaway – due out sometime in 2013 – and I’ve been left with mixed emotions. I really liked a lot of what I played, but I was also left slightly bewildered by just what I was playing. Immediately after putting the Vita down, I was pleased, but the more I thought about the experience, the more I was confused about it. It’s not to say that Tearaway is gearing up to disappoint – it’s basically bleeding charm out of every orifice of its digital being – but it is to say that Tearaway seems incomplete when experienced in a woefully short burst. As IGN PlayStation overlord Greg Miller put it to me when we were talking about it after the fact, it’s clearly not a game that lends itself to a demo.So what is Tearaway? It was described by Media Molecule representatives, in short, as “a paper world,” and it really is just that. Everything in the world is created using a sort of “paper engine”, from the game’s male and female main characters – Iota and Atoi – to most everything in the world they’re exploring. Platforms are made of paper. Trees are made of paper. Rocks are made of paper. Heck, even the enemies you encounter are made of paper. In this sense, the game’s title makes perfect sense, because you’re constantly tearing away at paper… as well as hopping over and around it, using it as a weapon, and doing with it just about everything else you can imagine. You, as the gamer, will navigate this paper world as you would any 3D platformer. But there are significant twists in the formula.The core of the game sounds undeniably brilliant. Iota and Atoi are known as “Messengers”, indicated by their funny, envelope-like heads (and those heads are fully customizable, just like Sackboy). And they have a message for you that you’re bound to uncover as you move through the game; it was described, quite literally, as “a delivery adventure”. What that message is remains to be seen, but what’s quite clear the second you begin to play Tearaway is how involved you are in the game, not necessarily as the player, but as a character. As the developers pointed out, it’s not that they’re occasionally removing the fourth wall with Tearaway. In their new title, the fourth wall doesn’t really exist at all.As such, Tearaway seems to be as much an interactive experience as it is a game. Media Molecule admits that they wanted to make a “super tactile” game with their first Vita title, and it’s this design philosophy that represents both Tearaway’s greatest promise and what could perhaps be its greatest flaw. Indeed, I fear the end result may be too tactile. The Vita can do all sorts of things we’re all quite familiar with by now. The OLED screen is in fact a touch screen, the back of the Vita is a touch pad, there’s SixAxis-like gyros inside the unit, there are cameras and more. Tearaway uses all of this functionality, and even in the hands of a skilled team like Media Molecule, it can’t help but come off as a tad bit gimmicky. It makes me wonder, no matter how well-executed, if gamers want to continue to deal with untraditional input. It makes me wonder if Tearaway would be a purer experience without this functionality, or if Tearaway simply wouldn’t be possible without it.Regardless, Tearaway seems primed to do to the 3D platformer what LittleBigPlanet did to the 2D side-scrolling action game: turn it on its head. Tearaway isn’t without easy definition – it most certainly is a 3D platformer – but so much about the game is unique and different. In the section of the game I played – Sogport – there was a heavy emphasis on solving puzzles while dodging gigantic paper creatures known as Wendigos. The island location of Sogport is surrounded by an ocean of glue, another key component of Tearaway’s gameplay, but the island is also shrinking due to the destructive accidents of its inhabitants.In Sogport, the devious Wendigos can be manipulated by their love of pearls. When you find a pearl, hurl it towards a Wendigo and he’ll run towards it with reckless abandon. Iota and Atoi can use this to their advantage by capturing Wendigos in traps, allowing them to continue on their journey safely. Of course, there’s more to navigating Sogport than the Wendigos; there are platforms to jump on and over, minor puzzles to solve and – as mentioned earlier – glue to utilize. Glue, when spread along paper in the world, acts as a substance that allows Iota and Atoi to stick to walls (and other objects) they’d otherwise be unable to span. But be careful of pools of glue, as these will make short work of your Messenger friends.Interestingly, there are small collectible jewels all around the environment; think of them as coins in Super Mario, but a lot smaller. Why is that interesting? Because they apparently have an important function in Tearaway, but one that the developers at Media Molecule are not yet ready to discuss. Oh, and Tearaway totes an ingenious health system based on a stamp that appears on-screen. When you get hit by a foe, the stamp appears. Avoid being damaged for a few seconds, and it disappears. Get damaged again with the stamp on-screen, however, and you go back to the previous checkpoint. Thankfully, the game is super forgiving with its checkpoints and not at all meant to punish or frustrate.Perhaps the most exciting about Tearaway is that it takes place in an open world, suggesting that it might not be the PSN-only game that we kind of assumed it was. The island of Sogport is just one small part of a greater world to explore. A developer told me that you can backtrack through previous areas, and that those areas might not only change by the time you return, but that items and skills you find and learn in future areas will lend towards the need to backtrack. For instance, an item is found that allows Iota and Atoi to manipulate wind, creating both outward gusts and inward-pulling suction. Going back with that item may net gamers major returns.Media Molecule declares that, with Tearaway, their emphasis on paper “isn’t just an art style.” Rather, it’s “an ethos.” It’s clear when you play the game that they mean what they say. Their attempt to give gamers “god-like hands” in playing their newest title is well-intentioned, and from what I saw, it’s mostly well-executed. Still, something feels incomplete about Tearaway, a feeling I almost certainly get due to only having played the game for a little under half an hour.Tearaway is so charming it hurts, and I am incredibly interested in seeing more of it. My hope is that Media Molecule strikes the perfect balance between creating a thoughtful 3D platformer and using the Vita’s functionality tastefully. Considering the studio’s track record, I have faith they’ll figure it out by the time Tearaway’s in the hands of the masses… if they haven’t already.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.