Target Practice (LittleBigPlanet Karting)

Target Practice (LittleBigPlanet Karting)
Game	LittleBigPlanet Karting
Location	LittleBigPlanet
Creator	The Queen
Level type	Side, score challenge
Prizes	26
Number of players	1
Prerequisite	Podium finish on After the Wedding

This page is a work in progress. As a result, the layout and/or content herein may be subject to change.

“	Weaponators! There sure are a lot of different doodads for hitting, passing, and defending against The Hoard, aren't there? That's why we've hired a cast of Hoard stand-ins for you to launch Weaponators at as you please. Go ahead. They're paid for.	„
— Level description

Target Practice is a single player side level in LittleBigPlanet Karting, designed to teach the player how to use the Weaponator offensively.

Overview

The minigame takes place on an hourglass shaped track, with a small forest — consisting of fabric trees, flora and a castle — on one end, and a cardboard village on the other. The track crosses over itself in the centre, with the player driving under a wooden bridge in the first half, and driving over it in the latter half. This track's layout is also shared with Self Defence, another Weaponator oriented side level.

The player is joined by four Hoard racers who cannot collect Weaponators, and thus are incapable of defending themselves or fighting back. The player is encouraged to use the weapons they receive from Weaponators to hit the Hoard; every kart they hit awards a time extension and 200 points. Prizes are also awarded for blowing up a certain number of Hoardlings, with 30 being needed to mark the level as Looted.

The level has a time limit of 30 seconds, with the minigame ending once it hits 0. The time bonus earned from destroying the Hoard starts at +5 seconds but gradually becomes smaller as the game continues, until it reaches the point where the timer counts down faster than it can be extended.

Logic Breakdown

Counting Hits

Each of the Hoard Spawn Points has the same basic logic for tracking hits: a Weapon Blast Sensor and a Timer set to 2.0s are connected to an AND Gate connected to an orange Transmitter. The Timer counts up on its own and gets reset when the Weapon Blast Sensor goes off, ostensibly to account for the brief invincibility period granted when respawning. If both the Timer and Weapon Sensor are active at the same time, the Transmitter gets activated.

The core minigame logic is found on a Mushroom Tree next to the start line. There are four orange Receivers, one of which is directly wired into an OR Gate E, with the other three being connected to Timers, which themselves are connected to E. The Receivers connected to Timers are set to detect 2, 3 and 4 orange Transmitters respectively, with the timers being set to 0.1s, 0.2s and 0.2s. This ensures that weapon hits are always counted, even if the player hits multiple Hoardlings in a single instance, e.g. if multiple karts get caught in a Lob Bomb's blast radius.

Time Limit

Time Bonus Cheat Sheet

Karts Hit	Time Bonus	Actual Average
0-9	+5s	+5s
10-19	+4s	+4s
20-29	+3s	+3s
30-39	+2s	+4s
40+	+1s	+3s

In Create Mode, the logic for the countdown timer is nested inside the microchip that processes weapon hits. When the player hits a kart as described above, the OR Gate E sends Positive signals to a 0.2s Timer wired into Counter B to initiate the time bonus, Counter D to keep track of when it's time to switch time bonuses, and a Negative signal to a Counter C, which serves to buffer time bonuses in case the player hits multiple karts in a single instant.

The time limit is controlled by a Counter A, which triggers a Game Ender when it reaches its Target Count of 30. A receives both Positive signals (incrementing it by 1) every second, and Negative signals whenever the player destroys a Hoard kart, decrementing it by 1 every time a Timer N reaches its Target Time of 0.1s; N gets triggered when a Selector gets flipped to port 2 by B.

A 5-port Selector is used in combination with AND Gates and Counters to determine which time bonus to award, with five Counters determining how many times N should pulse. When N pulses, it increments whichever Counter the Selector has activated; all five of these Counters are connected to an OR Gate, which increments C by 1 when it gets activated; if C is equal to 10, it resets B to signify that all queued bonuses have been processed.

D has a Target Count of 10, and it pulses the four AND Gates directly above it when full, which set the 5-port Selector to one of its states based on which state it's already in. So if it's on State 1 and D is full, it will switch to State 2; if it's in State 2 and D is full, it switches to State 3, and so on. Once it reaches State 5, it will stay there for the rest of the game.

Due to the way LittleBigPlanet Karting processes logic, N can still pulse for a brief period after the time bonus is supposed to finish, which manifests as fluctuations from the intended time value when the Selector cycles. In the most extreme case, this results in the +1 second bonus (intended wind down the game) awarding +3 seconds instead.

On the right is a table summarising the time bonuses and the ranges they occur in.

Characters

Named Racers

• Hoardsley
• Hoardratio
• Hoardford
• Hoardsworth

Collectibles

This level has 26 prizes to collect. As mentioned above, these are earned by hitting Hoard karts.

Prize Bubbles (26)

Flare

Sack Crossing

Missile

Golf Club Bottom

Road Sign - Fork

Road Sign - Arrow

Swervy Arrow

Pylon

Yellow Nose

Orange Bird

Disco Bot

Red Butterfly

Techno Tree

King Stamp

U-Turn

Outline Spech Bubble

Black Triangle Outline

Green Speech Bubble

Cardboard Ring

Pink Heart Speech Bubble

Fire Truck

Heart - Black

'Ten Cities Beyond'

Stylised Antelope

Heart -White

Sharp Right Arrow

Music

'Ten Cities Beyond' by Snake and Jet's Amazing Bullit Band

Dialogue

“	Time to get to know a thing or two about WEAPONATORS. They hold all the barmy ballistic devices you’ll ever need for politely nudging aside those Sunday-drivers or lane-changing-weavers who might otherwise spoil a nice peaceful race. In this game you’ll get random weapons to play with and get the measure of. Blast away as many Hoard karters as you can, for they have absolutely no morals and even fewer manners. Brutes.	„
— Narrator's pre-load commentary

Instruction Text

Pick up weapon pods and sharpen your aim! Your practice chums won’t shoot back. Yet!
Use the  button to fire. Each hit gives you a time extension!
See if you can get 30 Hits to win all the prizes! Oh, what could they all be!?

Gallery

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  Preview screenshot for Target Practice