What Dreams Are Made Of

So as I had previously teased, I am currently preoccupied with the Little Big Planet beta. Now, I could have posted about games as art, the transcendental experience of game play, or even the literacy of game play. But, that would not be fair since I did mention I have been playing Little Big Planet and it is such an academic mine of topics about game design, player democracy and its relentless visual/audio charm. So, this post will, in fact, focus on Little Big Planet.

Yes, I have been up for hours making levels. But what really excited me about this game was once I entered the online world and discovered the numerous overly creative maps the user community has mode. One of my favorite maps is from a particular user that uses jailbreaks and heists as his themes. What a wonderful turn of visual story-telling where the player has to use dice to enter codes and there are various instances where the player will become caught and be stuck to travel the level in a jail car.

Which brings me to the subject of games that give the user freedom to create their own fun. Spore is a recent game that utilizes this mentality. The idea of building worlds and game mechanics is a very LEGO-esk sensibility. Something that the LEGO franchise games surprisingly lack. The concept of fun through creation is an inherent aspect of games. People do it all the time--create games that is---whether is playing around with the rules of a board game, five degrees of separation games, and the ever enjoyable drinking game.

But games that expect the user to create games is a wholly separate genre in of its own. The notion that you are paying for a product to create your own product sounds like a late-night infomercial scam. Yes, the success of Spore and even the Sims shows that many players will gladly pay to live vicariously not only as a player but a creator. Though Little Big Planet does have a story mode, I have seem myself place and 80-20 ratio of myself building rather than playing in the beta.

This is a wonderful jumping point for discussion and investigation about user participation not only in these creation games but even the more typical narrative games that I no doubt will revisit in the future.