In-Game Creation Suite

Editing happens in the same space as playing. A character or cursor manipulates physical objects directly, dragging out material, attaching bolts and switches, wiring logic between parts, then switching to play and testing on the spot. Tools are taught through the campaign rather than a manual, and every asset used by the shipped levels is available. Publishing and browsing are built in, so sharing never leaves the game.

Media Molecule released LittleBigPlanet in 2008 on a console with no keyboard, which ruled out a conventional editor from the start. Their answer was to make authoring a physical activity performed with the same controls used to play, taught the way the game teaches everything else. Commercially the point was a product that keeps producing content indefinitely without the studio having to build any of it.

Creation as play brought in people who would never open a level editor, particularly younger players, and produced enormous volumes of levels. Ceilings are the cost. Controller-driven tools are slower and less precise than a mouse, complex logic becomes physically laborious, and once millions of levels exist discovery matters more than authoring. Servers eventually close, which erases most of what was made.