LittleBigPlanet PS Vita was my first full game production. I was tasked with bringing the full console level-creation experience to a handheld, while also expanding and extending it. Working closely with internal creative teams and our tech partners at Double Eleven Ltd, I redesigned and enhanced the existing tools and interfaces from the PlayStation 3 game, tailoring the experience for the Vita’s unique combination of buttons, analogue sticks and touch interfaces.
Create Mode
LittleBigPlanet’s level editor, or “Create Mode”, is one of the 3 core pillars of the franchise and the user-generated content is a big draw. As such, ensuring that Create Mode on PS Vita lived up to the standards of the home console and the potential of Sony’s new handheld was a high priority. My main focus on this project was the user experience: developing a coherent and intuitive interaction model that would improve productivity for the internal development team and provide our community with a fantastic create experience. At the same time, it was imperative to strike a balance between depth of functionality for professionals and hardcore creators against the playful, intuitive charm that invites inexperienced users to take their first steps into making games.
The end result was an interface that is familiar to the muscle memory of those experienced on the PS3 platform (despite the vita lacking 4 buttons), with touch interfaces used to compliment the existing controls, streamlining the creation workflows . Touch and camera interfaces were also leveraged for a more playful creative experience and providing more fun in short-burst creation sessions while out and about.
Tools Design
In addition to the interfaces for Create mode, I also oversaw updates to the tools themselves. Primarily, this involved developing a new suite of tools to enable the creation of touch control and mobile-inspired gameplay that made the game really stand out within the franchise. We also enhancing almost all of the existing tools: to simplify level logic, improve performance and generally make level creation easier.
Additional Design
Alongside developing Create Mode, I redesigned the front-end UI for touch interaction, wrote specifications for tutorials and contributed to community features.
Marketing and PR
Having ownership of Create Mode meant I was well suited to contributing to marketing materials, including the Gamecom 2011 trailer and behind-the-scenes featurettes. I also presented the game to press at both E3 and Gamescom.