After playing through some or all the levels in Story mode and having collected some items, you may be ready to create your own level. This may seem intimidating, but fortunately you have a series of tutorials to help you out. There are roughly over a dozen tutorials, which include basics such as placing objects and drawing shapes, to more complex actions such as creating machinery and planting switches. The tutorials are replayable at any time in case your memory needs a little jogging. If you make a mistake you can undo it, though it only erases your last action. Going back and forth from edit mode to testing mode is a cinch – you don’t have to leaf through pages of menus to do so.

The level editor is amazingly robust for a console game. You can make something as simple as a skateboard going down a ramp, or a complex level complete with traps, machinery, vehicles, fire, and even giraffes. After exploring many of the user-created levels, I found that some rival the developer-created content in terms of originality, complexity, and plain old fun. In fact, at times I enjoyed playing the user-created content more than the pre-existing levels. And you don’t need an engineering degree to get started. All you need is a fertile imagination and a lot of time on your hands.

Once you’ve created and tested your level, it’s time to share it with the world by publishing it. Now others in the PlayStation Network will be able to enjoy and rate your level. You’re also welcome to visit and rate other people’s levels in return. You can try out user-created levels by yourself, or with as many as three other players.

Although servers are finally open to the public after encountering some problems shortly after launch, there seem to still be some issues with them. During a few multiplayer games I encountered some severe lag, especially when loading up certain levels. Worse is that I experienced two hard, console locking freezes. Admittedly, these incidents occurred the first time I was able to go online several days ago, and I haven’t experienced any problems since.

Play. Create. Share. These three simple words make up developer Media Molecule’s little big blueprint for a charming and unique game that wonderfully brings out the creative side in people. Apparently there are already plans for a sequel, but I can’t imagine how the developers can possibly top this.

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