A screenshot from the videogame Little Big Planet, in which players can design their own obstacle-course environments. (Media Molecule/Sony Entertainment)

When it was announced in the spring of 2007, the videogame Little Big Planet was hailed as a genre-busting title that would be simple and fun enough to appeal to gamers of all types, from hardcore shooters to Solitaire- and Peggle-playing cubicle slaves. Indeed, Little Big Planet – the brainchild of England’s Media Molecule development studio – has been scrutinized every step of the way to its fall ’08 launch.

Published by Sony for the Playstation 3, the game had been shipped to retailers for an Oct. 21 release when a Muslim blogger noticed that a lyric to some music licensed for Little Big Planet used lines from the Qur’an. Rather than risk a consumer backlash, Sony decided to undertake a global recall — amid charges of self-censoring. Little Big Planet is now being released in North America the week of Oct. 27.

The game’s launch may have been delayed, but the title doesn’t suffer from the controversy. This whimsical, groundbreaking game lives up to the lofty expectations.

At first glance, Little Big Planet is a fairly typical platformer, that genre of video game in which players run and jump through an obstacle-course environment. British actor and writer Stephen Fry provides narration and acts as a guide. Little Big Planet, Fry tells us, is an “ethereal dreamscape of adventure and possibilities, an abstract plane of beautiful wonderment, just waiting to be explored.”

The game is presented in two dimensions – left-right, up-down – but is played in three, allowing players to move back and forth from foreground to mid-ground to background. The controls are simple and primarily involve running, jumping, and grabbing. The objective is to avoid the obstacles, collect bubbles – the game’s currency – and reach the end of each level. Secret trinkets are hidden among the levels, and finding these grants players special prizes. Solving levels and finding collectibles unlock new levels and provide players with objects that can be used to customize the environment and characters.

The protagonist of the game is Sackboy (although you can call yours Sackgirl if you prefer). He/she is so named because at first, the character appears to be sewn out of sackcloth. The hero is gender neutral; it’s the wardrobe that indicates gender identification. Each player has a plethora of options to customize their particular creature – for example, you can change it from sack cloth to felt, add a cowboy hat and pigtails, adorn it with a vest or pants or high heels or sneakers.

Sackboy is amazingly expressive. With the controller, I can raise his arms in triumph or make him wave at me; I can make him nod with approval or give him emotional expressions, including smiles, grins, snarls and frowns. While Sackboy is a cute and charming star, what sets Little Big Planet apart is the way in which it blurs the distinction between game designer and player.

The star of Little Big Planet is a character named Sackboy. (Media Molecule/Sony Entertainment)

Hardcore gamers have been creating “mods” – modifications – of their favourite titles for years. But to do so has required at least a basic knowledge of programming; what’s more, the games most likely to be edited were adrenaline-fueled shooters. Recently, videogame developers have been finding ways to make it easier for a broader segment of the game-playing population to modify the content. Forza Motorsport 2 (2007) lets auto aficionados paint and detail race cars; Halo 3 (2007) fanatics can create their own battle maps; and the just-released Guitar Hero World Tourincludes a virtual music studio that enables players to compose and share original music within the game.

Spore, the latest game from design legend Will Wright (The Sims), was inspired by the realization that so much of the content in his various Sims games was actually being created by the players. The object of Spore is to guide a creature’s evolution from single-cell organism to complex animal to social being to space-travelling conqueror; players devise their own creatures, buildings and cities. Those creations can then be uploaded to servers where they are used to populate the planets in other players’ versions of Spore.

Similarly, Little Big Planet puts the tools of game design in the control of players. Think the level you’re playing is too easy? Add a pit trap if you want, or create a new obstacle that needs to be overcome. After you’ve made your changes, you can save the revised level and share it via your internet-connected PS3. Or build an entire level from scratch. The Little Big Planet toolset is as simple to use as the game is to play. Anyone can exploit the power of the pixel.

When players can design their own levels within a given game, they are deeply engaged with the brand. Imagine the impact of my testimonial if I invite friends to play the level I created, or challenge them to try to build a better one than mine. The only proviso is that in order to participate, you have to purchase the game.

It would seem that the economic impact of user-generated content (UGC) in videogames is huge. But integrating UGC is less a sales strategy than a way of involving players in the creative process. Videogames are interactive entertainment, after all. During the two and a half weeks in which the Little Big Planet beta version was available, enterprising gamers concocted levels inspired by various pop culture references, from the TV show Lostto videogames such as Silent Hill and Portal (the latter featuring the iconic Companion Cube). One ambitious person devoted countless hours designing a working calculator into the game. It seems that the capabilities of Little Big Planet’s editing tools are limited only by the user’s imagination.

Little Big Planet is in stores Oct. 27.

Blaine Kyllo is a writer based in Vancouver.