The emphasis throughout is on enjoyment rather than speed. “We’ve put the priority on making the game fun to use,” says Evans (pictured). “People think you’ll be able to make a Miyamoto-style level in five minutes. Not quite. You can make a Miyamoto level, but it will probably take all weekend. Our effort has been to make sure that weekend’s fun.”

It’s reassuring to see how friendly Create is, but the real surprise turns out to be Play’s pre-made stages. It’s easy to assume that the levels that ship with the game will be little more than tutorials – what we discovered, however, playing through an Indian-themed stage with Healey, was that even if this wasn’t a genre-shifting creative tool, it would still be a devastatingly effective 2D platformer out of the box.

While the aesthetic is unmistakably its own, the mixture of precision jumping, simple physics and the intricate clutters of moving platforms is strongly evocative of 16bit gaming. There’s ingenuity and humour on display everywhere, with risky secret routes to be uncovered, jumble-sale landslides to trigger and an entire sequence that plays out on the back of a mechanical elephant which advances across a bed of flames. Everywhere, the handicraft style combines with the chunky mechanics to create platforming that feels fresh yet traditional. With fairly low expectations for this aspect of the game, it’s a revelation to come away with the sense that we’ve just played through some of the purest 2D design we’ve seen since Super Mario World. Working above a bathroom store clearly does wonders for your creative motivation.


It was at 2007’s GDC that Healey realized just how important his fledgling company’s game was to Sony’s plans: “Up until then there’d just been less than ten people making a game that was a weird concept. When we turned up and saw this room with 5,000 seats it was: ‘Oh my God!’” When we ask how the team feels about the perception that the wider fate of PS3 is somehow tied to LBP, he just smiles. “I don’t think that’s really true,” says Ettouney. “We’re a very good example of what PlayStation is capable of doing, but we picked one battle and others pick their own, taking narrative or combat and pursuing them.”

And is the weight of all that expectation shaping Media Molecule at a time when it’s still trying to form its own identity? “I don’t think it could even if we wanted it to. Because of the people in this company, it just hasn’t sunk in,” laughs Ettouney. “Many of us here haven’t even comprehended the fact that there’s someone in Japan working on the product. There’s something naïve about us: we live in that bubble of being fixated on what we’re doing. I paint, and if you think about the perception of a piece while you’re doing it, it’s not going to be a good piece.”

The arrival of scones and strawberries for tea sends everyone into an excited flutter. The team certainly seems like it’s remained down to earth amid the hype, and there are no Hummers in the car park yet. (Actually, we didn’t see a car park – they must use the NCP down the road.) And if the game isn’t changing how the company sees itself, it’s not changing how it works, either: Media Molecule is determined to stay small and do things its own way.

“One of the most challenging things in big teams is using the skill of people,” explains Ettouney. “They get pigeonholed into doing something very specialised. You get people with titles like ‘hair artist’. We wanted cross-discipline stuff, an integrated meritocracy, where the best idea wins and you end up with the role that suits you. We’ve had artists who now head level design. Most of our stresses come from genuine creative hurdles rather than politics and monkey business. But we still have to deliver: we’re living in the real world and can’t just be an R&D company of coolness.”


And are they afraid of being defined by LBP? “I think it’s sort of the plan for it to define the company,” says Healey. “We’ve got ‘Creative Gaming’ as the company motto, and I’ve always been into games that involved user creativity. The first thing I worked on was C64 educational software to help kids to paint.” Ettouney agrees: “It’s not a suffocating genre, and hopefully within that there’s lots of room.”

As for the future, Sackboy will probably take up many months ahead, even after the master disk is shipped. “Hopefully a community will form. We’re committed to supporting that. We’ve got dedicated time planned for it. When the game’s released, that’s just the beginning.” Healey laughs: “The game hasn’t even been released yet – it might be crap. Never been one to believe in hype, myself.”

But Media Molecule doesn’t seem to think it’s crap. In among the obvious pride, there’s also a weird twist of the lottery winner’s confusion visible at times, as if the team are slightly surprised by what they’ve created. As well they might be: although it’s drawn in a modest childhood manner, this is a game that could actually outshine Spore when it comes to ambitions. Will Wright’s opus may be about science, but this is a full-blown physics playground where you can design motors and even construct, as one team member has done, a rudimentary mechanical computer.

But that makes things sound dry and worthy, and from what we’ve already played LBP has the potential to be fun at its most entertainingly idiotic. Full of endless goals and effortless creativity, this could be that special game that finally demonstrates that control and freedom don’t always have to be at odds.

It’s a dangerous, unpredictable and ambitious experiment, then, but Media Molecule seems to have an answer for almost everything. The only time Healey and his team seem genuinely stumped is when we ask them how they’re labeling this type of game genre internally.

“We’ve struggled with describing the game,” admits Healey finally. “Different people do it their own way. For me, it’s a creative tool. Other people say it’s a game that you play and learn to make stuff.” He frowns and leans forward, and then, in four words, unintentionally sums everything up: “What do you think?”