This is my first time posting on this forum so hopefully I put this post in the right place. Anyway, this spring I will write an essay for my Bachelor's degree in game development. The essay will focus on making a level for the PS3 game Little Big Planet and I'm currently looking for resources on either Level Design in general or with focus on LBP. I've previously been recommended having a look at the Mastering Unreal Technology series so if anyone has read them and would recommend them for this purpose let me know. Any recommendations of levels you have played and liked in Little Big Planet is also appreciated! Looking forward to your input!

Um... Wow! Big topic you picked there!

What are you focusing on? The actual construction of a level (in general or strictly specifically to LBP)? Technical stuff, that is? Or the more theoretical side of things, like, what makes for good level design, or fun levels, or challenging levels, or whatever?

Best of luck!

Well, what I want to do is have a look at different aspects of level design and how you can apply those techniques when creating a level for LBP, part of the essay is actually making the level and the other part of it is analyzing which methods worked and which didn't (if any).

Hopefully the end result will be a fun to play, relatively challenging, good level for LBP and an essay to back up the results!

Why don't you come up with a list of levels in various games you thought you were good and ones you thought you weren't good, then post yours and your reasons for why you thought that way here, and maybe we can get some discussion going about it. That would probably help.