Sometimes, game developers pour their blood, sweat, and tears into letting us pour our own bloo♔d, sweat, and tears into that same thing, but for significantly less money. Actually, we pay them for the chance, because level-making games are a wonderful tool for channeling creativity, and maybe just a little bit of chaos. You know, for fun.
We’ve compiled a few of our favorite level editors to share here, with the full understanding that there is no way to completely describe everything each one of these games is capable of within the confines of a succinct piece of writing. Know this, however; Every one of the games listed below provides (or provided) online communities, where players could enjoy each other's levels, as well as share their own.
10 🐬 Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
TABS for short, this game stretches the typical definition of a level maker in that it’s not about♛ creating the level’s physical layout but rather its obstacle lay꧒out. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, whose name embodies the perfect level of sarcasm for such a silly thing, allows players to create opposing armies and then pit them against each other.
It’s got everything a totally accurate battle simulator could need, includiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚng a variety of swordsmen, archers, pikemen, shamans, war mounts, siege weapons, monstrous harbingers of death, oh, and a rewind button; You know, in case you wanna watch your red and bl🐼ue googly-eyed crash dummies die in slow motion!
9 Ben 10 Alien Force Game Creat𝓡or
The fact that this game is no longer available on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cartoon Network’s website is truly one of the most insidious crimes of the twenty-first century. But when Ben 10 Alien Force Game Creator was available? Those were the days. Let’s break down just how great this seemingly simple one-ꦑoff was.
B10AFGC (we’re not working on a better acronym, sorry) allowed players a single screen to cram as much creative mess into as possible. Aside from building a vertically tiered level - similar to arcade game layouts - there were a number of traps and enemies to select from. The real kicker was the opportunity to decide which of Ben’s alien heroes would be the protagonist. Each one came with a specific control scheme and skill set. Sure, it was 🍌a bit minimalist, but it was perfect.
8 Portal 2
Valve engineered an instant classic with Portal. A teleporting gun, a sassy robot AI, and vaguely menacing lore hints? That’s practically the ultimate gamer trife🌸cta. When the sequel was released, it expanded the concepts brilliantly, and for the PC players, it added a level editor DLC that’s still actively used almost a decade later.
The original intent♐ was to allow players to create their own, 🐼simple testing rooms, filled with doors and boxes and big ol’ red buttons, but naturally, the community has been taking it a little farther than that, attaching mods to expand the mechanics so much so that they’re making market quality content.
7 🤪 ꦏMaker King
Unlike the rest of the games on this list, Master King is currently i🧸n early access, which means that the player base is doubling as a test group for an incomplete game. Fortunately, Master King is free to play, so there’s little risk in terms of actual loss. Green Frisbee Games&rsqu🔯o; level maker is a two-dimensional side-scrolling platformer, with options to shape the stage and create certain character assets, like monster mounts.
Aesthetically, it looks like someone gave Mario a Super Meat Boy tint, which is just delightfully meta. There are a number of mechanics that seem to harken to other popular franchises, too, like Portal and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Donkey Kong. A stand-out feature for Maker King is the multiplayer functionality, which allows players to compete in real-time on p꧒layer-made 𒁏levels.
6 Ha𓂃ppy Wheels 🥃
In 2010, Fancy Force unleashed Happy Wheels on the internet and the world was never the same. The tagline sums up the game better than anything we could write, so here it is: "Choose your inadequately prepared racer, and ignore severe consequences in your desperate search for victory!" To c𓂃all it successful would be an understatement. To call it functionally equivalent to QWOP would be... ac🐻curate.
Still, it’s well-loved and has inarguably earned its fame. The level editor a🦹llows players to select their preferred inadequately prepar🌄ed racer, the parameters for success, the level layout, and the obstacles, which are usually sawblades, spikes, and heavily armed NPC’s with zero motivation to move. Happy Wheels is a masterclass in how to create something so ridiculous that it’s impossible to not enjoy it. Just be prepared for a lot of cartoon blood.
5 Minecraft
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Minecraft was not designed as a level-making game, not necessarily, but it was absolutely used as one. For the uninitiated, Minecraft is technically a survival game with RPG traits that just so happens to be so incredibly intricate that the pieces can be realigned in enough ways to basically recreate anything that the pla🍒yer wan🧸ts. Really, Minecraft is just digital Lego.
In the loosest definition of level making, Minecraft hosts replicas of everything from Hogwarts to New York City. In an adjဣacent sort of way, Minecraft has also been used as an improv stage for massive interwoven storylines that are recorded for an audience. In a more literal sense, Minecraft has been used to create platforming obstacle courses, as well as a fully operational copy of Pokemon Red - creativity knows no bounds, and neither does Minecraft.
4 ℱ Super Mario Maker
Listen, everything Nintendo cranks out goes platinum, that’s just how it is, but Mario Maker earned its accolades - not only by being the only mainstream triple-A game built solely for level creation, but also by being an incredibly fun and polished experienc🥀e.
Mario Maker provided players with the tools to combine familiar mechanics to create new ones, like stacking enemies into a deadly tower, or attaching wings to anythingꦕ that you wanted Mario to struggle to reach. A number of players realized that, when s𓆏et at a certain height, the bouncy music blocks change pitch, and thus music levels were born. While the servers for the Wii U title now have limited functionality, players can still build local levels, even if they can’t share them anymore.
3 Roblox
At first glance, Roblox is just Minecraft’s off-brand cousin, but what it lacks in a cohesive aesthetic, it makes up for in being more focused on the level editor aspect. Its primary objective is to provide players w𓆉ith the tools to program their own games an💛d a server to play said games upon.
The site is popular for horror fans wanting a space to scare as many people as possible. It’s also often used to recreate popular media ranging from Friday Night Funkin to Squid Game to Beat Saber. Roblox is unique t🍌o this list in that it heavily leans on a voice chat system, making it one of the more socially integrated games on this list.
2 ও Super Mario Maker 2
While it feels repetitive to include multiple games from the same franchise, the fact is that Mario Maker 1 and 2 are very different games. The sequel added a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:number of features such as multiplayer creation🅺 and play, a massive list of Mario’s more modern nemeses, and also the Super Creator World.
Super Creator World allows the player to compile their created levels into their own Mario game, complete with player-created overworlds. It gives us the feeling that not only ꦡdid we create something, but we created something cohesive, something full, something complete… and sometimes, something rage-inducing.
1 Dreams
Developed by Media Molecule and produced by Sony, Dreams is… well… everything, really. The Playstation title is quite literally a full game creator. Players (who are we kidding, no one plays Dreams, they work in it) are given the opportunity to build fully rendered, two/three-dimensional worldꦇs from the ground up, including assets, game mechanics, music, and more.
Want to make a side-scrolling platformer? Dreams can do that. Maybe a kooky cooking simulator? Dreams can do that, too. Hey, how about an RPG based on a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:beloved franchise, complete with voice acting provided by talents f♏rom the original propඣerty? Dreams can literally let you do that.