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Games with level editors!

I think Warcraft III has to win the award for best map editor:

w3mapeditor.jpg


Aside from the two hugely popular RTS-esque genres which were born in the Warcraft III editor, you could effectively make games completely unrelated to the base game. As a teenager I managed to make a racing game with third-person view, accurate lap-tracking for each player, a course with different paths for each lap, and even some Mario-Kart style power-ups and weapons. The only real limitation was that Blizzard didn't give you proper access to the keyboard, so any non-mouse control would be very limited (I vaguely remember being able to bodge together user input from the Esc and H keys for some reason, but the rest of the keyboard was off-limits).
 
Already more games posted than I expected, nice!

I just recalled some Eggerland games having an editor too for their MSX and Famicom Disk System releases. I remember this because I rented Adventures of Lolo & Lala 2 and 3 for NES in the past, solely because the images on the back of the box totally looked like those were the kind of games that came with a level editor.

(they didn't)
 
Spent so much time with this game in my late elementary school years and created many simple easy quests. Gotta get that pouch of gold dust!
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The MM Powered Up editor was like my go-to thing for long trips back in the day. I could mess around in that thing for hours. I never made anything good, but it was fun.
 
 
I remember making terrible maps in Timesplitters 2 and Age of Empires 2 when I was a kid. Wish I still had access to them to see how bad they were.
 
This is a bit cheating since I am going to list PC games with level editors, but:


The Build Editor from Duke Nukem 3D:
tumblr_nl3fpqMSnm1r4g6x9o1_1280.png


I absolutely loved making levels in this one as it was fairly simple to use and easy to implement a lot of simple scripts with the different script tags.

MaxED from Max Payne 1:
CcgTv72.jpg
Click to expand...

The original Max Payne for the PC came with a whole suite of development tools including a level editor, model and character animation editor and so on. For a Polygon 3D editor it was fairly intuitive and had a rather low learning curve. I made a lot of my own custom levels for Max Payne 1. There was also a level editor for Max Payne 2 as well called MaxED 2.0.
 
LittleBigPlanet probably offers the most in-depth tools you can get on consoles. It's even possible, though difficult, to escape the game's natural aesthetic with Sackboy and folks. You don't even have to use Sackboy or his friends if you don't want to. Shameless plug for example.
 
Kuju's Microsoft Train Simulator had level and activity editors. Was active for a very long time and the work that went into some of the activities was huge - and that's nothing compared to recreating entire real-life lines which people did for fun or money. Train fans are dedicated! Don't know about the current situation but I do know that it wasn't surpassed for years.
 
Oh, I guess since people are mentioning stuff like Far Cry, Duke Nukem 3D, Max Payne etc, we can't leave Half-Life and Half-Life 2 unmentioned. Though personally I wouldn't group any of these games' level editors together with the others mentioned in this thread, as those are more complex and not really that easily accessible to the generic player.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 had a pretty damn good level editor. I'm sure the other games in the series had level editors as well, but I never looked into those.
And of course, even though it has been mentioned here already, Trackmania has one of the best level editors I've come across. Still mess with it, creating hilariously crazy maps with friends for our private server.
 
Some of my favorite level editors.

Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins (PS)
176258-tenchu-2-birth-of-the-stealth-assassins-playstation-screenshot.jpg


Tenchu: Time of the Assassins (PSP)
ME0000703495_2.jpg


The game itself had a limited FoV, but I got used to it and ended up enjoying the level editor a lot. Kept sharing maps with a friend, it was pretty cool.

Age of Empires II
00.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I loved playing around with the scenario editors in Age of Empires 2, 3, and Mythology to see what units where available and to set up ridiculous battles. IIRC in AoM you couldn't string your maps together into a campaign though. I liked loading in the premade scenarios to see how the developers made them, and over time my scenarios became less playable maps and more cutscenes.

Oh, and Portal 2's editor, that's quite intuitive, I think.
 
Miff said:
My first experience with a level editor was Micromachines Turbo Tournament '96 on the Mega Drive / Genesis.

316553-constuction_kit_level.jpg


I was hooked at creating my own tracks and spent far too long trying to create unconventional layouts. You could alter the physics which added an extra layer of interest. My creations never really worked out that well though, they were usually too difficult when played.
Click to expand...

This was my first experience with a proper editor. I usually focused on making the craziest jumps possible, which did lead to pretty broken tracks. I remember i was disappointed that you couldn't use all the obstacles from the main maps but it was still a lot of fun.

Not exactly an editor but my first experience of any kind of game editing was the RECS system in Lotus Turbo Challenge 3 on the Atari ST. It wasn't a proper track editor though, just a way to adjust a few sliders and have the game produce a track for you.
recs.png

You could also just type random letters into the code section of that screen and see what track it would give. The number of possible tracks in that game was huge.
 
Duck Game has a surprisingly well-done level editor with very little limitation. If only they weren't so difficult to use online.
 
Only game I can remember that hasn't really been mentioned yet is Fire 'n Ice aka Solomon's Key 2 for the NES. There aren't any good pics so I had a spare minute.

aqmzPu8.png


And here it is in action:
vwcVi3x.png
Click to expand...
 
From my memory, the scenario builder in Age of Empires I was better and more user-friendly than the one in Age of Empires II but it's been a long time since I've played either game, much less created my own campaigns, so I may well be mistaken.
 
ienjoyrawfish said:
From my memory, the scenario builder in Age of Empires I was better and more user-friendly than the one in Age of Empires II but it's been a long time since I've played either game, much less created my own campaigns, so I may well be mistaken.
Click to expand...

The editor in AoE1 was extremely limiting, it was not better than AoE2's. It was basically the same editor, except it was missing important features.
 
Far Cry's level editor always impressed me. I'm glad they haven't ditched it - I thought they might in FC4.

Then of course there's LBP which has a great level editor, but the standout there is the logic tools. You can make some incredible stuff with it.
 
Spent a tonne of time with the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 which has a pretty decent and simple park editor.

Also spent a lot of time with Forge for Marathon 2/Infinity since I had limited options for Mac gaming in the 90's.
 
Thraktor said:
I think Warcraft III has to win the award for best map editor:

w3mapeditor.jpg


Aside from the two hugely popular RTS-esque genres which were born in the Warcraft III editor, you could effectively make games completely unrelated to the base game. As a teenager I managed to make a racing game with third-person view, accurate lap-tracking for each player, a course with different paths for each lap, and even some Mario-Kart style power-ups and weapons. The only real limitation was that Blizzard didn't give you proper access to the keyboard, so any non-mouse control would be very limited (I vaguely remember being able to bodge together user input from the Esc and H keys for some reason, but the rest of the keyboard was off-limits).
Click to expand...

It gave s Dota. I think Warcraft III's level editor is as important as the game itself.
 
Man, it was already mentioned in the OP, but Excitebike 64's editor is rad, just rad. Making glorified wipeout festivals instead of actual racetracks was the best!
 
I really liked the editor in Timesplitters 2/Future Perfect for being able to create full single-player missions with objectives, enemy behaviour and a pretty strong selection of items and room variations. Only annoyances were the strict memory limits and limited number of tilesets. Otherwise, the expanse of single player possibilities really made it stand out, since I personally have no great interest in doing multiplayer stuff.
 
Went to search for both of my old Gruntz levels I created and I see the fansite I uploadded them to is still functional! Not only that, someone went through the trouble of writing a walkthrough for them :D Pretty funny reading all the reactions and whatnot more than 10 years later.
kogasu said:
Only game I can remember that hasn't really been mentioned yet is Fire 'n Ice aka Solomon's Key 2 for the NES. There aren't any good pics so I had a spare minute.
Click to expand...
Haha, awesome! See, puzzle games aren't really my thing, but I'd play the crap out of this because of the level editor.
Did the editor allow enemy placement too? (Does Fire 'n Ice have enemies anyway?)
 
xandaca said:
I really liked the editor in Timesplitters 2/Future Perfect for being able to create full single-player missions with objectives, enemy behaviour and a pretty strong selection of items and room variations. Only annoyances were the strict memory limits and limited number of tilesets. Otherwise, the expanse of single player possibilities really made it stand out, since I personally have no great interest in doing multiplayer stuff.
Click to expand...

The best thing is that the editor was glitched as fuck so you could get around most of the limitations.
 
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