Game Musings - In-game editors

Every project I’ve worked on for the last 8 or so years has started with creating an in-game editor. Even though I use Game Maker Studio 2, which ostensibly offers a nice visual interface and its own built-in “Room” editor (kind of a level editor), I strongly prefer to build my own. And I always start over and build it from scratch for each project.

I find the process extremely useful because the process of figuring out what the game is always goes hand in hand with figuring out how I want to make it. I care a lot about keeping my work process fun and creative - and ultimately, no universal game editor or level editor will ever be as powerful for building your specific project as one which you make yourself.

For example, this was the Chicory level editor. Although the levels were pretty simple in that game, it still added a lot of character to the game that they were created in this custom, toy-like editor. I used the same system for “painting” levels that players used to “paint” in the game, so there’s a certain harmony of shapes in what players can create and how the world is shaped. Practically speaking, this also kept everything aligned to the same grid so that player drawings are always naturally aligned with the level geometry. It took a fair bit of time to set this up at first, but in the long term it made it so fast and easy to create more content for the game that it definitely sped things up overall.

Another hidden benefit is that working this way skips the process of building your game. (Ie. the time it takes for the game to actually start after you hit “play” from the game editor you’re using). Being able to flip back and forth between editing and playing the game instantaneously without restarting is a HUGE advantage for time and just general mentality/flow. When playtesting the game with a friend in-person, if they ran into an issue, I could just lean over, open up the editor right in front of them, fix the issue, then put them back in the game - all within seconds.

The joy I get from building editors definitely grew a lot after I first played Super Mario Maker, which replicates this experience for building 2D Mario levels. It opened my eyes to how fun it could be to make games, and I’ve held that in my mind ever since.

(This is part of my “Game Musings” newsletter where I write thoughts about game design and development. If you just want news and updates on my projects, you can edit your subscription here.)