I'm designing my next game, and I'm almost done designing all the boring super-important stuff like "what is an item?" (it's all highly philosophical) I was writing up exactly how the level editor should work, and I got to thinking that it might be fun to have an in-game level editor. However, try as I might, I can't think of a way in which that would actually be more USEFUL than a standalone level editor.

Has anyone got any experience with both, from a level designing/creating perspective? Has anyone got any opinions on them from a player perspective? Are they potentially super-rad like it sounds right now? Or should I go to bed and design the level editor in the morning, which is in like 2 hours anyway?

However, try as I might, I can't think of a way in which that would actually be more USEFUL than a standalone level editor.

An in-game editor is useful in that it may be possible to seamlessly (and instantaneously) transition from editing to playtesting.

If it doesn't allow that, then I'd say it might as well be standalone.

From a design standpoint, the answer will literally always be “yes”. To the end player, there will literally never be the case where one says, “This game would be better if it didn’t have a level editor.”

You need instead to approach this from a practicality standpoint.

Super Smash Bros. has had an in-game editor since Super Smash Bros. Brawl (or Super Smash Bros. X here in Japan), but that is not what the original developers used to make levels. The engine itself had enough code inside it to handle most of the things you need to create a level, so the tool itself could have been either internal or external.

All of the actual levels were made with external editors, but as I said initially level editors are always a plus, so they wanted to incorporate them into the final product as well.

Thanks to decent planning it was possible. The engine itself was doing most of the work, so to make an in-game editor was nothing but a UI.

On the other end of the spectrum you have Starsiege: Tribes, whose levels have always been created via the in-game editor, even by the developers.

The obvious plus is that the users can make anything your developers could, but you need to have planned ahead for this to actually happen.

Which is better?

To end user, full control is better, but the problem is that the end user isn’t a programmer.

If you dummy things down for the end user you can’t add advanced techniques that make your game shine. In other words, anything you expose to users has to be newbie, and you can’t make a good-looking game if your people need to work with newbie tools.

The final result is that Yes, you always should if possible. The replay value is literally infinite.

But it is a choice that requires thought and planning. And a proper understanding of exactly why people would want an editor in the first place.

Don’t forget that you can have a stand-alone editor for your skilled team and a half-assed editor for your player base, as Super Smash Bros. does.

L. Spiro

Thanks everyone! I don't know if it would be worth the trouble adding the in-game editor from the start (would be quicker to just make a standalone one for me to use), but now I'm really thinking I may add in one for players. It definitely sounds fun! The engine can support it easily, and I wrote it, so either way!

On the subject of the Smash Bros editor, I didn't play much Brawl (played a ton of the original and Melee), but I've been playing the Wii U one. The level editor does not allow for as much "prettifying" as I'd have liked :-(

From my experience, in-game editor gives a game a second life. One could even say it is even a game inside a game.

Take Halo 3/Reach as an example, I think I've spent 1000+ hours "forging" (the editor is called Forge) making maps for the game.

Entire community were created on top of it, like Halo Waypoint or Forgehub. Players kept finding new ways to tweak the engine to create custom game mods and new ways to make things. The developers even integrated ideas that were once built from Forge inside the game (Griffbal anyone?).

The fact that you could switch from the in-game editor to matchmaking was a plus since you could go play a couple games with your friend if you were tired of making a map, or you could go and edit your map with your friends after playing a multiplayer game.

It's a great value to add in your game. And allow players to be able to tweak as much variables as possible (jump height, speed, damage, life, respawn time, resources, team, etc.).

A level editor is best when properly supported by the ecosystem. Give players a way to submit maps to the website for the game.

Have a map of the month award, and have users register to post maps so you can capture mailing list data.

Release your own weekly new maps to encourage people to stay with the game after finishing it.

The possibilities are endless!