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[hryx]

Perfect time to find this thread. Just a couple days ago I realized I need to upgrade when levels get any bigger.

[Draknek]

I am a big fan of in-game editors. Here's what the editor for These Robotic Hearts of Mine looks like:



Looks kinda ugly since the grid markers clash with the buttons/text (which don't even work properly in edit mode). The grid markers are a fairly recent addition though, previously the edit mode looked identical to the play mode which wouldn't have made for a great editor screenshot.

You place cogs with spacebar and place hearts with the arrow keys: they get added at the mouse position at the appropriate orientation. The editor is accessible in the actual game by just pressing E at any time.

Initially you could only place hearts on grid squares, I recently changed it so that you can have centred hearts as well:


For a very long time there was no way to delete objects, you could only overwrite them. But since the cog is twice the size of the hearts I would just use the cog as an eraser, since if you move it one square it is then overwriting itself. Hacky, but since the first version of the game was written in four hours including the editor, I didn't make a lot of time for niceties. (I have since added backspace to delete.)

I generally create levels by creating an interesting pattern filled with upright hearts, then going into play mode and messing it up, then saving it. For a while I had to also add in an upturned heart while testing or it would immediately think the level had been completed when you went to mess up the pattern. This was made more interesting because if that happened it would treat the level as completed and you wouldn't be able to get back into edit mode so your level would get lost...

tl;dr: I make editors with gaping usability issues.

[Trent]

This is actually not just a level editor, but an object editor as well. The idea is that you'd also use it to define the look and collision of all your game objects. You can also place objects within other objects (non-recursively), and since it makes no distinction between "levels" and "objects", this means that you can increasingly sub-divide the parts of your game into however you want it organized and then load it all in accordingly.

I love this idea, and it would work well with a component/behavior system. At some point it would probably end up going from level editor to complete game maker in Flash. 

[Momeka_]

Here is my editor. It's still a work in progress.
Originally it was just suppose to be a map generator but after awhile I turned it into an editor as well.

It also works as a paint tool when you are bored.

[Noisefever]

written in java for my 2d tile game engine

[onebitbeyond]

Stealth Bastard's level editor is integrated into the game. It had to be done this way so that the light and shadows could be accurately controlled by the level designer. Press F1 to instantly toggle between editing and playing. The GUI intelligently moves out of the way as you move around the screen (and the help text hidden). That's a right click menu shown.



Here's the same level with all of the switch connections shown.



...and pressing F1 to start the game gives you...



Levels can be uploaded to a central server from the editor for all Stealth Bastard players to download and play.

[oahda]

written in java for my 2d tile game engine

http://www.noizefever.de/up/Editor.jpg

Couldn't decide for one language, could you?

[zamp]

Not sure if this applies to the thread really since its not my own map editor. I do use it though for my game.


Here's a youtube clip explaining the automap feature.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I made my level editor in Game maker, this is an older screenshot of it.

Doesn't Game Maker have a built in level editor? Or is it something that you can't do a whole lot with for advanced things? I don't know much about Game Maker and I haven't touched it for years.

i created level editors for my last two GM games (one of them is on the first page of this thread) too, because gm's is terrible and useless, but also because i want players to make their own levels without having to own game maker or edit the gml file. a lot of other gm games that i know of also code their own level editors; i'm surprised that anyone even still uses gm's editor considering how bad it is (although i heard they're going to improve it for gm 8.1).

[Cthulhu32]

http://cthulhu32.kraln.com/Spuck/LevelCreator/

From my days of working on Spuck. It was the start of a level creator where you would fill in the hit boxes, and it would automatically fill it in with tiles. There was also support for multiple layers and objects, but I don't think I'm going to post that cause it has SQL integration and I don't have a server hosting right now.

Usually I'm lazy and use Mappy for most 2d games. Ideally if you're making a large game its best to make your own level editor though.

[moi]

You guys and your fancy interfaces...
Real men make their editors in  Blitz basic

This an editor I'm using for 2D games mixing tilemaps and free-roaming sprites and 3D shapes for backgrounds

[oahda]

You guys and your fancy interfaces...
Real men make their editors in  Blitz basic

Pft. Mine is made in C++.

And it is entirely possible to make fancy interfaces with Blitz as well.

Not implying that mine looks very fancy. My coworker keeps hurting its feelings by calling it ugly all the time.

[Deraj]

I've spent the last two weeks working on an animation editor, a hull editor, a ship editor, and a general graphics editor, but I haven't made it to a level editor yet...

Thanks for posting all these! I'm getting a lot of great new ideas just by looking at the screenshots.

[David Pittman]

For Guitarguy Rocks Out, I built a bunch of in-game tools. I originally intended to author everything in a hex editor, but it turns out that's super tedious. So I made:


Color editor


Palette editor


Sprite editor


Tile editor


Glyph editor


Level editor (tiles and entities)


Level editor (collision)

By virtue of being in-game, all changes were instantly reflected in the game. And if I was playtesting and I saw something I didn't like, I could just pull up the appropriate tool and try fixing it right then. Real-time editing made iteration fast and painless.

I wanted to write a music editor, as well, but never got around to it. So I did end up inputting all the music by hand in a hex editor. It wasn't too bad, actually--not dissimilar to using a music tracker program.

[Noisefever]

written in java for my 2d tile game engine

http://www.noizefever.de/up/Editor.jpg

Coudn't decide for one language, could you?

yes... such things happen to me when I'm in hurry. shame over me!

[Blodyavenger]

Map editor of mine

[handCraftedRadio]

Here's my level editor I created about two years ago for my game Grand Feather (in progress.) It only took about a month to make and I've used it for a few other projects since then like Mash Man (finished) and City of Doom (finished.) I was recently thinking about going back and adding some upgrades to it, with some features that I never got a chance to add in before. Here is a video of it in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=XIK8O_TJOcM

[JOBA]

This thread is so inspiring. 

[Miguelito]

I agree, this is wonderful. I'm not a coder, so I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to create a good level editor.

Actually, I have a question: I'm a graphics dude and have two sets of assets ready: One Advance Wars-style top-down tileset, and some jumpy runny characters (see my sig).

I'd really love to play around in a level editor, building maps and testing stuff out. Thing is, I have no idea of how to code.

Are there any useful and viable standalone map editors that let me do that? Preferably in a way that someone could actually use that format and build on it?

Thanks.

[agersant]

Your tiles are gorgeous, you should be able to find a coder really quick =)
As for your question, you might want to give a go at http://www.mapeditor.org/