I won't claim that I'm very creative myself, but i've always been fascinated with games that allow you to create your own levels or (even better) your own stories, quests etc. or that are moddable in such a way that it significantly changes the original experience and makes it seem like you're playing a new game or at least a new add-on to the game, in any case increasing the replayability or length of the games, whether by design or because players found out how to mod or hack them.

So I thought it might be fun to have a thread about these games and list them, along with the options they provide. (Unless we already have such a thread that I overlooked; in that case let me know). Here are a few I can think of right now:


Indie Games with Level Editor:
Voxatron
Blocks That Matter
Escape Goat
Chocolate Castle
Crayon Physics Deluxe
VVVVVV (I think)


With full Campaign Editor
Neverwinter Nights
Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures


I've read there's a Bard's Tale Construction Kit, too, but I've never tried it. And I heard Torchlight might have an editor? I'd assume most of the Strategy games would also have one (HOMM3, Age of Wonders, Warcraft 3)? Then there's the level editor for Tomb Raider Chronicles ...

Anyway this is just a start, just me brainstorming. Feel free to add your own recommendations and chat about their potential. Or let us know if you created your own levels, campaigns, mods for any game.

Braid has a level editor. As does NWN 2, Portal 2, the earlier Total War games (Medieval 2 and back, I think), and Disciples 2. Oh, and also Thief 1 & 2 (don't know about 3). I haven't used any of them personally, though I keep meaning to eventually. >.>

The Unreal Tournament games come with full modding tools.

Oh, I didn't even know that. :)

Another thing that would be interesting to find out is if there's any free user-created content for these games and where to get it. (We could create a list with links.)

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 & Fallout New Vegas all came with a pretty powerful editor, that allowed you to change pretty much everything about the games.

Dungeons of Dredmor is apparently easily modded, though I don't know to what extent the game provides tools for it (

Naval War: Arctic Circle just got its level editor (and steam workshop implementation)

More full campaign editor games:

Neverwinter Nights 2
Dragon Age:Origins

I think Battle for Wesnoth deserves a mention, as it is extremely good for modding. You can modify virtually everything, create maps, campaigns, even entire unique factions.

Also Dink Smalwood came with its own editor. Pretty complex thing, that required more than a basic understanding of C++, but also quite powerful.

Yeah, the Braid editor's kind of hidden. Apparently you have to add a command to the shortcut to access it.

Again, the Unreal Tournament games have an obscene amount of free user-created content available. Everything from maps, skins and new player models, to new weapons, vehicles, whole new game types and total conversions.

Half-life 2 (and the Source engine as a whole) deserves a mention as well for the apparently robust Source SDK,

Thanks! I'm going to wait and collect as many suggestions as possible before (hopefully) creating a list from them. If anyone can also provide links to resource pages, that would be great. (Or did you mean to say there's too much stuff for UT to keep track of?)

Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, The Elder Scrolls series, Far Cry, Crysis.

You can create new campaigns / worlds, maps, levels, everything.

Jagged Alliance 2.
Version 1.13 has a map editor available, along with the ability to heavily modify items through xml, or even the game itself since the source code is available. If you don't want to go the unofficial way, then
Jagged Alliance 2: Unifinished Business
which includes a campaign editor, and there are a lot of user made campaigns out there (look for SOG '69)
Also, JA2 1.13 supports some JA2:UB campaigns, so you can play them with all the goodies of JA2 1.13
Did I mention that JA2 1.13 also has multiplayer?

More or less. But let me see if I can at least dig up some examples.