Tools
Links to various level editors, moddable games, engines, and art tools
This page contains several lists of links to useful tools, both ancient and modern:
Moddable games (recommended). Short list of moddable games for "serious" level design, with active level design community tied closely to the game industry.
Moddable games (all). A much longer list of known games with modding tools. For various reasons, we don't recommend using these tools.
But in the end, the best tool is whatever is most interesting to you.
We also list general 3D game engines, 2D level editors, 3D art tools, 2D art tools, and planning tools common in the game industry.
Moddable games (recommended)
When you mod a game, you get to re-use graphics, sounds, code, and most importantly, core game design and tuning. We strongly recommend learning level design by modding.
This is a list of recommended games with well-supported toolsets and active communities. Download the tools, build levels, ask for help, and share your work.
We generally recommend Quake and Doom since these games have large active communities, free stable multiplatform tools, and proven design.
Moddable games (all)
These moddable games are NOT part of our recommended list, for one or more reasons:
player or modder community has died off
OR the tools are too old, unsupported, broken, or painful
OR the tools are seen as "illegitimate" by the industry (even though the industry is wrong)
But your enthusiasm matters most. The best tool is whatever you will actually use to finish projects.
CoD: MW (2007)
CoD Radiant
static
visual
???
Far Cry 5
in-game
static
visual
in-game
Gears of War
UnrealEd 3
scripted
visual
???
Minecraft
static / dynamic
code (Java Eclipse+Forge)
Stalker: Call of Pripyat
X-Ray Engine SDK
dynamic
???
???
3D game engines
Modern all-purpose game engines almost never have good level design tools by default, so you should expect to download and install additional plugins to aid construction.
2D level editors
If your engine already has a built-in 2D level editor, then use that. But if you're using a homemade engine or web-based framework, you'll need a standalone 2D level editor.
Unlike the fragmented 3D editor ecosystem, all standalone 2D level editors are open-source, stable, and engine-agnostic with easily parsed JSON file formats. Here we generally recommend Tiled, with its many features and widespread engine support.
built-in Unity
built-in Unreal
Paper2D tilemaps are "experimental"
built-in Godot
TileMaps; supports autotiles
most common standalone editor, supports many engines (Unity, Unreal, Godot, and more)
more recent tool, streamlined, lots of features
not actively developed, but still simple + solid
3D art tools
In most cases, we don't recommend using 3D modeling tools to build levels. That said, all these tools basically do the same thing, and you should use whatever tools you like using.
We generally recommend Blender, free open source software that now rivals commercial tools. Older artists often prefer Maya or 3DS Max because they already learned it + industry pipelines are tightly coupled. But let's be clear -- Blender is basically the future, and Autodesk's days are numbered.
free and open source; steadily getting more popular in industry with rich feature set
common in games and film, expensive but free for students
common in games and architecture, expensive but free for students
not often used in games but perfectly usable, free for students
2D art tools
Good 2D art tools are vital for drawing level layouts and diagrams, and essential for making your own graphics and textures. Some of these tools even run online in your browser for free.
expensive photo-editor / painter, has student discount
expensive, good for vector maps, has a student discount
expensive, popular powerful texture generator tool, free for students
cheap Photoshop / Illustrator alternative
free ad-supported Photoshop clone, in-browser (!)
free open source Photoshop alternative
free open source Photoshop alternative
free old school Photoshop alt with bad name
cheap popular pixel art painting tool
free open source Illustrator alternative
free online Illustrator alternative, runs in browser
free (PWYW) moodboard tool / reference image manager
free open source moodboard manager with PureRef-like drag and drop
Planning tools
Good note-taking and writing tools can help you write design documentation, plan a project, track work tasks, and collaborate with others.
a notebook (real-life, paper)
many designers keep personal notebooks; think of it as a portable always-on browser tab
popular freemium service for collaborative whiteboarding / "mindmap" / planning
popular freemium service for notes, lists, wikis, documentation
popular freemium service for "kanban" style project planning in games
cheap ($50) writing tool popular among authors, rich outlining features
free open-source lightweight personal wiki that lives in a single .HTML file on your device
Google Docs
sometimes it's best to keep it simple
To review...
for learning 3D level design fundamentals, we recommend modding Quake or Doom
for making 2D levels, we recommend Tiled
for general 3D art, we recommend Blender
for general 2D art, the world still uses Photoshop
for planning, we recommend keeping an IRL paper notebook for personal sketches, notes, etc.
but anyway, you should use whatever you feel good about, because making and finishing stuff is more important than social consensus
the ultimate level design tool is "giving a shit"
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