The Level Design Book
BookResources
  • The Level Design Book
  • ✨What is level design
  • Book 1, Process
    • πŸ—ΊοΈHow to make a level
    • 🧠Pre-production
      • Pacing
      • Research
      • Worldbuilding
      • Scope
    • πŸ”«Combat
      • Enemy design
      • Encounter
      • Cover
      • Map balance
    • πŸ› οΈLayout
      • Flow
        • Circulation
        • Verticality
      • Critical path
      • Parti
      • Typology
        • Gates
    • 🏠Blockout
      • Massing
        • Landscape
        • Composition
        • Prospect-refuge
      • Metrics
        • Modular kit design
        • Doom metrics
        • Quake metrics
      • Wayfinding
      • Playtesting
        • Player persona
    • πŸ“œScripting
      • (stub) Navigation
      • Doors
    • β˜€οΈLighting
      • Three point lighting
      • D6 lighting
      • Lighting for darkness
    • 🏑Environment Art
      • Shape and color psychology
      • Texturing
      • Storytelling
      • Optimization
    • 🌈Release
  • Book 2, Culture
    • 🦜Level design as culture
    • History of the level designer
    • Zero player level design
    • (unfinished pages)
      • History of architecture
      • Structural engineering primer
      • History of environment art
      • History of furniture
      • History of encounter design
  • Book 3, Studies
    • πŸ”How to study a level
    • Single player studies
      • Undead Burg (Dark Souls 1)
      • Assassins (Thief 1)
      • (STUB) The Cradle (Thief 3)
      • (STUB) Sapienza (Hitman)
      • (STUB) Silent Cartographer (Halo 1)
    • Multiplayer studies
      • Chill Out (Halo 1)
      • (STUB) de_dust2 (Counter-Strike)
    • Real world studies
      • Disneyland (California, USA)
      • (STUB) Las Vegas (Nevada, USA)
  • Book 4, Learning
    • πŸŽ’Notes for educators
    • Project plans
      • Classic Combat
      • (Unfinished WIP pages)
        • Modern Combat
        • Modern Stealth
        • Exercise: Direct Lighting
        • Exercise: Whiteboard 2D
        • Level Design Portfolio
        • Design Test: Adaptation
        • Exercise: Layout
        • Exercise: Verticality
  • Appendix
    • Tools
      • TrenchBroom
    • Assets & Resources
      • Recommended talks
      • Recommended books
      • Quake resources
        • How to package a Quake map/mod
      • File formats
        • FGD file format
        • MAP file format
        • MDL file format
    • Communities
    • About this book / authors
    • License / copyright
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Moddable games (recommended)
  • Moddable games (all)
  • 3D game engines
  • 2D level editors
  • 3D art tools
  • 2D art tools
  • Planning tools
  • To review...
Export as PDF
  1. Appendix

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.

Game
Editor
Combat
Scripting
Community

Quake 1

static, dynamic (Horde)

Doom

static

Half-Life 2

Counter-Strike 2

multiplayer

code (VScript2?), visual (Pulse?)

Portal 2

--

visual

Team Fortress 2

multiplayer

Combat setup

  • Static: pre-placed enemies, arcade style, "fire and forget"

  • Scripted: pre-placed enemies with some control over AI behavior

  • Dynamic: high level "director" manages enemies automatically

  • Multiplayer: combat centers around other players

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.

Game
Editor
Combat
Scripting
Community

CoD: MW (2007)

CoD Radiant

static

visual

???

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

dynamic (zombies)

???

Crysis 2

static

???

???

static (stealth)

Divinity: Original Sin 2

scripted (RPG)

Doom 3

static

DOOM (2016)

DOOM Eternal

Fallout 4

static

code (Papyrus)

Far Cry 5

in-game

static

visual

in-game

F.E.A.R

scripted

???

Fortnite

multiplayer

Gears of War

UnrealEd 3

scripted

visual

???

Half-Life 1

static

Halo Infinite

multiplayer

visual (nodes)

in-game

Left 4 Dead 2

Metro Exodus

Minecraft

static / dynamic

code (Java Eclipse+Forge)

static

???

none

code (DoomScript)

Quake 2

static

visual (entities)

Quake 3 Arena

multiplayer

visual (entities)

Quake 4

static

???

Roblox

all

code (Lua)

Shadowrun

scripted (RPG)

Skyrim

static

code (Papyrus)

Stalker: Call of Pripyat

X-Ray Engine SDK

dynamic

???

???

Thief 1 / Thief Gold / Thief 2

static (stealth)

Thief 3

static (stealth)

visual (Actors, Triggerscript)

Unreal Tournament (1999) ("UT99")

multiplayer

multiplayer

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.

Engine
3D tools
Scripting
Community

It is possible to import TrenchBroom files into Godot, Unity, or Unreal. See TrenchBroom > Compatibility for recommended plugins and importers.

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.

2D level editor
Notes

built-in Unity

built-in Unreal

built-in Godot

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.

Tool
Notes

free and open source; steadily getting more popular in industry with rich feature set

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.

Tool
Notes

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.

Tool
Description

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"

PreviousExercise: VerticalityNextTrenchBroom

Last updated 10 months ago

(, ); see

visual () + code ()

, ,

, ()

code ()

( or )

static /

visual ()

, ,

Hammer 2 (, )

,

(in-game)

()

visual ()

)

code ()

Sandbox 2

()

code ()

Divinity Engine 2 ()

code (, )

()

code ()

static / dynamic

visual ( entities)

in-game ()

()

static / dynamic ()

visual ()

WorldEdit () ()

visual ()

in-game,

()

visual ()

in-game "Forge" ()

Hammer

/ multiplayer

visual () + code ()

visual ()

Creative Mode () /

,

in-game ()

DarkRadiant ()

()

,

code ()

()

,

Shadowrun Editor ()

code ()

(, )

visual () + code ()

()

UnrealED 2.1 / ()

visual (Actors) + code ()

,

(dead)

Unreal Engine 4 ()

visual ()

,

C#, ,

,

C++,

,

, ,

are "experimental"

; supports autotiles

most common standalone editor, (Unity, Unreal, Godot, and more)

common in games and film, expensive but

common in games and architecture, expensive but

not often used in games but perfectly usable,

used by architects but no / tools, don't use it beyond phase

expensive photo-editor / painter, has

expensive, good for vector maps, has a

expensive, popular powerful texture generator tool,

TrenchBroom
guide
video
Quake resources
entities
QC
QM Discord
Slipseer
Quaddicted
GZDoomBuilder
SLADE3
guide
ACS
Doomworld
Hammer++
SDK 2013 SP
Mapbase
scripted
I/O
RTSL
MapLabs
TWHL
wiki
video
Mapcore
Steam
Puzzle Maker
Steam
Hammer++
guide
I/O
tf2maps
Radiant (BO3 Mod Tools
GSC
Mod SDK v1.0
The Dark Mod
DarkRadiant
wiki
DoomScript
TDM Forums
guides
Osiris
guide
Larian Forums
DarkRadiant
wiki
DoomScript
idtech4 Discord
SnapMap
(Conductor)
Logic
SnapHub
idStudio
guide
Encounter Manager
Logic Designer
official Discord
Creation Kit
NexusMods
FEAR SDK 1.08
guide
Discord
Creative Mode
Devices
Reddit
Valve Hammer Editor
guide
entities
TWHL
guide
(L4D2 Tools)
dynamic
I/O
VScript
Steam
Exodus SDK
static
VS
mod.io
guide
Forge
Planet Minecraft
CurseForge
Prodeus
guide
official Discord
Quadrilateral Cowboy
guide
Steam forum
TrenchBroom
video
Map-Center
NetRadiant-c
GtkRadiant
LvL World
Q4Radiant
.script
Studio
guide
official Discord
RobloxHelpers
guide
Gumbo
Steam
Creation Kit
NexusMods
DromEd
guides
wiki
Stim
OSM
TTLG
T3ed
guide
TTLG
227h
guide
UScript
Oldunreal
ut99.org
Unreal Tournament 4
guide
Blueprint
Discord
Unity
ProBuilder
RealtimeCSG
Visual
Playmaker
Official Unity Discord
Unreal
CubeGrid
Modeling Mode
Blueprint
Unreal Slackers Discord
Godot
CSG
GDScript
C#
Godot Community
Sprite Shapes
Tilemaps
Tilemap Extras
Paper2D tilemaps
TileMaps
Tiled
supports many engines
LDtk
Ogmo
Blender
Maya
free for students
3DS Max
free for students
Cinema 4D
free for students
SketchUp
topo
UV
blockout
Photoshop
student discount
Illustrator
student discount
Substance
free for students
Affinity
Photopea
Krita
Paint.NET
GIMP
Aesprite
Inkscape
Boxy SVG
PureRef
Allusion
Miro
Notion
Trello
Scrivener
TiddlyWiki
screenshot of TrenchBroom, a standalone brush-based 3D level editor for Quake-based game engines
screenshot of Godot v3.0, rapidly emerging as a popular free and open source community alternative to Unity and Unreal
screenshot of Tiled, a free open source standalone 2D tile-based level editor
Page cover image