Since I first played Adventure Construction Set on the Commodore 64, I’ve been a big fan of games that let you create your own worlds. The more detailed, the better. After the fourteen-year-old me played through Rivers of Light and dissected it with the editor, I created many an adventure. I assembled fantasy worlds where I created my own magic swords, my own versions of manticores and wyverns, and my own castles and dungeons. I created a remake of The Goonies after having seen the movie for the first time. The restaurant, the tunnels beneath, the pursuing Fratellis, and One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship. I also remember adding a toilet that would attack you in the basement of the restaurant for some reason. I probably just thought it was funny.<\/p>\n
The Adventure Construction Set was a fun start for the twelve-year-old me, but it was just the beginning. I don’t think I got into videogame world-creation again until my adult life, when Neverwinter Nights was released with its Aurora Engine. The C-like language that they gave you enabled me to program my own rules for resting, where you were only allowed to set camp once per day, and you had a chance to be interrupted by wandering monsters. At an inn, you healed fully and there was no chance of monsters.<\/p>\n
Neverwinter’s scripting engine allowed me to set scripted events, triggers, and traps, and do more than you’d ever expect. All in all, I spent a good year creating my Neverwinter Nights adventure<\/a>.\u00a0I think there was only\u00a0once person who ever played it, and not to completion, but I had fun and learned a lot.<\/p>\n Today, games like LittleBigPlanet allow people to create some pretty amazing things, but as a console game, it can’t have as deep a toolset as a PC counterpart could have.<\/p>\n