On The Level: ShootMania's Map Editor

ShootMania, my many well-placed sources have informed me, includes a potentially significant component of shooting. This, I believe, is probably an exclusive, so it should be treated with all the reverence and majesty such a title commands. But apparently - and I heard this through my ultra-secret source, who may or may not be a grapevine dressed in a trench coat that lives in a perma-dimly-lit parking garage - that there will also be other things. But what? And how? These are the great questions of our time. Oh hey, here's a trailer that answers, like, all of them at once. Neat!

The base options, of course, look great. We can choose from all sorts of structural bits and bobs (Walls! Windows! Buttresses!), and drop-in/drop-out is, happily, in - and not, you know, out. So that's all quite promising, and it seems pretty simple to boot.

I'd love to see a video of a dev walking us through the process of blowing a map out into something like the multi-tiered behemoth toward the end of this trailer. Also, the dev would need to have a silky smooth, incredibly calming voice. The verbal equivalent of cannon-balling into a fresh pile of warm, velvety laundry, let's say.

Oh hey, the community's already done exactly that. So here's what really makes the map editor tick.

Sure enough, even once you ratchet up the complexity, it all seems quite clear and to-the-point. I mean, I'm still not sure I'd make for a competent enough map designer to really do anything worth noting here, but knowing that this kind of toolset exists certainly makes me want to try. Next up, though, I'd really like to see a map that's not just rehashing the "surprisingly well-preserved ruins of some medieval-yet-also-jump-pad-laden valley fort" look. And also a new phone, ice cream, and a pony. ShootMania community, a little help? No? Aww. It was worth a try.