There’s dedication & there’s dedication. The second, slantier version means there’s been a bit more effort being put in. Let’s use Quake as an example: it’s the difference between someone still making Quake levels all these years later & someone who has built a Quake editor for modern sensibilities, making it all wizzy. Handily for this analogy, that second someone exists, and has just released TrenchBroom, “A Modern Level Editor for Quake.”

What a statement! How does one define ‘modern’? TrenchBroom’s (I’d have called it “Quicker Quaker Maker Boobs Girls Bieber”, because I am an SEO ninja) definition, according to maker Kristian Duske, is all about the third dimension: “I believe that the traditional approach, where you work primarily in 2D views, forces you to think in 2D rather than in 3D. That is why this editor does not have 2D views at all – you do all work in one single 3D view.”

Watch the editor take Quake and make it bloom into life. Dragging walls! Creating *consults ‘Quake Editing For Dummies’* Trisoups? You can shape Quake like it’s some newly developed youngling game, out of polygonal clay and triangular Plasticine.

It’s cross-platform, so you can totally use it in your future Valve-Linux-Steam-Boxmajig, or a pod-person’s Apple Macintosh. Does that excite you? It excited me, and I’m not even going to make anything. I just love that someone out there can give 16 year-old game a new lease of life. There’s something very PC about it all. It’s like we’re helping a punch-drunk boxer go out in style.
What? No I’m not crying? I just have a condition where I get nostalgic and teary over silly things. The doctor said it was known as “feels”, and that it was a perfectly normal reaction to being human.

LATE NIGHT EDIT FUNTIME!

Here’s a tutorial for those interested in making some Quake.