I will release my new game soon, I've maked rewards if you finish the game: some passwords AND a level editor which is rather powerful...
BUT I'm not sure that it's a good thing to unlock the level editor only when the game is finished; I would be frustrated if nobody managed to finish the game...
Also, I don't want that someone who have never play the game can make levels...
I've thought about a letter system: distributed in some levels, the editor is usable once you have collected the E, D, I, T, O and R.
what do you think about that ?
could you give me other ideas please ?
Another idea is to have collectables (say, coins), and you can spend them between levels, purchasing the E,D,I,T,O,R letters to unlock the editor. Of course, there need to be other things to spend the coins on (extra lives, higher jumping ability, etc)...
You could make the basic editor with a limited tileset available after the first few levels, and you could keep adding functionality as the player progresses.