Play and make platformer levels inspired by a cruel freeware classic
I Wanna Maker is a free tool now in 1.0
I Wanna Be The Guy was a freeware platformer that pastiched classic Nintendo games and required pixel-perfect jumps and a lot of trial and error to overcome its umpteen unpredictable, unfair deaths. Naturally it became an internet sensation all the way back in 2007, bolstered further by the release of the source code in 2011 and a tidal wave of fangames that followed.
Now there's an easier way to make those fangames. I Wanna Maker is a freeware precision platformer with level editor and easy level sharing, and it just hit version 1.0.
I Wanna Maker contains everything you'd need to make your own masocore platform levels, including objects, 40+ tilesets, backgrounds, music, and custom events. You can then share your level online so others can struggle to complete it and compete on speedrun leaderboards.
If you're more interested in playing than making, the good news is that I Wanna Maker was released into Early Access back in 2020. Since then, 240,000 levels have been made by players, giving you a lifetime's worth of new death traps to navigate. There's also an official campaign created by the developers themselves, which hopefully acts as a good introduction to the concept.
"We decided to leave Early Access because we’ve implemented all the main features that were planned when the game was initially released," say the developers in announcing version 1.0. "We will continue to work on the game after release, but the development will likely be slower. We’ll still be looking at adding highly requested features, fixes, etc."
Perhaps most notably, I Wanna Maker is completely free, "with no monetization of any kind." You can grab it via Steam.