From Chris Benjaminsen of Nonoba and Player.IO comes Everybody Edits, a bare-bones platform game played on the backs of the very people who build it! In this charming retro-looking game, you are given basic tools to place blocks, lay gravity-altering objects, and craft mazes and traps of your own design. All of this happens in real-time, meaning you can move and build at the same time, all while people from around the world run around in your world!

Everybody Edits may look like a simple game, but it only sticks to simplicity for the sake of ease of use. Just like most platform games, you can run around a 2D world using the [WASD] or [arrow] keys and jump with the [spacebar]. Unlike most platform games, you use the mouse to select and place blocks chosen from the menu at the bottom. Want to build a staircase? Click a solid block, click the screen, and draw. No wonder all of the character avatars are big smiley faces!

Everybody Edits also gives you the power to mess with the physics of your world. Arrows act as localized gravity wells that push players in that direction, allowing you to bob up and down in mid-air or to create one-way passages to other sections of your world. You can even lay gravity-neutral spots that, in effect, create multi-directional ladders that can make your realm more like a top-down adventure than a platformer!

To top off the experience, you'll also find key blocks that activate when touched, coins, crowns, and a few other game-tweaking items. Nothing too serious, just a few things to spice up the platforming.

Analysis: Experiments in user-created content can go wildly wrong. With Everybody Edits, it happened to go wildly right. Similar to how Minecraft structures its building concepts, Everybody Edits allows anyone to hop in and add or subtract blocks from the level. You can craft a password-protected stage if you like, but the magic of silent collaboration that sometimes happens in open worlds is lost in these situations. Still, it's nice to see dedicated, well-created levels in a game so dependent upon its players for content.

As far as playing Everybody Edits goes, your experience depends entirely upon the user-made levels you check out. Some worlds will be rubbish, some will be amazing, while others will be just plain weird. You can copy the URL of any stage via the menu at the bottom of the screen, making it easy to save or share good levels you come across. Otherwise, it's up to luck! In general, protected worlds are a bit more worthwhile than open ones.

So, what's hanging around in Everybody Edits other than a bunch of smileys and user-created worlds? Customization. Microtransactions fuel the servers that host Everybody Edits, and for parting with bits of your cash, you'll unlock new avatars, more blocks, bigger, better worlds to edit and save, as well as a few other extras. Using actual cash is optional, though, as the game runs on both Energy and Gems, the former charging slowly over the course of time, the latter charging from your wallet. Both can be used to purchase any of the items listed above, so in this case, spending money only need be for the impatient. For these benefits, you also have to register.

The game as a whole doesn't project an air of refined polish, but the core underneath exhibits a lot of creativity and allows players to unleash their imaginations wild on the world in a simple, entertaining sort of way. Think of it as a simplified, 2D version of Minecraft and you've got a good handle on what to expect when you fire up Everybody Edits!

Play Everybody Edits

Thanks to Max, Aidan, Drench, Bob, Roomescaper55, and Alex for suggesting this one! And to Dazz for one of the screenshots used in the review.