Ogmo – free, open source, 2D level editor

There's also LDtk. By the director of Dead Cells. https://ldtk.io/

Several level editors mentioned in this article: https://noelberry.ca/posts/making_games_in_2025/

Which is currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44038209

I always feel depressed when I see what is my developer work nowadays, but this kind of project makes me happy. I don't know exactly what it is, but those simple UI thingies with pixels are cozy to me.

Ah this is an old project and hasn’t seen any updates in years which is why what I was going to comment is what it is

Looks pretty cool! I’m looking around the docs to find some import instructions for a common engine.

How does it compare with Tiled? https://www.mapeditor.org/

Hey, a reference to Jumper! Glad to hear that Maddy Thorson hasn't forgotten her roots.

Easy Integration - When you're done editing, save your level to a handy JSON file - one that is easily parsed to give you immediate access to all of the tiles, decals, and entities you've authored!

That still leaves a lot to be desired. Am I expected to write all the code to import this format into my engine of choice? That's not exactly "easy".

For instance, is there tooling to import into GameMaker? That would seem to be table stakes.