Game Mods & Tools

Game Mods & Tools are programs which modify the games or allow us to create them. We have combined them into one category as they both often allow you for a great deal of creativity as far as games are concerned.

Game Mods

Game Mods are created most of the time by the community of players. They are essentially game patches which can change:

  • game mechanics,
  • the look and feel of the game, for example, the textures,
  • The characters in the game.

Fan creations have been created almost since the beginning of the game industry. It’s worth to mention such mods like Gothic Diccuric or Counter-Strike which was born as a Half-Life mod.

The mods can change minor game details or remodel it completely. A representative of the first group are the mods which change the graphical effects and the textures. Practically every game which has a large community receives such modifications. Among such mods, one can certainly mention launchers, for instance, various Minecraft launchers.

In the second group, we can find modifications which change the game completely. They add new locations, new characters, new plot, new quests etc.

There is also a third kind of game mods. It leaves the main game elements intact but it fiddle with the game difficulty. It was so with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series games. There is a large number of fan mods that increase the stamina of the opponents and reduces the resources on the game maps.

Mods sometimes are considered separate games. We were already talking about Counter-Strike which was born from a single-player FPS and became a multiplayer tactical shooter. Everyone who knows Gordon Freeman adventures realizes that this must have been a lot of work.

Game Tools

A separate kind of programs are game tools although we must it that sometimes it’s hard to tell game mods from game tools. Anyway, the latter could be divided into:

  • game creations tools such as RPG Maker or Garry’s Mod,
  • console or computer emulators,
  • digital games distribution platforms such as Steam or GOG Galaxy,
  • cheat programs such as Cheat Engine.