The folks at Runescape have posted a new developer diary which looks at developing tools for players to create their own games within the game.

There’s a slightly different update on the cards for the not-too-distant future. It won’t suit all of you, but, then, juggling all the different things RuneScape players like to do is always our biggest challenge. What it will do is make some little differences here and there, with new features that you can use in several ways that we’ve thought of...and hopefully a few we haven’t.

We know that to some of you, RuneScape is home to various pastimes that we didn’t really plan for you. Besides all of the quests, minigames and other features that the team has worked hard on over the years, Gielinor has plenty of room for you to organise scavenger hunts, races and all kinds of other activities, and we’ve seen that some of you like to do just that. Now, we’ve decided to set aside some time for a small update aimed at the players who come up with those activities.

I was asked to come up with some items to help out, some little trinkets for the freestyle gamers among you. It’s an interesting challenge: if this stuff is all about the things we didn’t design, how can I deliberately set out to develop it? If I over-design these objects they’ll be really good for whatever I had in mind, but give you much less freedom. That would completely ruin the idea of helping you with the gameplay that you want to make.

Read more here.