Role-playing game creation software

Role-playing game creation software is a game creation system (software program) intended to make it easy for non-programmers to create a role-playing video game. The target audience for most of these products is artists and creative types who have the imaginative abilities to assemble the elements of a game (artwork, plotline, music, etc.) but lack the technical skill to program it themselves.

RPG Maker

Main article: RPG Maker

The most famous RPG maker is the commercial Japanese RPG Maker series that has been released since 1988 for many systems ranging from the PC-8801, MSX, PC-9801, and Microsoft Windows, to the Super Famicom, PlayStation, Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, and cellphones.

Other role-playing game creation software

Name	License	Publisher	Initial release	Linux	Mac	Windows	Mobile	Description
Adventure Construction Set	?	Electronic Arts	1984	?	Apple II	MS-DOS	?	An early RPG maker for creating top-down view tile-based role-playing and adventure games. Published for the Commodore 64 and later ported to other 8-bit and early 16-bit microcomputers.
Adventure Creator	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	An early RPG maker for Apple II computers that allowed users to build very simple games. Not to be confused with Graphic Adventure Creator, a simplified version of which was also released as Adventure Creator.
Bard's Tale Construction Set	?	Electronic Arts	1991[ citation needed ]	?	?	MS-DOS	?	A (relatively) early RPG maker by Interplay, based on the basic design (first-person view and tile set) of the Bard's Tale games, using a version of the Thief of Fate game engine. [1]
Mire Engine	Proprietary	Making Italia	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	A 2D cross platform game engine using WebGL, DirectX and HTML5.
BYOND	?	BYOND Software	1996	Server only	No	Yes	No	Used for NEStalgia , and others.
DCGAMES	Proprietary	DC Software	1990	No	No	MS-DOS	No	An Ultima-style RPG game creation system. [2]
EasyRPG	Free	EasyRPG community	2013 [3]	Yes [4] [5]	Player [5]	Yes [4] [5]	Player [5]	A cross-platform, open source RPG development tool and client, compatible with RPG Maker. [6]
001 Game Creator	Proprietary	SoftWeir Inc.	2006	No	No	Yes	Yes	A commercial action/RPG maker, it uses a subscription model.
Unlimited Adventures	Proprietary	Strategic Simulations, Inc.	1993	?	Mac OS	MS-DOS	?	A commercial game builder by MicroMagic using SSI's "Gold Box" engine. [1]
RPG Creator	Proprietary	?	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	A commercial game development toolkit which runs through HTML5.
RPG Playground	Proprietary	?	2012	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	A free, web based RPG maker to make, share and play RPG's. [7]
KAGE	Free	?	?	Yes	No	Yes	No	A free software game development toolkit able to make RPGs utilizing KonsolScript. [8]
OHRRPGCE	GNU GPL [9]	OHRRPGCE community	1997–1998 [10]	Yes	OS X	Yes	Android	An open source RPG maker. [11]
RpgBoss	Free	?	?	?	?	?	?	A cross-platform open source editor and engine based on JavaScript and Scala. [12]
Solarus	Free	?	2002	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Open source RPG engine with a custom quest editor. [13]
Sphere RPG Engine	Free	?	2000	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	A set of open source RPG makers utilizing JavaScript. [14]
Verge	BSD		1997	?	Yes	Yes	PSP	An open source 2D game engine with an emphasis on role playing games. [15]
Maker3D	?	?	?	Yes	?	Yes	?	A 3D RPG creator in manga style.
Lugdunon	Proprietary	Cinera LLC [16]	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	A 2D online RPG creator platform.

While not an RPG maker per se, the Worldforge game engine is intended for creating MMORPGs.

References

1. Barton, Matt (23 February 2007). "The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993)". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 5 February 2009.
2. "DC Games Graphics Adventure Game Builder game at DOSGames.com" . Retrieved 30 December 2020.
3. "Release 0.1 · EasyRPG/Player". GitHub. 17 March 2013.
4. "Download EasyRPG Editor". EasyRPG. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
5. "Download EasyRPG Player". EasyRPG. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
6. Schaff, Tobias (July 2016). "EasyRPG - An RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 engine". ODROID Magazine. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
7. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : RPG Playground -- A (Free!) RPG Making Game Engine , retrieved 2021-06-13
8. "KonsolScript and Game Engine". SourceForge. 8 December 2016.
9. "GPL license". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 27 September 2016.
10. "Timeline". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 6 April 2016.
11. "About". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 9 April 2016.
12. caranille (2015-01-17). "RPGBoss 0.6.x". LinuxFr.org. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
13. Famularo, Jessica (2020-04-14). "Zelda's most dedicated fan game developers built an engine anyone can use". PC Gamer . Retrieved 2023-03-26.
14. "Sphere RPG Engine". Navioo.
15. McGraw, Ben. "About - VERGE, Free 2d Game Engine". archive.verge-rpg.com.
16. "Lugdunon" . Retrieved 3 March 2017.