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.
See 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.
| Name | License | Publisher | Initial release | Linux | Mac | Windows | Mobile | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adventure Construction Set | 1984 | 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 | 1991 | 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 | Making Italia | A 2D Cross Platform Game Engine using WebGL, DirectX and HTML5. | ||||||||
| BYOND | BYOND Software | 1996 | Used for NEStalgia, and others. | |||||||
| DCGAMES | DC Software | 1990 | An Ultima-style RPG game creation system[2] | |||||||
| EasyRPG | EasyRPG community | 2013[3] | [4] [5] | A cross-platform, open source RPG development tool and client, compatible with RPG Maker.[6] | ||||||
| 001 Game Creator | SoftWeir Inc. | 2006 | A commercial action/RPG maker. Uses a subscription model. | |||||||
| Unlimited Adventures | 1993 | A commercial game builder by MicroMagic using SSI's "Gold Box" engine. | ||||||||
| RPG Creator | A commercial game development toolkit which runs through HTML5. | |||||||||
| RPG Playground | 2012 | A free, web based RPG maker to make, share and play RPG's.[7] | ||||||||
| KAGE | A free software game development toolkit able to make RPGs utilizing KonsolScript.[8] | |||||||||
| OHRRPGCE | [9] | OHRRPGCE community | 1997–1998[10] | An open source RPG maker.[11] | ||||||
| RpgBoss | A cross-platform open source editor and engine based on JavaScript and Scala.[12] | |||||||||
| Solarus | 2002 | Open source RPG engine with a custom quest editor.[13] | ||||||||
| Sphere RPG Engine | 2000 | A set of open source RPG makers utilizing JavaScript.[14] | ||||||||
| Verge | 1997 | An open source 2D game engine with an emphasis on role playing games.[15] | ||||||||
| Maker3D | A 3D RPG creator in manga style | |||||||||
| Lugdunon | Cinera LLC[16] | A 2D online RPG creator platform. |
While not an RPG maker per se, the Worldforge game engine is intended for creating MMORPGs.