The engine is still well supported, and even received some Steam updates this year.

The limitations mimic those of a retro console, and help solo devs prevent overscoping their projects. Strangely enough, RPG Maker 2003 remains extremely popular, especially among Japanese developers. Versions of RPG Maker were also released on PS1, PS2, GBA, and DS. RPG Maker FES was recently released on the 3DS. The result? An explosion of RPG Maker games on Steam Greenlight, often made by teenagers with big dreams but limited skills. RPG Maker users started to consider themselves real game developers, and realized they could actually try to sell their games. The release of RPG Maker VX Ace coincided with the birth of Steam Greenlight. It was a noble intent, but also produced an unfortunate side-effect. The idea was to encourage the use of RTPs, building a free large library of tiles and characters available to everyone. It was time for the community to grow up-but a large part of the community was still not great at creating original art.ĭegica published more art packs in the same style as their standard assets (also called Run Time Packages, or RTPs), and encouraged the community to make new assets using the same art style.

No piracy, no ripping, no more fan games that used copyrighted material. Most importantly, Degica put the entire RPG Maker series on Steam, greatly increasing the engine’s popularity. RPG Maker finally had official forums, a support network, and someone willing to listen to the community and relay their feedback to the Japanese developers. A newer version called RPG Maker VX Ace addressed those complaints, and Degica stepped in as the new publisher.ĭegica not only translated the engine, but made an effort to build a community around their product. With a reduced resolution and a simplified map system it was seen by many as a step back. Two years later, Protexis localized the newest version of the engine, RPG Maker VX.

After waiting for so long for an English release, many ignored Protexis's work. However, the people who already owned a pirated copy were unwilling to support the official version. In 2005, the impossible happened: RPG Maker found an English publisher in Protexis. New users joined forums looking for those assets and scripts, but remained for the company. 'Scripters' began to release their work to the public: adding a fancy new menu to your game became only a matter of copy-pasting a few lines of code. But the good part of having an engine with so many pre-scripted features is that the code you write for your own game will probably work on someone else’s project. Those who already had programming experience grasped the system most others were left in the dark. A small game called To The Moon was also made with RPG Maker XP.

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