RPG Maker doesn’t need any introduction at this point. It’s been around since 1992! People have been making their own little video games in their favourite genre for more than 30 years! Over time the tools have become easier to use, and it’s become easier to share and play each other’s work. RPG Maker WITH is the best example of that on a console to date.
I see RPG Maker as having two distinct strands. On the PC, these are serious, albeit limited, game development engines. You can easily create, import, and use visual, audio, and interface assets and plenty of people have used those capabilities to build commercial games that they then sell via Steam. Some of them have become wildly popular, important titles in their own right – To The Moon, for example. Or Lisa: the Painful. Or Corpse Party.
Of course, if you’re going to go to all the effort to get all those assets done, then you’re generally better off working with a more versatile engine like Unity or Godot, because RPG Maker does all but force you into certain game design elements (even with your ability to mess with the back-end code). However, there would be countless people working in the games industry today who had at least some experience playing around with RPG Maker first. In fact, even I’m an example of that. Long before RPG Maker titles were localised into English I happened across an unofficial translation of one of the early ones (RPG Maker 95) by a guy called Don Miguel. I struggled through that software mightily to make some basic RPGs that I distributed to friends, and no doubt it was that experience that convinced me years later that when I wanted to make a visual novel I could do it.
That’s the PC side of things. On console, RPG Maker has additional limitations that mean it can’t be seen as a serious tool. Most obvious of those is the fact that you can’t just go in and import a bunch of art created in Adobe and other tools to replace the basic assets that come packaged with the software. And then it’s also impossible to export the resulting games that you create for commercial distribution. It’s also impossible to jump into the back-end code and break things to fully customise your project. RPG Maker on console is better seen as a toy and sandbox – more like Mario Maker than a software development tool.
That’s not a criticism though, because the limitations can be liberating. Every time I’ve picked up RPG Maker on PC I’ve felt an overwhelming urge to change everything and to really make it mine. More than a few times I’ve gone about converting all the assets into black & white and high contrast to make it look and feel like an old Final Fantasy Legend Game Boy title, for example. It’s laborious work and I’m just not capable of using those tools for that reason any more (who has the time?!?).
Meanwhile, I’ve loved being able to just make use of what’s in RPG Maker WITH to get a basic JRPG up and running. There are still more than enough assets available to make a full-scale SNES-era JRPG if you want to. DLC packs allow for an even greater variety of assets to play around with.
Once you get into RPG Maker it’s very easy to use, thanks to an efficient interface and plenty of helpful information on how to go about things. In no time you’ll be doodling in your maps, setting up characters and classes, and filling dungeons with treasure chests and enemies to fight. About the only frustrating thing is the text input, because naturally, you’re not going to be able to type on the Switch’s keyboard as easily as a PC or laptop keyboard. Because of this I can’t see anyone creating a full-story adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it’s enough to create some basic plots, hooks, and the trail of breadcrumbs that most JRPGs structure the story around.
Just a note, though – the writing engine is heavily censored, with all kinds of words that are in common usage being “bleeped” out. “Sex” for a very simple example, is blanked out regardless of the context that you might want to use is. As is the most soft-touch of swears, like “hell,” “damn,” or “crap.” But you can use “poop”! It seems like if you want your characters to swear, that might be the one word that is available to you (without getting really creative).
It’s hard to get too mad at the developers knowing that these games can be subsequently uploaded to the server for distribution, and if they weren’t aggressive on the censorship the whole thing could become very controversial, very quickly. And really that’s the big point of RPG Maker WITH – to make stuff to share with people. In addition to other owners of RPG Maker WITH being able to download, play and rate your games, anyone with the demo can as well, so if you’ve got a friend who isn’t willing to commit to making games themselves, they can at least still play yours without having to pay anything.
One of the big new features in RPG Maker WITH over the previous RPG Maker on Switch is the ability to share assets as well as games. This means maps, and events (RPG Maker’s equivalent of “code”), and other items that you might not have the time or patience to figure out how to do yourself. One of the first things uploaded to the asset share feature was a command to jump a tile in the game – enormously useful for puzzles and environment traversal in a game, but not something that RPG Maker automatically enables. Rather than figure out how to create that effect, a player can just download the pre-made asset and save themselves the time.
Some might argue that that’s “lazy,” but I think this is a brilliant feature, because it allows users to focus on the creative side of the process. Whether you use the tools or not, making a game is a lengthy process, and it’s only at its most rewarding if you actually finish something. That sensation is what might inspire people to get into serious game development back on their PCs, so this feature that might help prevent people getting “stuck” and giving up is a good one.
Without a doubt getting the most out of RPG Maker WITH requires a substantial time commitment, and there’s no point to buying the software just to play other people’s games – you can download the demo for that. If, however, you’ve ever had the creative itch to play with this wonderful genre, then the tools couldn’t be easier and you don’t need to know a line of code. Get out there and get creating!
