Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 22, 2026

Role-playing game creation software

Role-playing game creation software is a game creation system 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 but lack the technical skill to program it themselves.

Last revised
Jun 22, 2026
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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.

List

Name License Publisher Initial release Linux Mac Windows Mobile Description
001 Game Creator Proprietary SoftWeir Inc. 2006 No No Yes Yes A commercial action/RPG maker, it uses a subscription model.
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 ? ? 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
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 20133 Yes45 Player5 Yes45 Player5 A cross-platform, open source RPG development tool and client, compatible with RPG Maker.6
Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures Proprietary Strategic Simulations, Inc. 1993 ? Mac OS MS-DOS ? A commercial game builder by MicroMagic using SSI's "Gold Box" engine.1
KAGE Free ? ? Yes No Yes No A free software game development toolkit able to make RPGs utilizing KonsolScript.7
Lugdunon Proprietary Cinera LLC8 ? Yes Yes Yes Yes A 2D online RPG creator platform.
Maker3D ? ? ? Yes ? Yes ? A 3D RPG creator in manga style.
Mire Engine Proprietary Making Italia ? Yes Yes Yes Yes A 2D cross platform game engine using WebGL, DirectX and HTML5.
OHRRPGCE GNU GPL9 OHRRPGCE community 1997–199810 Yes OS X Yes Android An open source RPG maker.11
RPG Creator Proprietary ? ? Yes Yes Yes Yes A commercial game development toolkit which runs through HTML5.
RPG Maker ? ? ? ? ? ? ? A commercial Japanese software 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.
RPG Playground Proprietary ? 2012 Yes Yes Yes Yes A free, web based RPG maker to make, share and play RPGs.12
RpgBoss Free ? ? ? ? ? ? A cross-platform open source editor and engine based on JavaScript and Scala.13
Solarus Free ? 2002 Yes Yes Yes No Open source RPG engine with a custom quest editor.14
Sphere RPG Engine Free ? 2000 Yes Yes Yes No A set of open source RPG makers utilizing JavaScript.15
Verge BSD 1997 ? Yes Yes PSP An open source 2D game engine with an emphasis on role playing games.16
Wolf RPG Editor Free SmokingWOLF 2008 ? ? ? ? A Japanese RPG creation tool. A "Pro" version with additional functions is sold separately.17

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

References

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. "KonsolScript and Game Engine". SourceForge. 8 December 2016.
  8. "Lugdunon". Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  9. "GPL license". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 27 September 2016.
  10. "Timeline". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 6 April 2016.
  11. "About". OHRRPGCE-Wiki. 9 April 2016.
  12. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: RPG Playground -- A (Free!) RPG Making Game Engine, retrieved 2021-06-13
  13. caranille (2015-01-17). "RPGBoss 0.6.x". LinuxFr.org. Retrieved 2023-09-19.
  14. Famularo, Jessica (2020-04-14). "Zelda's most dedicated fan game developers built an engine anyone can use". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
  15. "Sphere RPG Engine". Navioo.
  16. McGraw, Ben. "About - VERGE, Free 2d Game Engine". archive.verge-rpg.com.
  17. Yokoyama, Keiichi (2022-11-22). "Wolf RPG Editor Ver3 has been released – the first major update in 11 years". Automaton. Retrieved 2026-04-20.