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[NOT SURE IF RIGHT BOARD?] RPG MAKER (AND POSSIBLY OTHER GMS) VIDEO GAME HISTORY

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Allow me to introduce myself. I'm what I like to call a video game historian. My friends, on the other hand, call me a video game obsessive with too much time and optimism striving for something minimal, pointless and, ultimately, futile (being the preservation of all games that have not already been lost- the futility being that many games have already been lost, many will be lost and even if I think I am finished with my task, I will unavoidably miss at least a few, varying on how much other people contribute to my projects upon their official announcement and possible spread at whatever speed). It's very important, very serious work. (By this I mean I'm having trouble getting started due to the nature of such an undertaking and it's secondary to literally everything else I'm doing.) But enough about me, let's kill talk about you!

My understanding is this site has been an important institution of the game maker community since 2007. It's continued existence and size makes it ground zero for publishing a game, and failing that, there's other sites like Gamejolt. From what I can tell, this was the first RPG Maker website of any significant traction- before it was basically Geocities webpages. I could be wrong, though- I haven't done much homework on the subject, but that's because it's hard to do homework on. Anyways, since it's extremely apparent that this website isn't going to go bye bye any time soon and if it did someone would archive or reboot the whole thing, this would be a good example of a site to put on my Listlist. At least in the English language, this site seems to be by far the largest resource. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

However. There are also plenty of games that are at risk of disappearing. I'm talking about games that were only ever hosted on Freewebs and never completed, games in languages nobody seems to care about, games that get deleted from where they were being hosted without anybody noticing- the list goes on. I made this topic because I wanted pointers and possible further help on finding and preserving these games, and I figured RPG Tsukuru games and other maker games were a unique enough breed to be deserving of their own archeology advice and efforts, and may make up the majority of endangered games due to their cost of manufacture, amount of effort required, and other factors. Although there's also archives like archive.org and Geocities.ws, I get the feeling that there's times a game can not be found by looking for it and must be found on accident, which is why outside help is so valuable to me. For example, before I knew about Super DX-Ball Deluxe by finding out about it on accident from DX-Ball, I probably wouldn't have found it in a billion years- good luck sorting through google searches like "breakout clone games pc". If someone comes to me and says "My cousin made this game from the ground up and I still have a copy on a floppy disk", they certainly did not go out and look for their cousins game on google because they wanted a game to download like I am forced to rely on, their individual background and experience is what added that game to my records. Exactly in the same way more legitimate historians often have to interview people because they themselves do not have the knowledge required to record the event.

I have been working on learning languages for a long time as it seems to come naturally to me- I'm bilingual with Spanish, and my first choice for non-native language was Latin (don't laugh pls), and my second was German, which I'm still learning. I understand the Germans have a large RPG Maker community, though I don't know about more obscure makers like SMBX. I will have to investigate later. The reason I'm bringing this up is because language barriers are another huge factor in this project and a large reason WHY I'm learning foreign languages.

Sorry if I come off as pretentious or something, I tend to do that. Any help at all is welcome, even if it's posting your PS1 RPG maker game you never programmed the first boss for.

TL;DR show me RPG Maker gamelists other than this one and games that aren't on any of those.
Didn't read all that, but in the heyday of rm2k/3, there were sites like Charas-Project.net and gamemaker.com (I'm not sure if it was gamemaker, gameworld, or some other variant). Charas had a massive selection of resources for rm2k/3, mainly because there was little to no filter in regards to what people were allowed to upload. They also had a pretty alright rm2k/3 sprite generator. I'll put emphasis on the word alright. I say "had", but I know atleast Charas-project is still around. I'm pretty sure gamemaker, or whatever it was called, is long gone, but it always seemed to have more activity, more members posting games and resources. However, pretty much all games hosted on either site were from independent file-upload sites that don't exist anymore or who's links were taken down due to inactivity or age. So, I think you're about right, rpgmaker.net is the best resource for almost all existing RM games from rm2k to vxace. Anything else that isn't uploaded here you'll have to dig through google for and hope you can find a working link or archive.

I don't know how you'd go about finding so-called lost RM games from users who don't participate in the community anymore and who's internet tracks are lost.
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
IndiePlanet was before my time. RIP tho.
I'm a fellow video game history nerd, though I don't know much about the history of this site.

All I can think of for old RM games aside from the "obscure game" topic here is The Queen's Court (queenscourt.org, I think) and the aforementioned Charas-Project.net. For interest's sake, There's a more contemporaneous tumblr list of RM horror games,though they're not exactly in any danger of disappearing soon. vgperson.com has translated cult horror games and I think games in some other genres made with Rpg Maker.

Sorry I can't be of more help! Most of my research is of old console games never released outside of Japan.

BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
I joined in 2011 and abjured conversation like a wet blanket until late 2014.
author=drenrin2120
Didn't read all that, but in the heyday of rm2k/3, there were sites like Charas-Project.net and gamemaker.com (I'm not sure if it was gamemaker, gameworld, or some other variant). Charas had a massive selection of resources for rm2k/3, mainly because there was little to no filter in regards to what people were allowed to upload. They also had a pretty alright rm2k/3 sprite generator. I'll put emphasis on the word alright. I say "had", but I know atleast Charas-project is still around. I'm pretty sure gamemaker, or whatever it was called, is long gone, but it always seemed to have more activity, more members posting games and resources. However, pretty much all games hosted on either site were from independent file-upload sites that don't exist anymore or who's links were taken down due to inactivity or age. So, I think you're about right, rpgmaker.net is the best resource for almost all existing RM games from rm2k to vxace. Anything else that isn't uploaded here you'll have to dig through google for and hope you can find a working link or archive.

I don't know how you'd go about finding so-called lost RM games from users who don't participate in the community anymore and who's internet tracks are lost.

Gamemaker... Hm. If anybody else has any more information on this and could fill in, that'd be great.
Knowing a game existed at one point is one step closer to somebody finding it accidentally on a floppy disk. Hell, even if nothing comes of it it's better than nothing. You don't know how much expired download links drive me nuts, though. Just skimming the IWBTG fangame scene showed dozens just gone, even highly recommended/famous ones.
There's only so far Google, archives and gamelists can take you. There's a lot of games that I simply won't be able to find by myself because only three people in the world still have it and none of them have put it on the internet. I'm hoping my project hits it big somehow (I like to think it's interesting at least as a curio to the common man) and people come to my blog and show me that Sonic fangame they made screwing around in Klik 'N Play. If modern video game journalism is any indication, all it takes is me to make a post about RNG that hits the front page of Reddit and next thing I know I'm getting interviewed by Gamespot.
author=suzy_cheesedreams
I'm a fellow video game history nerd, though I don't know much about the history of this site.

All I can think of for old RM games aside from the "obscure game" topic here is The Queen's Court (queenscourt.org, I think) and the aforementioned Charas-Project.net. For interest's sake, There's a more contemporaneous tumblr list of RM horror games,though they're not exactly in any danger of disappearing soon. vgperson.com has translated cult horror games and I think games in some other genres made with Rpg Maker.

Sorry I can't be of more help! Most of my research is of old console games never released outside of Japan.

I too know of and am very grateful to vgperson as far as introducing games to western audiences such as myself, but I'd hardly call her endeavors preservatory as the games she translates tend to be huge hits in no danger.
I can't get mad at you for specializing in a different area, man! We're both video game historians, aren't we?
author=BowelMovement
IndiePlanet was before my time. RIP tho.

Google isn't helpful. Care to elaborate?
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