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This Insane World We All Live In

I can't even pretend the idea of RPG 20XX is revolutionary, there's a history of people proposing replacements for RPG Maker 2003. I had the idea in my head since the summer of 2009, but I didn't jump at the chance until fall 2011. Any good scientist can show they have done the necessary background research.. but in the niche world of RPG Maker, any good scientist can hardly stay sane doing so. "But WolfCoder, RPG Maker hobbyists are insane? Surely you jest!"

Don't believe me? Let's jump right in:

RPG Toolkit

RPG Toolkit is the oldest running alternative I can think to RPG Maker. I've personally used it before and while interesting, the engine and editor were pretty clunky and lacked the smoothness RPG Maker 2000/2003 had. It did have many more flexible and powerful features otherwise.

IKA

Not many people seem to know anything about this one despite it sharing a home with RPG 20XX. All the information I could find on IKA is that it is an RPG Maker alternative that really wants you to know it uses Python. From the sporadic search results, this project doesn't appear to be alive anymore.

OHRRPGCE

Nobody really mentions OHRRPGCE either. Perhaps its the stressful looking acronym or the gallery of ameturish screenshots. I personally think it's how the entire program forces you to make RPGs in this weird NCurses like environment using just the keyboard. But this was a program that had an initial release in 1997, you would expect it to at least resemble those familiar gray windows and blue title bars..

EasyRPG

This is (probably) the first good attempt to replace RPG Maker. Originally it seemed as though it would suffer from the same problems the other attempts had, but it appears as though they got their features and priorities organized. There may yet be hope, but it's been three years and I've already almost doubled back to where I was after a long hiatus and a project reboot. Still, cheer them on for me.

Open RPG Maker

This one looks very promising at first, that is until I was able to contact its creator. He's been convinced Linux is the way of the future since Vista was released and that his RPG Maker will change our world. He repeatedly told me I was severely limiting myself by starting out on Windows only in this world that is rapidly becoming more Linux. All 1.20% of it. At least when I take my project extremely seriously, it is for comedic effect.

RPG 20XX

And then there was RPG 20XX. Perhaps I'm the biggest offender; I called my own project a large mistake after spending a year on it. And then I vanished for a long while. At least all these other clowns believe in what they did.

I left saying the best solution really is to have a standalone toolkit. But enough is enough! I came back to finish the fight because someone needs to release the RPG Creation kit everyone wanted in the first place. Bring some light and sanity to our dark world of RPG Maker.

Posts

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If only someone made a proper editor for OHRRPGCE... it's the only thing it needs! Things better organized, a more graphical approach. Maybe make it take some ideas either from RPG Maker or Adventure Game Studio (I do like AGS workflow :V).

But anyway! RPG20XX FTW! And EasyRPG.
It really does seem like it's just RPG 20XX in the red and EasyRPG in the green, although I've been hearing EasyRPG has been going so slow it might as well be dead. I'm about to lap them twice in terms of progress in critical features (the actual game systems, menus, battle, etc.).

This is bad because EasyRPG is now the only thing that actually plays 2003 games.
EasyRPG is alive, don't worry. It can be slow, but steady. The savefile reading slowed a lot the player development, but now they're a little faster, if we can say so xD.

But the editor is... where is the editor?
Huh? You're right. That's odd, I thought the editor was one of the first things they did. One of their programmers handed me screenshots and everything.
When it comes to Linux, a lot would switch over if it had everything one would need.
In fact, the lack of a proper RPG Maker for Linux is the only thing holding me back from using Linux 24/7.
Linux has improved a LOT as of late, and is on par with today's Windows OS's, but unlike the latest Windows and all this touch screen what not..the GUI and DeskTop pretty much works like WinXP, of course that's easy to change as Linux Distros can have any sort of desktop environment you could want.
The one thing that's held back Linux for so long is support.. pure and simple.
People shrug it off a lot.
My local bank switched from Windows to Linux recently because the support for WinXP on their systems could no longer be continued.
A lot of people just rather not leave WinXP.. and there are quite a few Linux Distros that can easily replace it.
Linux has improved a LOT as of late, and is on par with today's Windows OS's, but unlike the latest Windows and all this touch screen what not..the GUI and DeskTop pretty much works like WinXP, of course that's easy to change as Linux Distros can have any sort of desktop environment you could want.

I haven't had any good Linux experiences these days, it breaks itself all the time and I have to go fix it. Contrast with all 5 of the Windows 7 machines I ever had- the OS has not once ever done anything like that on me.

Now back between 2008 and 2011, I have had good experiences with Linux. And you can find recent instances of me criticizing Microsoft's new direction.

One thing I have invariably hated though are the Linux zealots (see: Bad Linux Advocacy). They're often riddled with confirmation bias and myopia. Even in person, they make obnoxious gagging noises and stuff when I mention Windows. It's annoying. Such people lose their credibility instantly.

Our experiences are entirely anecdotal which is why neither of them reflect reality. Gamers using Windows is still the thing. Now, classic RPGs are the sort of thing that can be found on other platforms, but that would pretty much just be Android. I don't really count Android as Linux, just Linux in name.

This leaves me at the final plan I made back in January for RPG20XX. The editor will be written to work natively with windows (WIN32) just like 2003 did. It should also work in WINE, so it renders the whole platform thing moot. The engine is the one thing I will port later once completed, but probably only an attempt to port to Android. I am not even sure I will port at all.

RPG20XX has to be completed and a good thing for people to care about it being ported in the first place.
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