Originally Posted by Onegai:
Software Name: RPG Toolkit (aka “Toolkit”, aka “Tk”)
Software Type: Game (RPG mainly) Software Development Kit
License: Open Source
Features: Engine & Scripting language, Entity/Map Editors
Scripting Language: RPGCode (C-Based syntax)
Graphics Support: 2D only.
Last Stable Release: 3.1
This is a little-known project I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while now because I believe it has potential. Although initially quite unwieldy the project was apparently recoded in C++ in the more recently releases and the scripting language, RPGCode as they call it, has been updated too. Sadly, work on this project seems to have been halted a while back and I haven’t seen many real games being developed using it. This could probably be attributed to Toolkit’s unstable engine/compiler and its terrible battle-menu plugin (Even the new one has major trouble detecting keypresses correctly).
Can I make my silly little dweeby RPG with this? Yes, but you’ll need to to be able to write your own dlls to give Toolkit the functionality it needs unless you’re making something with exceedingly generic mechanics. At the very least you’ll need to be able to program something. It’s not completely drag and drop.
Looking at the features. They’re good. No actually they’re great. You can use the map editor to draw 2D vector lines over a still image to create boundaries as well as creating layers from a single image. You can create event tiles or draw event areas that will trigger pieces of code. Variables are handled mostly by the engine so you don’t have to track flags, you simply use the editor to enter whether the trigger must only happen once or each time the collision takes place.
So all in all. RPG Toolkit is a great software and a great project, but it’s loaded with just too many bugs, flaws and imperfections for anything beyond personal amusement. It’s not even fit for freeware. To worsen things, most of the games being created using it are ugly, clunky things that include a mixture of bad artwork, ripped graphics, plagiarized audio (well one title at least) and generally unstable scripts. It’s a pity because I’ve seen Toolkit in the right hands and the project had/has so much potential. If a team got together and rebuilt this project, I think it could be an asset to beginner indie-developers.
You can download it here or on almost any page on the site.
…I’ve been wanting to do this article for a while. but never got around to it until now.
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