RPGBoss

(written for RPGBoss version 0.9.8)

I really like this app. It is a completely free alternative to RPG Maker. I haven't used RPG Maker that much, but from what I can tell, the style is similar. Currently, it even comes with some RPG Maker sprites & tilesets.

Unfortunately, development has not been very active recently & it needs many improvements & fixes. I commend the developers on an excellent job. The design is well done. But there is much work to be done & many open issues & requests remain open on the GitHub project page.

What I like:

• all-in-one interface with built-in map editor
• easy to learn
• easy to add art & other assets
• games can be easily tested from within editor
• one-click exporting of games
• open source (GNU AGPL v3.0)
• cross-platform
  • both the editor & exported games should work on any platform that supports Java & its GUI libraries (libgdx I believe)

Some improvements/fixes I think it needs:

• options for more battle system types
• animated battle sprites
• a more dynamic method of setting/changing character sprites
• ability to remove entities from maps (may already have this capability but I have not found it yet)
• number of map layers are limited (users should be able to set their own layers)
• default autotile tileset should be removable from maps
• UI needs some fixes:
  • some dialogs are too big & need scrolling capability
  • tilesets can only be removed from latest added
• support for Tiled Map Editor maps
• current sprite & tileset assets need replaced
  • the RPG Maker art assets distributed with the program are not licensed for use in engines other than RPG Maker (game developers will likely run into complaints from RPG Maker owners)

Bugs:

• tileset size is limited & causes game crashes
  • to fix:
  • either increase/remove limit on image dimensions or ...
  • show a message at game startup about incompatible tilesets
• tilesets can be removed from maps without removing references
  • this causes editor & game crashes

Some things I don't really like, but perhaps not as important:

• requires Java runtime to play games (doesn't output native binaries)
  • this is nice, however, for portability & distribution on multiple platforms

While I do have many complaints about RPGBoss in its current state, there are very few free & open-source 2D RPG game making projects at its level. I would say that the best free alternative to it is RPG Toolkit. However, in my opinion, RPGBoss has a one-up on RPG Toolkit as games produced with it can be played on multiple platforms. While RPG Toolkit currently only supports outputting Windows binaries.

[Edited by AntumDeluge, December 21, 2017 @ 15:39 PDT]

Hello! i am a big fans of games.and in a few years.I have a quetion. How games are made? and can I also make one? Then I discovered there are some engines to make games but...,I am not good at programing. and the two best game engine (Game Maker and RPG maker) are shareware. But recently there are some other alternative being developed. for the game maker,I found Enigma Engine and its looks so similar and for rpg maker i found many simmilar alternatives and i have compare some of them and this is some reason i choose RPGboss are:

1.Very cool editor look 2.the best built in ghrapic (the tilesets its look like for vx) 3.unique stats system and maybe its easier 4.already work battle system(but its not perfect yet) 5.many more cool recources at the website asset serfer and a sample game (lost ghost mansion) 6. 3 tile level (the other is only 2)

if you are intrested,check the website and contribute