RPG Maker MV

Somewhat steep learning curve. However, it's great wants you get the hang of it

Great for people who don't have a lot of experience with coding or game development who want to get into them.

If you can't afford MZ, buying MV won't hurt. I had a friend try making his first game on MV and he had so much fun.

Be free to get creative, the only ceiling is the limit of your imagination.

It comes loaded with enough default stuff to experiment with and learn how to make a game, and the change from Ruby to JAVASCRIPT makes it much more compatible with modern programming methods, there are also so many plugins you can use if you don't have any coding know-how.

(: Enjoy.

RPG Maker MV is a terrific entry in the RPG Maker series. I've been a fan since the PS1 version, and for most 2D and 3D isometric (e.g., using MV3D plugin) games emphasizing adventure and role-playing components, this software is terrific for sustainable projects that you can begin and continue where you left off later on. Note that you can remove a lot of the default RPG infrastructure if you don't need it for your project (e.g., complicated menus, character stats). RPG Maker MV has ALWAYS run smoothly for me, even on sketchy/old laptops. Almost logged 4,000 hrs and still highly recommend :)

Made my first game in this. Great starter program for those wanting to get into game making. The community behind it is massive. Very easy to find great mods and artists.

Cool tool. Plenty of assets and plugins out there for free

I got it on a discount for £10 and its definitely not worth £60, but other than that it's pretty good if u have no idea about coding and want to start out (just buy it on a discount)

(The playtime isn't accurate, it must count weird when left open on the desktop for a while lmao)

RPG Maker MV is incredibly user-friendly and easy to use once you're familiar with the layout of buttons and how basic features work, so I suggest watching a tutorial to familiarize yourself before starting a big project to avoid spending 20 minutes looking for the settings button. SumRndmDde's tutorial series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMcr1s5MjsiTky6KB4ML-q_QoBE_ZYJk5) is really good and engaging, while not being so hyperspecific that you can't use the information for your own projects, like some Unity or Godot tutorials.

However, if you want to do anything not expressly programmed into the engine, you'll have to do a lot of coding or use plugins to get what you want, and it still might not be as good as something you'll get from Unity. RPG Maker is for making RPGs (go figure) so it can be incredibly challenging to make anything else. Not impossible though! And even with these restraints, many people have made amazing games in this and older versions of RPG Maker, such as Omori, OneShot, and my personal favorite game of all time, In Stars and Time from insertdisc5 (10-20 USD on steam, absolutely recommend it!). As long as you know what you're getting into and are prepared to program your own features from scratch or use 30+ plugins for one game, I would recommend MV as a fun hobby.

Speaking of plugins, the community is very active and you can find tons of great free plugins if you can't code yourself. Plus, the forums are an amazing place to find help when you're stuck, or to just talk about what you're working on. I post there all the time since I'm really bad at javascript haha

Absolutely get it on sale because, I hate to say this, it isn't worth it at 80 USD. Luckily, it goes on sale basically one week a month for 90% off or so (I got it at the record low price of 5.59 USD). Check the price history on https://steamdb.info/app/1096900/ to see when the next sale will be. According to their charts the longest time MV ever went without a sale was about 5 weeks as of this writing, and that's definitely worth it for the $70 saving, unless you're somehow on a time constraint.

I haven't personally used any other RPG Maker, older or newer, so I can't say if MV is much better than older versions or if MZ is significantly more powerful or easy to use. But I will say, MV's lowest recorded price is just under 6 USD, whereas MZ's is 35, so if you're just looking to try out a fun cheap game engine, get MV. Of course, do your research into whether MZ would be better for you, but 35-80 USD puts it out of my "just trying a new hobby" price range.

If you're still not sure whether it's right for what you want to achieve, get the 20-day free trial version from the RPG Maker website (rpgmakerweb.com). It's the full program completely for free for 20 days and you can do anything the paid version can do. A little trick I accidentally found was that you can keep the free trial for as long as you're willing to leave the app open on your desktop without shutting your pc down, which is how I got an extra week while I was waiting for the next sale.

Anyway, I definitely recommend MV for writers and artists hoping to make a fun little RPG or story-focused game, but if you're trying to make a serious commercial game, it will likely give you a lot of trouble. You'd be better off spending some time learning Unity if you're making anything besides a traditional JRPG.

Doesn't work properly on Linux (Manjaro), can't playtest games.

Avoid, try "RPG paper maker", "EasyRPG", "RPG Architect" and Godot instead.

I clung to VX Ace for the longest time, in an effort to avoid JS plugins, but eventually I caved because I wanted a game that I could export to mobile and other platforms. I mostly still tinker with it, because I can't learn code to save my life, but it's fun to play around with regardless.

good engine for indie game developers especially beginners pretty easy to get a hold of the basics. it IS overpriced but with all the plugins and support out there it makes it work it the devs are just too focused on making it fun rather than useful. still would highly recommend for beginners

Impossible à utiliser correctement sur Mac. Le jeu plante régulièrement, à la moindre commande complétée... Inutilisable, donc !

Easy to use and figure out just plunking around --- I found the community to be amazing with tons of add-ons and a wealth of knowledge. This piece of software has helped bring our games "The Tower of Wowers", "CarsF*ckingDragon", "Momo's Mansion" and "Grand Strokers" (and others) to life!!

Being a indie game developer using this exact program, I RECOMMEND!!

I've used RPG Maker MV for many hours now and found that it is my favourite of all before and I find it far easier to use than Unite. It's got a certain charm to it and it's very well made. It offers a wealth of options and features, that are simplistic enough for total newbies to coding and game creation. There is also tonnes of additional DLC and an ever expanding world of user custom content. I highly recommend this software.

Fun and simple to start creating simple games

the best starter engine

The editor is worse than MZ, but you don't have to deal with Visustella.

As someone who has put much time into MV i can say this is a great method of telling stories. Not making great games. Now albeit there are great games made in this engine such as OMORI. That game was made by a full team of developers over the course of 6 years (4 because of the engine change in 2016 when MV was released.) It is highly unlikely that someone is going to make the next Undertale by themselves in this engine.
If you wish to tell stories and have simple gameplay MV or MZ is for you.-


-Terrafino (Head of Terra-Games)

Fun but also confusing after purchasing some of the DLC, it says it downloaded it and it took some time to figure out where everything went.

multiple hours a day spent figuring things out. creating animations, characters and items with gimp really helped. The common events and variables helped me create skilling systems ssimilar to runescape. All of the existing creators making plugins is a solid pillar for the community. Creating assets and your own character generator felt amazing to complete. If you included all of the time I spent making assets and plugins for this game on top of time spent I'd have almost 2000 hours. Yes. It's glorified side scroller, but its perfect for what I wanted and needed to make my forever game.

Lots of downgrades over previous products.

do not recommend for mac users, because does not work correctly, while launching game for a test

this is a very fun and easy software to use. i would recomend

It's not really working for Mac it just keeps crashing. Luckily I have a Windows PC so I didn't waste my money but it would be really nice if you guys could fix it to run better on mac please.

I like the RPG Maker series in general but it wasn't until I started taking game development seriously that I really started to love RMV. Even after I learned other Engines like Unity I still went with RMV to develop my own game here on Steam as well as a classic Rogue-like game (as in the game Rogue itself, not just the genre) over on Itch and GameJolt. I've seen people use this program to make RPGs, turn-based tactics games, multiplayer games, and all sorts of things.

PROS
- Massive and helpful online community flush with plugins, tutorials, and shared assets.
- Practically zero licensing headaches with tons of available asset packs.
- Everything you need to prototype or even complete your own games.
- Editor is intuitive and user friendly.
- Simple one-click deployment to Windows PC or as Web Game.

CONS
- Deployment to mobile devices can be tricky for non-programmers.
- May run into issues on Mac and Apple devices down the road because of Apple's planned obsolescence practices regarding OpenGL.
- Uses JavaScript (not really a con except in this instance) which does not utilize all cores as a language and can cause performance issues on mobile devices especially when using flashes and color hue effects. Not really noticeable on PC but applies to mobile and web games.

If you ever thought about making your own game or getting into programming or anything like that then know there are a lot of people out there who got their start by checking out the RPG Maker line.

Good but overpriced

It's good.

It is all consuming in my mind

I must make my 99999999 hour rpg with my 9999999 party members where they all get to level 99 and take on GOD.

Tried to get this to work and well it did not launch. I heard its good i just cant get it launch on my pc so... IDK.

i am never going to finish any of my game projects

Great engine, Harold is the homie

should come standard with lghting sysytem
insead of getting charged to buy a confusing messy plug in.
update mv with a lighting system. i t would be easy for you.
and we paid alot already

you don't need to know how to code to use this, but knowing some code will make your experience way more fun and make your game more unique. It's super simple to customize I highly recommend.

It might seem intimidating at first with all of the UI but I got through it and I ended up making sussy bussy wussy games so give it a go my bruhs and gals

it's said that it works with mac but it crashes all the time. I was so excited and my experience was bad.

it somewhat funnies
!

Is a good game engine, have a bad stigma for being generic, but you can customize many things. way better than rpg maker united

This software no longer boots correctly.

I am currently facing an issue when launching the game. The game's splashscreen pops up, then it disappears and the game never properly runs.

From what I can see there is no fix available at present, which is disheartening considering the amount of time I had put into this software and the initial asking price.

Spent over a 100 hours making a shitpost game (still ongoing) that nobody but 3 or 4 people will see.
The best 100 hours of my life.

Love it, very intuitive. Makes making an RPG a breeze with very little time investment. Would recommend @SomeRanDev on YouTube for tutorial videos.

Didn't work properly for me. I was trying to learn how to use the software in the tutorial, it was going ok, albeit not such a new user friendly interface, but after a few tutorial sections completed , I ran into a bug and couldn't get past it. So, the rest of the program was probably still usable, I just lost faith in the whole thing after I couldn't complete the tutorial as I mentioned before.

super simple coding. makes me feel like a genius

bro actually so useful

I love this software. A bit of a learning curve, yeah, but this really helped me understand how RPGs and other types of games like these work, which lead to me enjoying the 2D-era Final Fantasy games a helluva lot more. A simple HUD, PLENTY of tutorials, HUGE community, lots of DLCs, but most importantly, it's fun and easy to use once you finally know what you're doing. I would say that this software is worth $80, if you have the patience to learn this, which could take up to six months to a year.

Always loved RPG maker, used it since the 90s, maybe I'll finally complete a game?

(づ｡◕‿◕｡)づ

Also just learned not to press the [ 👎 No ] button after writing a long product review.

It's all polishing a turd, no matter if you buy two or three times the price of the base engine in plugins, it's still polishing a turd.

It's very easy to use, and fun to experiment with. However, I've had a lot of problems because it likes to crash for no reason.

Good for beginners in game design, who want to learn the fundamentals. Can be surprisingly robust if you really dig into its capabilities instead of relying on stock assets and features.

It works if you can figure it out.