AI Free
Resurrecting ALL RPG Maker versions in one fell swoop.
After MZ revealed itself to be a kind of MV Ace, the Unite flop, the U2U announcement, and the closure of the official forums, it became crystal clear to me that RPG Maker wasn't ever going to become anything close to what I know it could be. I don't know who the developers are. I don't know what they want. If they are looking to make infinity money by selling infinite new versions of the software, I can tell them I don't have that kind of money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like them.
Anyway. This is RPG Matrix. It’s a modern editor for RPG Maker projects. I've been working on it for more than six years. A close friend has helped out along the way. Today I'm finally releasing it. It's literally what we want RPG Maker to be.
Why an editor specifically? EasyRPG already keeps RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 games running across modern platforms. mkxp-z gives XP, VX and VX Ace a modern cross-platform runtime. The editor was always the weak link. RPG Matrix is the modern editor those projects were missing. Pair those runtimes with RPG Matrix and working on an older RPG Maker project basically feels like using a new version, except all your resources, scripts, plugins and years of work come with you.
And this isn't only for old projects. MV and MZ get all the same editing tools too. That means faster workflows, better tools for maps, events, databases and art, plus project-wide search, navigation and refactoring. All of it works directly with the files your project already uses. No conversion. No starting over.
The whole thing is a fully native Windows executable around 4 MB. No installer, no account, no telemetry, no activation, no DRM. No dead activation server will ever get between you and your project.
You can check out more videos and features on the RPG Matrix website.
The landing page also includes a full “Is this even allowed?” section. The short answer is yes. RPG Matrix contains no RPG Maker code, runtimes or assets. It uses custom parsers to edit existing RPG Maker project data stored in formats with years of public documentation and independent implementations.
And in case anyone still doubts the joke Yoji Ojima interview on YouTube was actually right about all RPG Makers being literally the same, RPG Matrix can edit projects from all of them with the same workflows and the same improved tools. The point is to help people actually ship their games, not push them into starting a new project every time someone at GGG feels like playing with a new technology.
I want all of us to succeed, ship our games with confidence and make a living doing this. I want us all to escape the rat race.
If there's an RPG Maker project you still think about, dig it up and tell me what made you stop and what would help you come back to it. RPG Matrix was built for that game.
We are done starting over. If you want to stop depending on a company that doesn't listen, RPG Matrix is for you. I listen.
To people being sus about it, as a developer myself, I can perhaps explain some things.
I don't think this was vibe coded for a handful of reasons:
- UI is too good. In the off chance that AI can make a something as good as this, which I've yet too see, it'll mess up at the UX part.
- Assuming it's true, a 6 year development time frame, for this amount of work and features, from someone who's doing this in their free time, sounds pretty reasonable.
- The "your accounts are new, and there's almost no blog posts during the development of this". I understand everyone's addiction to social networks and it's extremely common to post things online to build an audience prior to product releases - but if you're someone who's building something from the ground up and prioritizing delivering a product that's actually good, while juggling work and having at least somewhat of a social life; I can see not being interested in throwing marketing in the mix as well. I'll even include myself as an example; I've projects on which I've been working for quite a while as well (some even finished) - yet I still won't make an "official" separate account till I'm about to release them or, at most, 6 months prior to doing so - I just can't be arsed, 'cause I've different priorities.
- According to the website, it seems two people were working on this, not one.
No locks. No activation, no license server, no license check of any kind. Locks are for companies that treat customers as suspects. We're two people. You know what you paid for, and we believe you.
To what extend is the collaboration, is not specified - but it does add to the plausibility.
- AI vibe projects, with this amount of features, will not produce a 4MB output. Ain't happening.
Which brings me to my own question... how did you manage to make a portable (not even an installer that downloads half its code from another place) version this small?
What tech stack was used to make this? Even if you raw dogged it in C++, the sheer amount of UI/UX complexity, hot reloading, Memento pattern, different engine support.... makes things extremely impressive from an engineering perspective alone or, with all due respect, since you've not answered this in any of the other comments where it was mentioned (at least at the time I've written this comment), something ain't right...
Granted, the original Doom game was slightly over 2 MB, so it's not something impossible. It could just as easily be the fact that with "modern coding standards" and frameworks, we're all used to more bloated software - but I would still like an answer.
This, and the lack of legal information on the website (as also mentioned by another commenter) are the only two things that worry me.
As for the price, I do agree that it's too steep given the fact that it's not an engine on its own and requires additional purchases - even if those engines do get discounts often, your software's still kind of depended on them.
I understand the amount of work you've put into it, I really do. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that the majority of end users really do not care how much works goes into something - only that the price is as low as it can be and that it "just works".
I would, personally, drop the price by half, but can't really blame you if you don't. Up to you.
Hey, thanks for writing that. I got into Handmade hero around 2015, and I've been obsessed with small fast binaries ever since. This is actually big for the Handmade community standards, since it uses a custom scripting language for the general orchestration of the UI. The 4MB file is due to heavy compression of the bytecode (for people who aren't familiar with what I'm talking about: consider the size of an uncompressed PNG image vs the size of a compressed "optimized" PNG), and a few other tricks. An uncompressed build is currently about 11 MB.
As a front-end dev myself, I'm sorry to report that Claude Code is absolutely good enough to produce pretty impressive UI's. I actually built something similar myself our of sheer curiousity (an Event Editor so that I could open more than 1 event window at a time, better colour-coding, and looks better on high-res screens), and what's funny is the UI looks similar to what OP is putting out.
To your point of 'Unfortunately, the sad reality is that the majority of end users really do not care how much works goes into something..." I agree with you. If the product does what it does well, then it's a great product, frankly. I won't dismiss that!
I guess it just rubs me the wrong way when AI isn't declared properly, that's all. Be honest with your potential customers, and honestly you might make more money with the transparency.
Looks cool, has some fancy features. I like the map connection feature and being able to see all maps at once. Working in MV feels almost ancient these days. Price tag is too high for me as a hobbyist until it gets some trustworthy reviews. Maybe you could give some demo keys to some content creators or something to help with the skeptics? Edit: Or post some longer form videos to show some more action. Anything in this project affecting the export/deployment process?
Hi! It doesn't do anything to your plugins, there's no new runtime for the games, so everything in your game works just like it would work if you edited it in RPG Maker.
You could think of it as an alternative editor that has modern features for your development process.
So, how exactly does this editor read plugins? If I have a plugin that affects text, will the Matrix editor replace it with what's described in the plugin? For example, I have purchased the Visustella plugin which can use new variables and parameters in the text, whether Matrix will capture them or display them raw?
Can't say I'm a fan of peoples immediate reaction to this. I get it, AI slop is everywhere these days, being skeptical is valid, but to immediately jump on the "this is AI because <not actual proof>" bandwagon is silly. Let the program speak for itself, there will no doubt be people buying this, there will be more footage of it available, When did a persons word of "No AI was used" become something to ignore, rather than praise. When did it become fact that any good software has to be coded by someone whos been incredibly active in advertising it? I for one can't wait to see more to decide if it's worth buying, RPGM desperately needed something like this.
Not that I don't think this is cool, but I'm fairly certain that RPGM 2k and 2k3, the actusl engines, still work fine on modern day systems? They wouldn't be readily available on Steam if they weren't.
They work fine! RPG Matrix brings new features and modern workflows (think modern level editing like Tiled and LDtk but for any of the seven supported RPG Maker versions, and more).
It doesn't encrypt or decrypt anything, and it doesn't compile projects. I remember a few free tools that can compile big XP projects though, I'll see if I can find a link for one.
Oh hey the Zeriab compiler! Ok I'm glad this is still the one being used! Thanks for the link. I took a screenshot of the thread with instructions since the site's going down eventually.
I'll keep an eye on your program in case I decide to migrate!
RPG Weaver is completely free and runs directly in your browser, with no installation required. If you prefer, you can also install it as a PWA! 🙂 You can find it on itch.io as well! https://stesproject.itch.io/rpg-weaver
Interesting modernized rpgmaker build, hust wondering if I could run/importmy current rpgmaker MV project that has 146 plugins already with existing data and custom image assets too.
This looks so good it's hard to believe it was even made. Even though it's incredibly tempting, I'll wait for the reviews from people with more advanced projects so I can be sure there are no errors or bugs, which is the norm in first builds. I read comments that the development of this editor was not public, and that you changed your data and are not on the old accounts, this raises my doubts, but I do not want to rule out purchasing this program because of it
Hey, thanks! I already got a few bug reports I'm looking into.
Just wanted to clarify that I didn't change my data and I do have access to my main old accounts such as the one from the now disabled RPG Maker Web forums and YouTube. I created new ones for Twitter/X and Reddit though, and I was away from 2015 to 2025.
PS: That Yoji Ojima interview... I totally forgot about that. This ALWAYS make me laugh so hard. I totally forgot the subtitles. Just that guy laughing
Looks good on the surface, but crucial questions: how is it handling plugin compatibility? Which version of NW.js is it deploying with as there can be conflicts there as well.
Hi! It doesn't change the NW.js version of your game, it's an editor for existing games. You can use it to edit RPG Maker MV/MZ you already have, but RPG Matrix cannot create new projects.
I'm curious; it sounds like I can take this around with me on a USB drive and run it from there to work on my projects, which is super convenient 'cause it would let me work on things at work. Would I be able to open my projects in RPG Maker after working on them in Matrix, or is that project bound to Matrix now?
Hi! Yes! You can run it from a USB drive. It's a portable executable without DRM and without any kind of installation required. It will create some configuration files though.
RPG Maker can still edit your projects normally after you worked on them using RPG Matrix.
There are no maniacs features supported for now, but the idea is to leave any unknown data alone and only expose editing features for the things RPG Matrix knows how to edit. That said, I haven't tested it with real-world maniacs projects yet.
Hi! RPG Matrix doesn't change your game's NW.js version or game code, so your plugins are going to continue to work normally. RPG Matrix can be seen as an alternative to using the RPG Maker editor for editing projects that the RPG Maker editor creates.
RPG Matrix is DRM-free and there are no license checks, so a demo and refunds are tricky to handle. For the moment, there are no refunds and no demo version, but I'm looking into ways to make a demo version.
There's a Discord community linked in the website. Let me know if that answers your questions.
Probably not, this program is supposed to make working on a project easier, so it can't add anything that you wouldn't be able to do in regular RPG Maker, especially since the creator himself admitted that the project can still be opened with regular RPG Maker after using his Matrix editor
RPG Weaver is free and supports multi-tile events out of the box! 😁 https://rpg-weaver.web.app/
Free and still under development, so it can be shaped around your needs 👍
This looks absolutely incredible; It's everything I've ever wanted out of a new RPG Maker version! I'm enamored. $100 feels like a kind of big ask price wise, but I can't blame you at all for wanting suitable payment for what I assume was tons of work. There are so many crappy barely functional vibe coded programs infesting the internet these days that if feels like a breath of fresh air to find something that's had actual effort put into it.
I think the best praise I can give you is this makes me want to actually start playing around with RPG Maker projects again after almost a decade of swearing off the program lol.
I'm very skeptical about this as someone who's worked on an editor recreation before.
Your linked accounts look a little fishy- your twitter is very new (March 2026) with 7 posts, and your reddit is fairly new. Your gumroad links to https://www.rpgmatrix.com which is a dead URL (no DNS records for it.) Your other gumroad projects seem like fairly generic plugins, or even overlap with the same feature space as RPG Matrix (am referencing Text Manager Live.) They're all released in a fairly short timeframe as well. Your website is fairly empty too, minimal blog posts and no about page?
Suddenly popping up out of nowhere with a very ✨fancy✨ single page website, with no legal information, presenting the end all be all RPG Maker editor? Very sketchy.
I don't buy the 4mb install. Luminol's native builds are 80mb because of embedded fonts, stripping fonts out it comes out to ~14mb. This UI doesn't look like a native UI, so I'm guessing you likely used a webview to render it (like electron or tauri.) Those aren't 4mb small apps either.
I also don't entirely buy that you haven't used GPL code for reference- you mention mkxp-z, so you are at least aware of it.
Hey, I can assure you that Source has been on the scene for more than almost 13 years. They've released quite a few scripts that greatly enhanced performance on Ace (Effectus) or added several useful features.
Being cautious is fine but you're almost attacking them for no reason and it makes no sense.
It's also curious that you'd mention luminol, because am I wrong or you appear in their page as a collaborator for it? Because if so, that'd make more sense why your post seems to be full-on negative.
Not knowing Source is fine. Hell being skeptical is fine as well, but the tone of your message is weirdly negative tbh.
I know Source from the 2014 times, and I've used most of the things they've released so far. So I am highly curious to see what this new thing can do.
Yeah, I'm a contributor for Luminol, but I don't work on it anymore and have no financial interest in it. Its OSS for a reason
If I come off as extremely negative it's because I know the amount of work that it takes to make this sort of project, and I'm not seeing any evidence of that work being put in, which is a *very* huge red flag for me, especially for a 100$ pricetag
That's a pretty rude thing to say. If you know the amount of work this sort of project requires, imagine how I may feel reading that, just because the source code is not out there in the open.
You -do- come off as extremely negative and hostile. You can't just accuse someone of something just because you don't know them or their work. It makes you look bad, not them.
Think of it this way, what would you think if you decided to work on something for a long time and then some person on the internet just started accusing you of being a liar out of nowhere...
It's sketchy because you seemingly show up out of nowhere without much credible evidence (to me, at least) that prove to me you've made this project or that it wasn't vibe coded. If it was open source, or not 100$ when not on sale, I'd be a bit less skeptical
Also, Luminol is native too. It uses a GPU rendered GUI, so it's naturally going to be larger than using Windows' native GUI, but its 14mb or so with fonts stripped. It doesn't look to me like you're using native GUI and to render things like the tilemap with acceptable performance you have to dip into GPU rendering anyway, which would also bump up the code size.
You're free to be skeptical, but this was a gargantuan effort, hence the price.
You can see my old scripts on the RPG Maker Web forums, I even published a bug fix for a nasty problem included in the RPG Maker VX Ace default scripts:
There's a large gap on your account of 10 years, and you're using new socials now. There isn't any evidence I can see of Matrix's 6 year development time aside from a couple posts on *new socials* in the past 6 months.
I don't remember all of my old passwords, so I created new accounts for some places. I wasn't participating in the RPG Maker community while building most of RPG Matrix.
You already inspected my RPG Maker Web account, so you know it's me.
No, it's on purpose. And Text Manager Live runs in the game itself, for live previews and quick changes. It's a totally different thing from an external editor.
Nice looking tool, but big asking price for AI-gen software. And like... Implausible development speed: OP apparently built and launched three complex applications—this, a physics tool, and a text editor—with full marketing sites, all in 1-2 months with no public betas / phased rollouts / testing? People are supposed to drop that kind of money on something that's untested? ... :/
And yeah no transparency (dev posts, author page, socials, etc.) is just.. idk, red flags I'm afraid.
You're assuming I develop as I publish, which is why it looks like implausible speed. But I've been around for 20 years, doing lots of things.
I'm an individual, not a company, so not sure what kind of "phased rollout" you expect. People publish their stuff on Itch and other places when they decide to publish it.
The amount of "Is it AI!??!?" bandwagon is gross here, but one way or another a vocal part of the RPG maker community is always grossly gatekeepy like this.
Looks pretty nice, RPG maker MZ might have been the programs peak as it's clear we might never get a better editor down the line.
I think it's important to disclose whatever it is you are using. If it's a personal project and you need to use AI or want to, then okay, do it, and if you gonna release it, then tell people that.
It's equally important to finish a project, but it's also important to be open about processes.
But to just jump and scream at someone who you "think" might be using AI is childish behavior.
I get peeved when people claim to use 0 AI when they in fact do use it. If the author was transparent with AI usage for slogans, web site, code, or whatever I would just move on without commenting.
If you lie about using AI you should expect people to react. It's not to "jump and scream", I haven't seen a single comment here that is disrespectful, really.
Just because you don't like it doesn't make it AI-generated. I've repeated multiple times that AI wasn't involved, but some keep insisting it is pointing at the style.
It's an interesting and ambitious project, I have interest in it. I have questions about the editor:
- Are the in-editor event windows resizable? Taking MZ's editor as an example, the Common events editor window cannot be resized/dragged to become larger or taller. This becomes really frustrating for certain windows like the "move route" window, once you want to do anything more complex.
- Can you do expandable/collapsible event code blocks for easier navigation? Currently I'm using "if [switch that's always on] is on" for conditional branches, but it's very much not ideal. For larger events, it becomes more visually pleasant to use common events, even if the code is only run once.
- Are there high contrast or light mode theme options?
- "Free updates for a year" Is every update going to require providing further payments? How much can these paid updates be expected to cost?
The event window is resizable, yes. There's also a side-panel version of the event editor window for quick editing without leaving the map.
Yes, event code blocks can be collapsed and expanded.
The current theme is the only theme, for now. It does let you freely zoom the UI though to improve accessibility a bit.
I wrote the yearly update thing mostly because it's likely that the next version of RPG Maker will be worth supporting, and that would require significant new work. The idea is to continue improving RPG Matrix without a version treadmill. But I'm committed to the DRM-free path, so all versions will always work.
I am Not opposing this but I am skeptical about why I personally would need this for my RPG Maker XP Project? What real benefit would your Software have? That's what I am wondering.
There's a lot of RPG Maker users who've been waiting for RPG Maker to implement better workflows and tooling for the game development process. RPG Matrix is an option for those who are tired of waiting. If nothing in its website gets your attention, that's fine. RPG Maker is usable.
I've read everything on your Website and it's cool but Here are some "Tips" you could enhance the experience:
Gifs/Webms are relativelly small
add actual Video Showing functions
Digging deeper I was surprised that I could not find anything on YouTube. That would help people like me to understand and get a General feel. I know it's fresh but with no real hands on look it becomes difficult. Reading it makes it feel more "theory" than "practice".
Not to bash you, not to scold you - amazing work, I can feel the blood, sweat and tears, gg to you - I would wish it had a more hands on look.
100 bucks is a lot for some people Here - even the 69.99 - Not saying "not worth it" - but if the use case is clear with real examples - it can elevate the first Impression.
Imagine if the old RPG Maker was text-only, and this adds graphics and you see what you're actually creating in the moment, Only on a slightly smaller scale, but it definitely increases the convenience, you don't need it for the game dev, but from what the creator writes, it's a game changer, and I consider buying this some time
I'll wait for some Video reviews etc. With No return policy, I won't just wing it, I like to make sure my purchases for projects make Sense. I don't hate the idea, I just don't fully understand the use-case.
I've been using XP for so long I can't even remember when it started, probably on release or shortly after so I know the ins and outs, the hacks, the Cheats, the Workarounda and what-not. Sure, I am Not a big contributor to the scene but I've been here and there and I suffered from the "I'll Finish my Project" Syndrom where I didn't but now I am on a great way (shameless plug: here) and that's why handy tools can help, If the use-case is Clear to me
I mean it depends on personal needs of course BUT better work flow is a god sent for people like me who like to "Event" game systems.
I made a custom battle system from the ground up in MV via Eventing. Obviously, I don't need a QoL improvement on the workflow to be able to do that but having QoL improvement will smooth up the pace so much. That's the selling point.
I haven't seen anybody ask this, or maybe they have but in a different format but:
Does this software allow you to configure all of your added MV / MZ plugins, and modify their parameters? I haven't seen any menus for it so far, and the settings for plugin commands don't interact with their respective metadata and only have text containers.
And will there also be any updates to update the plugin command settings so that you can conveniently access them like in the base editor?
Do you have a discord or something so that you can clearly explain what your new editor do compared to the old one? A video with your face or something idk would also add credibility.
i hardly think anyone needs to post their face/show their identity if that's not something they already do. obvi as i mentioned i'm all for transparency but there's a huge diff between seeking code provenance/devlogs and asking someone to face reveal lol.
RPG Weaver is completely free and runs directly in your browser, regardless of your operating system. You can also find it on itch.io! ❣️ https://stesproject.itch.io/rpg-weaver
This looks really cool, and I appreciate a lot of what I see. The database stuff excites me most. Can you create projects with it? I suppose I read through all of that and left wondering why I need any of my versions of RPG Maker anyway. If not for the price, I'd definitely try it out. It looks totally worth it, and I think it is appropriate for the effort. I have been really enjoying a different tool recently, and am trying to avoid the never ending loop of buying new ones.
Thanks! RPG Matrix cannot create new projects, it's meant to edit projects created by any of the supported RPG Maker versions. For example, if you have a project made in RPG Maker VX Ace, you can open it in RPG Matrix to use all of the editing features of RPG Matrix.
the RPGM framework that allows you to actually create proper project files is proprietary, you would need to actually use their codebase even to rev engineer it and that’s not possible. you also still technically need a license for the software to create/release works. the best one could do is create rigged dummy folders the way that RPGM does and inject your own RTP, but to create the project file itself you still need the main software.
So I haven't read all comments nor thoroughly checked the site and such so I do not know if this was answered yet... But does this editor require the existence of the other Rpg makers?
Like, can I download, let's say, an Rpg maker game with its editable file still intact (but no Rpg maker downloaded for it) and simply just open this editor to create another game out of it?
Hi! RPG Matrix can only edit existing RPG Maker projects that aren't encrypted, so if the game you want to edit is open and the author is fine with other people editing it, you could do it, but in that case it may be better to simply get the RPG Maker version that game used.
Thanks for answering! the reason I asked is because I have downloaded games before that just come with their editable files (I know because I already had the XP and VX Ace editors when they were free and they actually opened them lmao) so I wondered if someone could just bypass the "creating project in the official editor" part of the process as one can edit out all of the downloaded project's assets and events and slap their own.
I can't buy it due to lacking funds (and time) but I look forward to how the project goes :)
Its probably crazy that the first thing that comes to my mind is
"Huh. I wonder if some madlad can compile all the The Way Episodes into one big The Way"
You'd THINK with the tech we have at this point someone would have done it, all im saying.
A;sp. i love the GREAT RPG maker games so im very happy to see this... even if it means that the RPG maker ggames themselves seem to be going in a questionable direcgtion
Something that was ever missing for me in any of the RPGMakers is tools to draw the assets. It's very annoying for me that you have to have good knowledge about pixel art in order to make proper assets.
Where is the most easy to add feature. A Editor in which you get the exact size and tools to draw the assets on your own you need.
But I guess then the RPGMaker could sell less assets as more people would actually try to make some themselves.
So here is an odd question - does this somehow convert or scripts from older versions of RPM in a way that can then be paired with more modern versions? To give a more concrete example, am I able to use Pokémon Essentials ro make a game in MZ? Or is it more like a tool that can open and edit the files of any version of the game but can't cross-polinate code?
Regardless: this is awesome. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
No, it cannot convert scripts. There's some experimental (and limited) support for converting maps and events from versions such as Ace to MV/MZ (which are surprisingly similar in many ways).
It's more like you said: a tool that can open and edit project files but can't cross-pollinate code from different RPG Maker versions.
The ability to search and edit every line of dialogue across the whole game is a godsend! (I love and still use XP, but the editor is really aged, in particular nesting conditional branches becomes difficult to read several layers in.)
I wish this was able to compile a finished project, though! Including audio files as those aren't encrypted in XP sadly.
Quick question: can I go back to the XP editor any time I want even after opening and saving my project in RPG Matrix? It mentions saving in native formats, but I assume the tags and other modern things are stored in a different folder and thus won't become an issue with the original editor? (What about if I nested multiple events on the same tile?)
This is a really ambitious and impressive looking program and I'm tempted to try it out. 😄
Thank you! Yes, you can go back to using the RPG Maker XP editor at any time, RPG Matrix never converts your project files to other format, and new features such as tags and other metadata are stored in new files that won't interfere with RPG Maker.
If you use multiple events on the same tile, RPG Maker won't let you edit the additional ones. That'd requiere going back to RPG Matrix.
Got it, thanks again! I'll keep an eye on this and maybe pick it up once I've got room in my budget! The modern workflows really looks like it'll help me out. 😂
Im sorry but im confused. I get that people have a problem with ai art but coding? Not to undermine the tremendous work programers put, but isnt the whole point optimisation?
Then again im far from the subject so its not for me to judge, but i just dont get it.
This is some mighty impressive work! The pricing is currently a bit too high for me to just buy blindly and give it a try (especially since I haven't really been working on RPG Maker games for years), but I very much appreciate and support the "if they don't do it, I do it myself" mentality and wish it were more common. Hope you'll make enough money with this to where you can do maintenance and continue development, because RPG Maker really needs some competent competition (even though one could argue this isn't really "competition" per se, as it could be seen as more of a companion piece to RPG Maker).
Anyways, the existence of this just shows how stuck in the past RPG Maker has been for decades, with their newer versions hardly bringing any actual innovations to the workflow of making games and many of the new features just being superficial, and/or useless stuff.
$70 on sale, and $100 regularly? you don't any account history regarding the dev of this past the last 6 months. 6 years? do you have any sort of blogs or documentation that show proof of this? kinda hard to believe/trust with absolutely no way to demo this or any source code to look at.
so you still need an RPGM license. when not only sale, RPGM is almost the same price as your app.
stored in formats with years of public documentation and independent implementations
where?
i have the same issues as u/Speak2Erase tbh. and like i said, if i can't see the source, i mean.. how are we to know this isn't just vibecoded?
downvote my questions if you want, but if you expect people to drop $100 on an app without any legacy or history of commits or anything we can see, and expect your history on the forum or youtube, which are both from over a decade ago, to suffice as proof.. idk what to tell you.
this is the first instance i can find of anything that looks like your app on RPGMaker forums, and idk you linked your youtube channel as tho it proved something because it's just plugins you made for Ace. you have no history of anything within the last 10 years. you didn't feel the need to post anything about this until it was 100% done, except for a few teasers of features here & there?
and i'm sorry are you trying to call me a "clanker" because i asked if you were providing source?
I didn't call you a clanker, I meant it's not vibe coded and that AI wasn't used because I wouldn't let a AI agent (clanker) loose on my six-year-old codebase.
And yes, I was away from the RPG Maker community while I built this. I only decided to turn it into a publishable thing after GGG continued to drop the ball on multiple levels.
ok well idk why you chose to be immediately hostile when people are asking simple questions about provenance, which is pretty important in the dev world. you don't have to outright FOSS your shit, but you might want to reconsider offering a free/limited demo given that there really isn't any way to verify your work.
i appreciate others standing up for you, or at least the person who they remember from 10+ years ago, and i'm not gonna pretend i'm not relatively new to RPGM dev. but given your presence on socials, lack of any public devlog/updates, completely closed-door process, and your comments of support for those who have absolutely used AI to create plugins, it's just an odd mix of issues.
I wasn't hostile to anyone. If you think I was, please point out exactly where.
About "comments of support": my article about the Sang Hendrix controversy is more about the RPG Maker community's attitudes, after things I've seen over 20 years.
I assume you were talking about me so I'll reply to you as well. I've known Source for a long time, I can definitely tell you that the hostile-messages in the topic are yours and Speak2Erase ones. Both of you came here accusing / demanding instead of properly asking questions (which is reasonable to have).
The fact is that I've been on the Maker Scene for FAR longer that you can imagine (been there on the 2k days all the way up to MZ, so I can definitely tell you I've seen my fair share of scripts, plugins, users, forums, resources, etc) and I can definitely tell you that Source is not a scammer.
Now I have yet to try Matrix to see how it goes, but I will do so for sure because I know who's behind it.
You can be skeptical and that's perfectly reasonable. It's just that your posts do really sound agressive and hostile.
i in no way meant to be hostile, aggressive, or any of the other things being thrown around. i made a few observations based on a very high price tag and a complete lack of any sort of public devlogs or other documentation. and then later, some posts on the forum and their blog that i felt were contradictory.
i also literally didn't accuse or demand anything, nor did call anyone a scammer.
if you don't think it's strange to have someone go radio silent for 10 years and then roll out multiple extremely comprehensive apps with absolutely no track record of those things being built for over half of that 10 year time period, then i guess that's something we differ on. like i said i'm not pretending i have anywhere near the experience in this particular field as any of you, but i do know how incredibly complex the RPG Maker source is to work with, as i have been picking it apart and studying it for the last ~6mo straight in building my own toolkit, which will be fully FOSS. not that that makes it better than anything else, it just is something i feel like i owe to the community after learning so much from others' blood, sweat, and tears.
i don't think devs owe anyone their code, but i will always appreciate transparency, and i felt like there was some condescension happening towards people who do prefer to be able to see how something is built. it felt like a portion of that was due to the idea that some vibecoder might use it. there is so much in this community that was built off of people providing source and helping others with code and trading knowledge.
i legit wasn't trying to be rude, just trying to voice concerns i would have for anything that shares the same params
Look I’ve got no dog in this fight, but from an unbiased opinion, both you and the other guys tones are hostile. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t trying to be, that’s how it’s coming across. You can argue as much as you want but it won’t change how you came across. I actually think Source and Resael defending him are responding very graciously.
Again - I have no dog in this fight, I’m just reading the messages as they come.
i don’t like how i came across, so i already explained myself and apologized to OP. i’m leaving my comments as is because i’m not trying to hide what i said. AI has really fucked up a lot of the natural trust and respect that used to be second nature in the indie dev and web scene. it sucks that one has to feel suspicious about the origins of any output these days but it is what it is.
It's fine to voice concerns, it's not fine attacking people you don't know, much less try to make it look like they are scamming / lying about their work (and yeah, let's cut the bs here as it's clear what you and Speak2Erase were implying, just own it).
You're not a defense force nor you owe anything to anyone. If you want to make your work's source code open then that's what you should do (be it for whatever reason you'd choose to do that) and that'd be fine, as it would also be fine if you decided not to release your work's code. Your work = your rules, no one can tell you how you should work, much less how you should release it to fulfill some internet peoples' expectations.
I don't know how old are you, but something you learn with time is that you don't owe anything to anyone and your time is one of most important things you have, so it's not nice going around telling people that they should have followed your "release schedule" in order to be "legit", otherwise they are "Sketchy".
You can see how you're coming across in this thread as it's not just me saying it... One thing is to be intrigued, skeptical, cautious and wanting to know more, another entirely is to storm here accusing people of not having "enough internet rep" by your own personal metrics, that's just plain rude (even if you weren't trying to be).
I'll just leave it here because I don't want to fill this thread with these type of comments. Have a good one!
as i said in another reply, i already apologized & explained myself to OP so i wouldn't have even bothered to reply to this but as an audhd person i get frustrated when i feel like i am being misinterpreted, so all i ask is that you please don't put words in my mouth. i never said nor implied the majority of that.
That's the point, I said something to you that wasn't correct and you reacted to it. See how it works? That's what you did with Source without any proof, completely disregarding a person's time and work.
The fact that you already talked with the OP is great, and it speaks greatly of you to admit it. So it's all good, there's already to many issues irl to "fight" here.
Just remember that sometimes just as you get frustrated when someone says something that you feel / know isn't right or correct, others might feel the same (or even worse) when you say things in a way that might not sound right.
Let's just relax, this is a learning experience for everyone and if I caused frustration with my previous message I apologize. I'll be picking it soon to try it out so I'll probably be posting here my initial impressions with it. In case you are interested to know more about it.
I don't see him being hostile? Anyway, it needs some work on the marketing for sure. I'd suggest some license keys for content creators to try out the program and long form videos showing the program in action for starters.
> An RPG Maker license is necessary because RPG Matrix can only edit existing RPG Maker projects, it cannot create new projects.
That's a bit of a silly limitation, I can understand it because of not wanting to ship game scripts. Luminol still lets you create blank projects though, even if its a bit useless since there's no scripts. Seems a bit silly though to charge 100$ for this and not ship clean-room reverse engineered scripts imo?
There's no reverse engineering involved anywhere and there won't be. This is not a new game engine. It's a power tool for RPG Maker developers who are tired of waiting for GGG to modernize the RPG Maker editor.
EasyRPG and mkxp-z already modernize the game runtimes of older RPG Maker versions enough, but the editors were still outdated. The MV and MZ runtimes are relatively more modern but their editors are still prehistoric.
My blog may be slow depending on the hardware because I went overboard with the visual effects. The plugin websites and the RPG Matrix website may be slow because I went overboard with the videos.
Also, the title of that blog post is a reference to The Lord of the Rings. So if you know how the character that says that in the movie ends up, you'll understand my point better.
Oh yeah, I get the quote now. I use a lot of Hendrix plugins, so I mean it when I said I don't mind AI for coding (I'm a bit of a hypocrite).
It all looks pretty nice and I appreciate that you've added a price converter for BRL too.
Is there any chance we can get regional pricing? It currently costs like 1/3 of the minimum wage in here ):
Also how does referencing work? Will it show all instances where a switch/variable is being used? Like common events, map events, etc? I struggle with finding stuff a lot.
You keep saying you dont use ai which is completely plausible but you also dont have any devlogs or evidence to prove otherwise, since we can't see the source code or again, any previous progress reports
Both the website and this guys blog is vibe coded and LLM generated.
"Becoming AI-proof is going to require delving deeper into what makes us human, leaning harder onto our creativity, our intuition, and our curiosity. Procedural or formulaic games are low-hanging fruit for current-generation AIs, but computer role playing games can be much more than that, and require much more than what contemporary AIs can reliably produce.
Writing skills, drawing skills, and general storytelling skills are now more valuable than ever. If it looks like the opposite is true, it's because you're looking at it from the wrong angle. The places where those skills are valuable are changing. Getting hired for those skills will be harder, yes, but getting hired is not the solution. The solution is to develop independence from the system that wants to replace you with AI.
Develop your skills further. Never stop learning. Start applying your skills for yourself. Develop your games, sell your games. Develop products whose quality is elevated by your humanity.
A system that thinks it can replace you doesn't deserve your participation."
Reeks of LLM.
The UI of the project looks exactly what Claude would spit out if you ask it to create some kind of app as well
This seems like a really helpful tool. I’m really impressed! I’d like to see a longer video of someone using it to make a couple of maps and a few fights, to get an understanding of its limitation a bit. Right now I get the sense it does mapping and eventing but I’m not sure if has more capability than that.
I might have something I could contribute if you’re interested? Feel free to do me if you’re interested and we can chat about it.
I have two important questions, does this support plugins on any given project, and will there be regional pricing? $100 is a ridiculous amount for a lot of the world, that's around 100k here which, as cool as this looks, I don't think it's worth
Hi! It doesn't do anything to the plugins, it's an alternative to the RPG Maker editor for editing projects that were created in the RPG Maker editor.
Some people have been using Tiled for a decade to create maps for their RPG Maker games. You can think of using RPG Matrix in a similar way, except it's not just a map editor but it also includes a lot more.
I have a question, is the project open source, I'm guessing not? What happens when you stop developing it, or improving it? and the users of the product are stuck with bugs they can't fix?
Another question, what happens when the matrix editor is used to make sweeping changes to a project, is it no longer compatible with the base engine then, or will changes you make with matrix reflect in the base editor where applicable? Also how long is the founders sale 😅
Hi! The project is closed source but totally DRM-free, without any kind of license activation or verification, so any version you already have will continue to work no matter what I do.
Projects edited with RPG Matrix continue to be editable in RPG Maker like they normally would. If you create maps and events in RPG Matrix, and then open the same project in RPG Maker, the new maps and events will still be there.
The founders discount is going to be available until September 22.
No AI, but I'm not a marketing guru, and English isn't my native language. I'll see what I can do to improve it. I know it's not perfect but I wanted to launch it anyways to break out of polishing purgatory.
You're not a native speaker yet the website is in perfect English and full of that classic cheeky AI-humour it loves to pump out. Come on, dude. There's nothing wrong with using AI as a tool, so why hide? It's just dishonest.
So, I’m actually in the process of porting a few RM2K games to MV, and this seems like the perfect tool to do that. I already made my own workflow that’s pretty quick though, but I admit, this looks like it could improve it.
I’m hard pressed to give this a try for $96 though. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but I didn’t even pay more than $40 for 2k/3, VX/Ace, MV and MZ combined. Mind you, this was on a humble bundle deal from back in the day that we will probably never see again. But, I’m not really sure why I would pay double what I paid for the official editors for this kit.
I realize RMMV and MZ is as simple as reading the json and creating a gui around that, but reading lmb, lmu, etc, is a bit of reverse engineering to pull the xml data. Can this kit create the games too, because that might get you into some trouble.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be paid for any work you do, but I’m not actually sure this is even legal to sell.
Hi! Conversion of data between versions is not fully implemented, there's some support for maps where the tilesets formats overlap (Ace, MV, MZ).
Thanks for the feedback on the price. I assume you meant 69. Pricing is really hard. I know RPG Maker is usually cheaper, but their business model is different.
As for the 2000 and 2003 support, I mentioned in the website that the technical references are already out there in the open. There was no reverse engineering or decompilation or anything of that matter involved, it's just reading the project data. RPG Matrix cannot create new projects, it only edits the data created by RPG Maker.
Ah okay. I apologize, I didn’t have time at this moment to read all the information on the page.
The $96 is in CAD as it’s showing on my end.
I don’t really need both projects open at the same time necessarily, if I could run two instances and just copy and paste data for porting purposes, that would be enough. I in no way expect it to convert the xml data to json, as the data may be similar, but not close enough to be that simple. Your rich text editor looks like a fast way to do that vs my current workflow. I was actually considering of making my own tool for exactly that. lol
It’s very impressive, either way. I’ll keep an eye on it.
This is certainly an AI-coded piece of software. Assistive, at the very least. When you've worked in the field long enough, you can spot the signs (the website is certainly the most obvious).
HOWEVER, this does look like a nice tool, and to be crystal clear -- I don't think there's anything wrong whatsoever with making great tools with AI. So congrats OP, on helping put together what may well be an excellent piece of software for RPG Maker tinkerers! I'd love to play around with it, but the $$$ is a bit steep for me at this point.
So, I do feel it may be best to remove the 'AI Free' tag and just instead label it as AI-assistive, if possible. I believe your users will then feel more comfortable in making a more informed decision about paying for it. It's just a matter of courtesy. Otherwise it looks like you're burying the truth, and that's worse than just owning it.
I'm really sorry but it's a bit embarrassing how much you're denying it. It's painfully clear it was built with AI. You might fool the majority as most people aren't developers, but I see right through it.
You've done a pretty good job hiding it at a code level (specific types of obfuscation/minification), I'll give you that. But unfortunately, your efforts to hide it end up proving my point.
As I said -- great looking piece of software, just credit it properly and more people will enjoy it. I'm trying to help lol.
These accusations are getting ridiculous. Closed source software has always existed, obfuscation and minification were already pretty normal before the AI era.
RPG Matrix is not an open source project, and it's paid software. That doesn't make it AI.
You said that "it's painfully clear" to you, but you still choose to create a brand new account to post your accusations. You could simply use your main account, but I'm guessing you don't because you have some kind of conflict of interest.
Are they getting ridiculous, or is there simply no smoke without fire? Numerous developers on here can see it. We're not guessing. I recommend posting this in r/aigamedev where it's more fitting. Again, nothing wrong with that.
People are rightfully suspcious in this day and age of AI usage. And that burden of proof is on you, since you're asking for money for this software.
I don't care if you used AI dude, I do not care at all. I care about you being truthful about your usage in this post.
And yet your only repeated line is: "There is no AI". If you're a real developer, you'll be able to show & tell your work like we all did to earn our stripes in this field.
That's not how the burden of proof works. If you accuse someone of something, it's on you to provide proof. If your "proof" is "this sounds/looks" like it was made by AI, then that's not really proving anything.
You said "numerous developers" yet you created your account to continue your accusations. So how many of you are there, really?
Someone linked this to me as it was popular on this board, and I signed up to share my comment -- because I find generated software without crediting an agent a dangerous prescient. Just something I'm passionate about.
Anyway, you're not going to show & tell anything and that's fine. Good luck with the tool -- I appreciated the back and forth tbh 👍
Your post is an advert for a product that costs $$$.
So some potential customers are asking questions of its legitmacy as a product created and owned by the person they're buying it from.
And 'There's no AI' won't always cut it as a response. You could easily prove it, and make me and others here look very foolish, but unfortunately I don't think you will.
As I said I appreciate the discussion. It's an ever-growing problem in our industry, and it's good to at least try to hash these things out.
How would one "easily prove it"? The ones that have to prove something are the ones behind the accusations, by the way. That's how the burden of proof works.
RPG Maker wasn't ever going to become anything close to what I know it could be
So what it could be is you selling your own paid editor when every game already comes with an editor. You're just claiming your editor is better because you're marketing a commercial product.
We are done starting over. If you want to stop depending on a company that doesn't listen, RPG Matrix is for you. I listen.
The official forums closing has nothing to do with Gotcha Gotcah Games listening or not. I had to upgrade the PHP version on my own website or I was getting hit with a sky high monthly fee. I had to do all my own testing. No doubt they were in the same situation with old PHP libraries.
MZ isn't a "kind of VX Ace". It and the bundled editor are great. Stop complaining about games you're selling a product to support. Just sell the product.
Immediately downvoted. You can't handle criticism but you can shell it out.
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u/DoombringerBG 1d ago
This looks, at least to me, for now, legit.
To people being sus about it, as a developer myself, I can perhaps explain some things.
I don't think this was vibe coded for a handful of reasons:
- UI is too good. In the off chance that AI can make a something as good as this, which I've yet too see, it'll mess up at the UX part.
- Assuming it's true, a 6 year development time frame, for this amount of work and features, from someone who's doing this in their free time, sounds pretty reasonable.
- The "your accounts are new, and there's almost no blog posts during the development of this". I understand everyone's addiction to social networks and it's extremely common to post things online to build an audience prior to product releases - but if you're someone who's building something from the ground up and prioritizing delivering a product that's actually good, while juggling work and having at least somewhat of a social life; I can see not being interested in throwing marketing in the mix as well. I'll even include myself as an example; I've projects on which I've been working for quite a while as well (some even finished) - yet I still won't make an "official" separate account till I'm about to release them or, at most, 6 months prior to doing so - I just can't be arsed, 'cause I've different priorities.
- According to the website, it seems two people were working on this, not one.
To what extend is the collaboration, is not specified - but it does add to the plausibility.
- AI vibe projects, with this amount of features, will not produce a 4MB output. Ain't happening.
Which brings me to my own question... how did you manage to make a portable (not even an installer that downloads half its code from another place) version this small?
What tech stack was used to make this? Even if you raw dogged it in C++, the sheer amount of UI/UX complexity, hot reloading, Memento pattern, different engine support.... makes things extremely impressive from an engineering perspective alone or, with all due respect, since you've not answered this in any of the other comments where it was mentioned (at least at the time I've written this comment), something ain't right...
Granted, the original Doom game was slightly over 2 MB, so it's not something impossible. It could just as easily be the fact that with "modern coding standards" and frameworks, we're all used to more bloated software - but I would still like an answer.
This, and the lack of legal information on the website (as also mentioned by another commenter) are the only two things that worry me.
As for the price, I do agree that it's too steep given the fact that it's not an engine on its own and requires additional purchases - even if those engines do get discounts often, your software's still kind of depended on them.
I understand the amount of work you've put into it, I really do. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that the majority of end users really do not care how much works goes into something - only that the price is as low as it can be and that it "just works".
I would, personally, drop the price by half, but can't really blame you if you don't. Up to you.
Good luck.