Did You Ever Mess With "Game Development" Software as a Kid?

[Vardalis]

You know the kind. The stuff that was aimed at kids or teens who probably didn't know much better. The RPG Maker games on consoles. Heavily limited tools on PC like FPS Creator or 3D Gamemaker. Did you get anywhere with it? Make anything that surprised you, your friends or your family? Got any memories of stuff like that?

I spent a decent amount of time messing around with 3D Gamemaker Lite myself. I found it cheap in a store and since I loved video games and wondered how they were made I foolishly got it thinking it'd be something amazing or a great learning experience or whatever. It was fine for what little it was; effectively a system for swapping out what enemy, pickup, weapon and such you had in a (I believe) pre-generated map with whatever theme you selected and spitting it out as a "game". My fondest memory was making a series of "Mr Poop" "games" for my little cousin to laugh his way through with the cheesiest story texts a ten or eleven year old could muster.

 

[Deleted member 560402]

RPG Maker on the PS-One. :)

 

[qw90700]

My first time was this but I was a young man back then: https://retrogametalk.com/repository/psx-iso/kakuge-yaro-fighting-game-creator-japan/

You can select fighters, their stages, detailed modification for their stages like what they will say before fight, details in stage and music, you can select what button beforms what fighting moves and all but it was kinda dissappointing that it had no way to edit sprites of the characters but it had detailed color changing options for these sprites. Yet overal due to custom way of selecting moves and thus combos and these moves are actually fun for many characters it's kinda my favorite fighting game.

I wish I had a way to develop games like these modern Unreal and Unity engine when I was a kid for I know I would spend my time on developing games more than playing them back then lol.

 

[χKai]

I had the RPG Maker on PS1.
I made a few 'games' on them, but the premise was mostly designed to try to stray from the RPG elements as much as possible, instead offering multiple, linear paths with predetermined, unavoidable battles on the way, with enemies you can see on-screen instead of random battles. While I did make many projects, none of them were that good, the only one with much potential was my idea to create a story based on the story of the true 'main RPG characters' from Gobli; not Gobli himself or Mark or Neko, but the actual RPG party, the Knight and Wizard and all them. With all the content and examples shown in the game through events in Gobli, and images from the instruction manual, I wanted to create an entire story around who was supposed to be the 'main' party in the Gobli sidestory, and go from their perspective instead of Gobli, opting to create a more traditional RPG experience. Alas, I never found the time or motivation to finish the project.

 

[Deleted member 560402]

I had the RPG Maker on PS1.
I made a few 'games' on them, but the premise was mostly designed to try to stray from the RPG elements as much as possible, instead offering multiple, linear paths with predetermined, unavoidable battles on the way, with enemies you can see on-screen instead of random battles. While I did make many projects, none of them were that good, the only one with much potential was my idea to create a story based on the story of the true 'main RPG characters' from Gobli; not Gobli himself or Mark or Neko, but the actual RPG party, the Knight and Wizard and all them. With all the content and examples shown in the game through events in Gobli, and images from the instruction manual, I wanted to create an entire story around who was supposed to be the 'main' party in the Gobli sidestory, and go from their perspective instead of Gobli, opting to create a more traditional RPG experience. Alas, I never found the time or motivation to finish the project.

it's fun making maps.

 

[Sunnyside]

I started plenty of RPG Maker projects. I'd come up with a random concept and figure out all the underlying systems. However I didn't possess the discipline to expand on any of those ideas. In the end it was just a bunch of maps and dialogue with nothing to really do on them.

 

[030079AR]

RPG Maker on the PS-One. :)

hey, that's the same with me, my first foray to game developer is RMK PSX, soon after that, I got my PC and tried RMKXP. the knowledge I got from RMK is truly useful though. only made one game in PC in 2004. after that, I never finish my project : ))

thanks to that software, now I'm real game developer though.

Post automatically merged: Sep 7, 2025

I started plenty of RPG Maker projects. I'd come up with a random concept and figure out all the underlying systems. However I didn't possess the discipline to expand on any of those ideas. In the end it was just a bunch of maps and dialogue with nothing to really do on them.

You know, You can make adventure game with basic knowledge of RMK.

 

[RETRO-VETRO RETRO-VETRO]

Yeah, I definitely messed around with a few of those tools growing up. I remember trying out RPG Maker and later dabbling with FPS Creator. They were super limited, but at the time it felt like unlocking a secret door into how games were made. I never used 3D Gamemaker Lite, but I totally get the appeal, just being able to swap out assets and see something playable was exciting.

I made a few goofy projects myself, mostly RPGs with over-the-top storylines and characters based on my friends. Nothing groundbreaking, but it was a fun way to experiment and learn the basics of game logic and design. Honestly, those early tools sparked a lot of creativity, even if the results were kind of a mess.

Your “Mr Poop” series sounds hilarious, those kinds of silly, personal games are the best memories.

 

[R66-Y]

when i was like 11 or 12 years old i spent so much time making cheap Super Mario Bros clones in the old Game Maker lite 8.0 (good times) and download random sprites in .gif format and add them as enemies or bosses.

Sometimes in my research for random .gif sprites i find gems like these from the old videogame forums (still have some of the gifs i downloaded on my hard drive for some reason)

i genuinely would like to know the context of this gif, one day this guy just spawned in my old hard drive and never leaves, lol

 

[reakain]

I spent so much time on RPG Maker for the ps1, but never made it too far. It was just so clunky and took up so much memory card space. I remember in highschool finding out RPG maker was also on PC, but I spent more time playing RPG Maker games than making them. The menu system just always felt so repetitive.

 

[Raziya The Seeker]

Messed around with RPG Maker VX Ace, made a couple jam games that were no more than visual novels. Been interested in dabbling again, but I feel I've got better ideas for gameplay systems more than making a cohesive game out of them.

 

[thumbsdown]

Not exactly "game development software", but it was something like this to me... although it was actually in the map editor of a bootleg version of lode runner for the n-joypad (CD3900, famiclone) called "jungle trail", which is basically replacing lr graphics, conserving music as well as the level design untouched.

I've bookmarked this thread cus I thought of doing a blog post inspired by it, but ultimately decided I'd just throw the memories here instead. I still have the famiclone, but currently no way of recording the game starting screen nor the map editor in action cus have no replacement batteries (required to boot the console) and I don't aim to buy em any time soon, so I tried recreating stuff I made ~20 years ago in the original version of the game, I remember trying to make something that resembled a labyrinth. Anyway, thanks to Aikon we have some yt recordings preserving those memories (jungle trail starts at 4m20s)!

I feel like many children from poor countries, with no early access to trending consoles, internet or high-end computers, as I was, started making levels thanks to those bootlegs. But I also suspect most of them (us) tend just to forget about those "game development" incursions, cus bootlegs are not considered "actual games/actual software" and console clones with built-in emulators are not considered "actual hardware". Honorable mention to BattleCity (which also got a map editor) and its uncountable bootlegs!

BY THE WAY, if anyone is interested in sharing "levels" (lmao), we could do by exchanging save states and screenshots in a dedicated thread. I don't really think anyone is interested, tho... :p

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

Valve Hammer map editor for both Goldscr & later Source from 2007 onwards.
I made a few maps, they were functional.
I suppose oldschool roblox counts, as this was back in late 2009. But after my six months of premium expired I discovered Minecrafts Alpha in 2010 and I shifted away from Lua coding to just having fun.

A part of me wants to get back into Hammer, or learn to code for a handheld console using 8bitworkshop but at the same time that's alot of effort lol

 

[Bakuma1997]

Does the Mach Rider and Excitebike Level editors count?

 

[thumbsdown]

Does the Mach Rider and Excitebike Level editors count?

of course

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

Yeah: Doom builder, GameMaker, FPS Maker and tried Unity back then but my potato PC couldnt run it.

 

[χKai]

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I can't remember what it was called, but there was this old PC software that allowed you to really simply make 3D games.

I don't remember what it was called, but I know that one of the template games was some shitty 3D platformer starring a tomato called Mr Tom's Day Out.