RPG Maker 2003 (RPGツクール 2003) is the third in the series of programs for the development of role-playing games, developed by
Kadokawa Games Kadokawa may refer to:
* Kadokawa Corporation, the holding company of the Kadokawa Group
**Kadokawa Content Gate and Kadokawa Mobile, both former names for BookWalker
**Kadokawa Future Publishing, a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation and the publ ...
. It features a database of pre-made backgrounds, music, animations, weapons and characters.
On April 24, 2015, RPG Maker 2003 received an official English translation, and was released into the Steam platform.
RPG Maker 2003 was superseded by
RPG Maker XP
RPG Maker, known in Japan as , is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, ''Tsukūru'', is a pun mi ...
.
Etymology
It is named after
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
.
Features
Graphics
All graphics within RPG Maker 2003 are in 2D like its predecessor,
RPG Maker 2000, and makes use of the same graphical resources with a few minor changes in resolution (though some tilesets, while similar in style to those included in RPG Maker 2000, include redrawn resources). In addition, ''Battle Character'' and ''System2'' sets are used to go with RPG Maker 2003's new battle system.
Sprites
The majority of all graphics within the game are achieved with
sprites, or single images that has a composition of frames in a specific orientation so that the graphics rendering software of RM2k3 can give the impression of movement.
Music
RPG Maker 2003 allows the use of
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
and
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
much like
RPG Maker 2000, its predecessor, for background music. Both programs received an update on May 14, 2003 to support
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
files (which was a strongly desired feature by users) and ADPCM compressed WAV. The developers provided a tool for compressing sound effects on the same day.
RM2k3 does not support any audio editing software so a third party program is needed in order to compose desired sounds.
Runtime Package
RPG Maker 2003, much like its predecessor
RPG Maker 2000 and its successor
RPG Maker XP
RPG Maker, known in Japan as , is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, ''Tsukūru'', is a pun mi ...
, comes with its own set of Runtime Package files, also known as the RTP. The RTP is a whole set of default graphics, music, and sound effects that are used in RPG Maker 2003 and, in most cases, the RTP must be downloaded to the computer to play the games made with RPG Maker 2003. Thanks to the RTP, created games can lessen their file size if a lot of material from the RTP was used.
Bonus contents
Early order also included RPG Maker Alpha (RPGツクールα) I-mode i-appli for NTT DoCoMo 503 or later platform.
Enhancements from RPG Maker 95 & 2000
Perhaps RPG Maker 2003's most notable new feature is its battle system, which is in
third-person side view rather than the first person view that was used in the previous
RPG Maker
RPG Maker, known in Japan as , is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, ''Tsukūru'', is a pun mi ...
programs. In addition, unlike its predecessors, RPG Maker 2003 makes use of a real-time "
ATB
André Tanneberger (; born 26 February 1973), better known by his stage name ATB, is a German DJ, musician, and producer of trance music. According to the official world DJ rankings governed by ''DJ Magazine'', ATB was ranked No. 11 in 2009 and ...
" system, like in the
Final Fantasy
is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...
games, instead of the classical "turn-based" system. At what point a character or enemy can take actions depends on their agility levels instead of being rigidly defined as a turn, though the software shipped with a bug that causes battle speed to dramatically slow down when there is a large disparity between Agility values of different combatants. This was never addressed by Enterbrain, though it can typically be avoided by users setting all combatants to have Agility values roughly similar to each other.
A less noticeable but no less significant change is that the program more than doubles the number of images that can be displayed simultaneously using the "Show Picture" command, allowing for fifty separate images compared to RPG Maker 2000's twenty. As the program predates the Ruby-based scripting language introduced in later versions, the command is essential for users wishing to move beyond the confines of the engine's default interface, and this simple change allows creators far more flexibility to craft their own custom game systems in 2003 compared to previous versions. The 2015 rerelease of the program takes this positive change even further, incorporating community-crafted DLLs that increase the limit to one thousand simultaneous pictures, and add additional functionality for interacting with and manipulating these images.
RPG Maker 2003 is also the only program in the RPG Maker series which allows weapons and armor to cast spells when used as items.
RPG Maker 2003 can convert RPG Maker 2000 games into RPG Maker 2003 games, though this cannot be reversed.
References
External links
Enterbrain page
{{RPG Maker series
2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...
Video game IDE