RPG Maker Devs Release ACTION GAME MAKER Built on Godot, But at a Price
Gotcha Gotcha Games might not be a household name, but its RPG Maker game engine sure is. This now has a new sibling in ACTION GAME MAKER, which aims to provide both new and experienced devs with a robust suite of development tools. However, although it’s built on Godot, which is free, ACTION GAME MAKER costs a substantial amount.
RPG Maker is the engine behind tons of popular games, including Corpse Party, To The Moon, and the Fear And Hunger series. ACTION GAME MAKER looks to swap that engine’s reliance on top-down design for platformer/side scroller capabilities.
“We are proud to bring ACTION GAME MAKER to the broader game development community,” said Yusuke Morino, Producer at Gotcha Gotcha Games, in a press release. “ACTION GAME MAKER builds on the node-based visual scripting system developed in previous entries in the ‘Maker’ series and brings it into the modern programming era with Godot Engine. We are looking forward to seeing all of the amazing games everyone will create!”
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Powerful Game Development Tools With a Hefty Price Tag
Plenty of game engines exist today with a cost attached, usually a licence that gets higher in price depending on how big the studio is using the engine. ACTION GAME MAKER is available on PC and costs $99.99, which is a one-off fee. However, it’s also built on Godot, which is completely free.
Godot is a popular and powerful game engine, with famous game examples including Brotato, Dome Keeper, and Buckshot Roulette. It’s fast approaching version 4.5 which will add things like improved lighting effects and general improvements to workflow. Its current build already supports a variety of games/assets, from photorealistic 3D survival horror through to pixel art platformers. It’s also open source, meaning anyone can technically fix and improve it.
ACTION GAME MAKER uses Godot 4.3, which is robust and stable, and tweaks the core engine to include a variety of premade 2D functions. These include an “Actions” visual node system that can be dragged and dropped and linked together to help build games. However, as a closed source engine, ACTION GAME MAKER relies on updates and fixes from Gotcha Gotcha Games.
Gotcha Gotcha Games is presenting ACTION GAME MAKER as a “no code” engine, as it allows for complete beginners to get up and running pretty quickly with no game dev experience. These sorts of game engines already exist, from BuildBox to Construct 3, but they also come with a price tag that increases the more features a user wants; something that ACTION GAME MAKER does at least do away with.
Game Dev Tools For (Almost) Everyone
According to user reviews that are already coming in, veterans of Gotch Gotcha Games other engines, RPG Maker and Pixel Game Maker, will likely find it easier to get to grips with, whereas Godot users might struggle with the workflow that’s been imported over from those engines.
“If you have experience using RPG Maker/Pixel Game Maker but not Godot, you’ll have a slightly easier time but will need to learn all the Godot parts. If you have experience with Godot but not the Maker series, you’ll be mostly comfortable but the Maker design philosophy may throw you off.”
“The standalone versions of the Makers are pretty amazing, but these things are pretty ridiculous,” added another user. “So far I have not seen anything here that you cannot accomplish with a handful of free Godot add-ons.”
For anyone interested in trying it out, ACTION GAME MAKER does include a wealth of 2D assets so users can start on something easily. A free demo is also available until June 19, 2025.
