A collection of useful resources for RPG Maker 2k3

Here's a list of great websites and tools you can use during your 2k3 development.

There's two important things to note:

• Every link will have a "・" (middle dot) instead of a regular dot, because Steam gets a bit angry when I insert direct links to it. You just have to replace the "・" with a "." regular dot. Only a few links of apparently whitelisted pages will be directly inserted.
  
• I'm making this guide for anyone who might find these tools and websites useful, this is not a promotion of any kind.

Oh, and by the way. I made a game!! I'm just saying ;) You can try it here![valinypse.itch.io]

・ Maniac Patch

The Maniac Patch is a classic Japanese mod/patch for RPG Maker 2k3 that adds a lot of functionalities to the engine.



It was created by BingShan1024 and it was originally developed for the 1.12a version of the engine.

This patch adds:

• Mouse support.
  
• Custom fonts.
  
• Animated images.
  
• Increased event limits.
  
• Optimization of events.
  
• Backups of your project's data.
  
• Compatibility with OGG files.

• Link: bingshan1024.github.io/steam2003_maniacs
  
  or if Steam takes it down:
  
  
• Link: bingshan1024・github・io/steam2003_maniacs

Here's a great and extended guide hosted by RMteka on how does this patch works, for anyone struggling with learning it.

• rmteka・pl/maniacs-patch-wont-bite-you-1-basic-feature-changes

・ DynRPG

DynRPG is a patch that allows you to develop and use your own plugins for 2k3 with C++.

• Link: rpg-maker・cherrytree・at/dynrpg

The chreator, Cherrytree, also made a famous patch called "Hyper Patcher". You might want to check that out.

・ Pixel Movement

In RPG Maker MV/MZ, adding Pixel Movement is as easy as inserting a plugin into your project. In 2k3 it may take a bit more work, however it's not that complicated.

There are a lot of great 2k3 tutorial playlists out there, however I found this Spanish speaker user called "Soeufans Heroen" (@Soeufans) on YouTube with a great series on in-depth development for 2k3, including stuff like custom UI, a light system, Parallax Picture Mapping, snow steps, day/night cycle, minimap, etc; it's a great guide for anyone who knows Spanish.




Here's a link to the entire playlist.

• https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL79CojkC5pvASCrHeV9h7RG_aYvxAGhps&si=L5XAcMvyEfNrHygV

And here's a link to his YouTube channel.

• https://www.youtube.com/@Soeufans

The last episode of his guide is called "#32 Videotutorial RPG maker 2003 - Pixel Movement" and, as you may guess, it's about Pixel Movement in 2k3.

Here's a link to said video.

• https://youtu.be/uTzDovbWnIk?si=tso9jtsaQ-0U5tVc

In the description he offers a download link to the project in which he developed Pixel Movement for 2k3. Even with the language barrier, you can study said file and edit it to make your own game based on this project.

Here's a reupload of this project in MEGA by me, in case that the original one gets taken down.

• mega・nz/file/2s02kSoS#qfC85uUA3tSDNAquQDcHrbG6fru2ux9p0ax5lW4lh_Q

・ Charas Project (Character Generator)

This website is Charas Project, a classic 2k3 page with a lot of useful graphics such as CharaSets and FaceSets.

• Link: charas-project・net

By clicking on CharSet (or going to "charas-project・net/charas2") you can find a lot of great Actor sprites you can use, with variants and the possibility to select a premade face and dress.



You can select the sprite size and style, and then add it a face, hair, dress and some extra stuff like items. It can be a little bit buggy sometimes.

You can download these sprites and use them as a reference for your own games.

・ REFMAP Blog

REFMAP is a Japanese blog that contains a lot of great tilesets, most of which have copyrighted content so you may want ot use them for private testing or as a reference for your own tiles.

Thankfully the site states which tileset has copyright and which does not.

• Link: refmap-l・blog・ jp

・ Pinkuboa's MEGA GUIDE

Pinkuboa made a lot of useful content related to 2k3 and Yume Nikki, essentially to help those who wanted to make their own YN Fangames on the yearly Dream Diary Jam.

Their Tumblr page is full of incredibly useful content for anyone interested in RPG Maker 2000 and 2003, it's great to see such a quantity of great quality tutorials being properly docummented.

• Link: pinkuboa.tumblr.com/post/146004131201/rpg-maker-20032000-masterpost

Or if Steam takes it down...

• Link: pinkuboa・tumblr・com/post/146004131201/rpg-maker-20032000-masterpost

I believe that Steam would not remove this link, it's from Tumblr so it should be safe. If it does get removed anytime soon please make me now.

Right now most of the tutorials Pinkuboa made are inaccessible due to them being posted in RPGMaker . net, which went down a few months ago due to their server hosting service shutting down. Apparently they're working on it, I hope it's sometime soon, there was an incredibly big amount of great tutorials there.

As an addition to Pinkuboa's MEGA GUIDE, I want to mention CWP's "Yume Nikki Fangame Template" (or "YNFG Template")

You can find it here:

• https://clockworkprince・itch・io/ynfg-template

・ GW Temp in Leafo

This is a classic one! It dates back to Don Miguel's unofficial English translation.

This website might be a little old and rusty, but the tutorials here are gold and most 2k/3 developers would probably find this useful as hell.

• Link: leafo・net/gwtemp/tutorials

・ EasyRPG

You may already know this one, but it needed to be here too.

As its website states, "EasyRPG is a community project to create a free, open source, role playing game creation tool, compatible with RPG Maker 2000/2003 games."

• Link: easyrpg・org

The EasyRPG Player can be easily placed into an RPG 2k and 2k3 game folder and played instantly, however if you're trying to play an old Japanese game you'd probably like to install a Japanese locale in your PC, if not, some file names might broken and EasyRPG will not be able to read them.

Development-related stuff can be discussed via their Discord server.

・ Compilation of tools (Collected by DrMadFellow)

This collection of useful tools were originally uploaded by DrMadFellow on r/RPGMaker, link to their post here.

Here's a re-upload by me, just in case.

• https://mega.nz/file/bxUAVSQK#mTCIE-7gTRtBvH1LdFFTadjf_cOTEtbLPi-gZO-qemg

And if Steam censores that link, try this one and replace the ・ with dots.

• mega・nz/file/bxUAVSQK#mTCIE-7gTRtBvH1LdFFTadjf_cOTEtbLPi-gZO-qemg

It's a .rar file that contains the following:

• Charas: A character generator that allows you to mix and match things to make character sprites very easily. This is comparable to the online version under the same name but does not require you to be online
  
• Chipmunk Tileset Mixer: This utility allows you to import multiple tilesets and mix and match the parts you like to make a new one.
  
• DMK Text Editor: Exports text data from your game so you can edit it (or translate it) in a word processing software. Then allows you to import it back in.
  
• Facemaker: Similar to Charas it gives you a lot of options to customize a faceset. It's a bit "engrish" but easy to understand and use.
  
• Image Positioner: Allows you to add a picture then position it where you want on the screen. It will then tell you the coordinates you need to input when doing event work. Takes the guess work out of positioning pictures entirely.
  
• Mass Import Tool: Can import a ton of resources to your project folder all at once. It determines which resource folder to put them in automatically and can even convert things to the proper file format and many other features. Super useful when importing things from an old project to a new one.
  
• MyWin: Allows you to choose a 2k3 message window graphic then input text to make custom windows. Useful for a ton of things ranging from making custom menus to displaying a map name when you enter a map.
  
• Rm2k Tool: Originally made for the illegally translated version of 2k (don miguels version) This utility has tons of tutorials on how to make advanced systems. It also includes a name generator. While a lot of the commands are a bit off (due to the illegal translation errors) this is still a very useful resource for advance event commands to make your game more interesting.
  
• RM Text Editor: You can type up pages and pages of dialogue and it will format it to fit the length requirements of the engine so you can cut and paste it into the editor.
  
• Sprite Sheet Creator: Allows you to import multiple separate images and arrange them into a sprite sheet compatible with 2k3.
  
• Map Screen Shot Tool: Allows you to take a screenshot of an entire map, but does not screenshot the event layer.

Again, these tools were collected and compressed into Utils.zip by DrMadFellow.

・ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2k/3 dedicated forums

This one might seem obvious, but it's somehow overlooked by a lot of people.

In the RPGMakerWeb page there's this 2k/3 dedicated forums with a lot of useful guides.

• Link: forums・rpgmakerweb・com/index.php?forums/rm2k-3-tutorials.122

By just passing by a little I can find tutorials on how to create an Ammo system, custom dialogue, dedicated sprint button and and vehicles.

・ EasyRPG list of known patches

In the EasyRPG wiki there's a page dedicated to all known patches for RPG Maker 2k3. There's a lot of them, I don't know how good they're but I'll name them here, just in case.

• Link: wiki・easyrpg・org/development/technical-details/known-patches

Here's the entire list extremely summarized:

• Harmony.dll replacements
  Changing harmony.dll allows to do external without modifying the main binary.
  
  
• Key Patch by Ineluki
  Executes scripts via the 'Play sound' command, and returns data through the midi ticks. Scripts are stored as sounds with .script.wav extension (the format of .script.wav is similar to INI files).
  
  
• Auto Enter Patch by Miroku
  Skips the title screen of RPG Maker, allowing to create custom title screens.
  
  
• BetterAEP by Cherry
  Skips the title screen in a different more efficient way than Auto Enter Patch (see above) and allows to call load menu and exit game.
  
  
• PicPointerPatch
  Allows to use the ID of picture stored in a variable.
  
  
• CharExpand Patch by Cherry / Il Segugio
  Allows to use character graphics with arbitrary dimensions, as in newer RPG Maker versions.
  
  
• PicsInBattle
  Allows to show pictures in battle.
  
  
• Enter Hero Name Patch by Deejee
  This patch fixed the 'Enter Hero Name' bug (the game freezed when executing this command) introduced in Don Miguel’s English translation.
  
  
• Destiny Patch by Bananen-Joe
  Implements its own scripting language called DestinyScript for many kinds of data access and manipulation while game is running.
  
  
• Force Harmony by Bananen-Joe and Cherry
  To allow using Ineluki's Key Patch and other Harmony Replacements, this patch changes RPG Maker 2003 v. 1.05 and above to use Harmony.dll. After this, RM2k3 v. 1.05 and above can no longer play MP3, since Harmony.dll doesn’t support MP3 (unless another patch like Disharmony is used).
  
  
• DynRPG by Cherry
  Allows to create many different plugins. Unfortunately, they are Windows-specific.
  
  
• PowerPatch Compact
  Power Patch Compact ist der kleine Bruder des „richtigen“ Power Patch.
  
  
• Save/Load Script by Vampire of Eternal Chaos
  Provides programs ExitGame.exe, ExitSaveLoad.exe, Load.exe, Save.exe, SaveCounter.exe, SaveInfo.exe, SaveInfoSet.exe.
  
  
• Screenshot script by Miroku
  Allows to make a screenshot and save it in the Pictures folder (converting to 256 colours).

[Pierre]

As someone who started using RPG maker this week, u doing god's work omg this is so helpful.

[DrMadFellow]

Hey! I swung by after seeing your message on reddit to me (a year late, sorry about that). Glad people are still finding that pack of stuff I put together useful. And thanks for putting me onto pixel movement! I hadn't really explored that one before.

[sebuzahntiger]

Thanks!

[🌸 幻 | Valinypse]

Hi! Thanks for passing by

Yep, it sucks that they're out. These guides must be properly archived, they contain a lot of useful info that can help anyone who's interested in starting a relatively complex 2k3 game.

[Succubus Nirriti]

Its unfortunate that Pinkuboa's MEGA GUIDE's cant be accessed (site works but all links there are dead). If you seek help on anything it leads you to answers for newer engines (sadly).

[Succubus Nirriti]

Lots of good link ressources on tutorials.
Thank you very much for compiling these.