RPG in a Box Reviews

Let me preface this with a few things that I think are important when you are reading this review, but also the other reviews on here. 1. I have used this software, Unity and RPG Maker. 2. I have not published a game (as of yet) and probably most of the reviews on here have not either. 3. I do not know how to script/code. Only visual scripting. Now that that's addressed I can tell you why I enjoy this software, why some of the negative reviews may be a bit off, and why I recommend it to others. Firstly this software has a lot of strengths. Of the ones I have used (as prior mentioned), this one is by far the easiest to pick up. If you are a solo dev, or an indie dev with a taste for low poly, this software nails that beginner niche hard. You just jump in and start making things. The toolset is fairly straight-forward and the software features an "in game" documentation/wiki so you can search keywords to things you don't understand and look for explanation. The Dev has also included a tiny "emoji" of himself in the top right corner that can be dragged and dropped onto 75-80% of the menu items that explains what they are and what they do when he is placed on them. The software also includes visual scripting, and script examples so you can assess by looking at the nodes what does what. While the software does have some limitations with 'scaling' and other minor mechanical limitations, you will find there are surprising work arounds for these limitations all within the tools if you get creative enough. Contrary to what some negative reviews have stated, the dev is relatively active in the community. He frequently engages on the Reddit page and on his website forums; and mind you, this is mostly just ONE guy working on this thing. When I check back a day later and see he replied to me an hour after my posts, I am always very surprised he even had the time for me. One review mentions the discord being deactivated, this is a half truth, the one the dev ran was deactivated, but a new one was created a while ago that is ran independently of the developer because it became to difficult to also manage it on top of everything else. And while I do not use the independent discord personally, it IS currently active. New things are being worked on and added all the time. The developers work ethic on this software is nothing short of inspiring. I can't believe how fast he can crank out decently big updates for supported platforms (Steam, IO, Epic). Since I've joined a few weeks ago, some pretty big updates dropped. Of them, my favorite is the included ability to upload files from the software BlockBench, which allows for a mixed medium of different styles of assets. You can make blocky, low or even high poly, 2D. You can make a platformer, a horror game, top down, an isometric, a shooter, a slasher, a turn based. The tools in this thing (while having some limitation) are extremely varied. Let me end this by saying I am a busy man. I work, I'm a dad, I don't have a ton of time to devote to my dreams of game creation. But if I EVER publish a game. It WILL BE with this tool. There is nothing simpler and easier to use than RPG in a box. Nothing more streamlined. You can argue for higher complexity and advanced scripting, go use Unity or Unreal then. But if you want simple? You want to learn? This is the software. End of. If you want to make something small, something indie and you can't figure out how to do it with RPG in a Box? I'm sorry, game development might not be for you because it doesn't get any easier than this and thats a hill I am willing to die on. Justin you have an incredible tool here. You should be proud.

This recaptured the magic of exploring story ideas from when I was a kid in the 80s playing with Adventure Construction Set. It's great to be able to create a low-fi retro type of game with modern conveniences (3d space, voxels instead of pixels) without having to create all the mechanics from scratch, or being boxed into a specific RPG style. Highly recommend for anyone who has a story to tell and doesn't want to spend all of their time reinventing the wheel or attempting to compete with AAA production values.

I appreciate the work that Justin is doing for this project. This is a really fun and easy tool to develop games. It's not really meant for creating a "big" game right now but who knows what will happen in the future.

I've been using RPG In a Box for a few years now. And can say, that it is one of the best engines I have used. It's very simple to learn, yet can also be used to create complex games. It's very easy to pick up, and has an amazing community for if you need help! It's also very inspiring how much work is put into it, and am looking for 2.0!

I've used this software non-stop for about a month now (hundreds of hours) trying to build a quality game and absolutely CAN NOT recommend this engine to anyone other than tinkerers and hobbyists who want to explore game dev but don't expect much out of it. The developer closed his discord before I actually bought the software and only has a forum (in 2025? yes a forum) for support/suggestions/etc. I shouldn't list support because you won't get much of that. I've received zero support replies from the actual developer after multiple support requests to address current features that don't function as they should. One of my support requests is 28 days old and not a single reply. I've been told by someone in the community who runs his own discord for RPGiaB that the tool was never meant to be a professional engine. The developer clearly wants to dev and make the money but don't want to do the other tasks necessary to run a software business. This is a hobby/passion project. If you want to support that, fine. But I bought this to make games to resell and unfortunately it isn't at a minimum caliber create something professionally. The biggest issue (out of countless) for those looking to use this for development is that when you export your exe.. it also runs a command prompt with the software that shows all the script errors that is both from your code and the engines behind the scenes issues. Out of the hundreds of steam games I own.... none of them have a command prompt running besides them. One user said they specifically received negative feedback because their customer thought the dev was hacking their pc. The other big issue is that all of your assets will be compressed into two files. So if you have gb's worth of content from audio/music/models.... good luck with that single file loading. The developer seems to have feature creep and just keeps sprawling development with shiny objects but the current features have issues everywhere and the documentation is mediocre at best. As much as I wish I could continue using RPGiaB to develop on, it's nowhere near where it needs to be to have a minimal viable product to resell. The amount of effort to make things happen with scripting hacks to get around limitations is just too enormous. If you want to tinker or just want to play around with a game development toy, this may be for you.

I've been making games as a hobbyist for over 20 years, and recently was recommended to try RPG in a Box. I have to say, I love this. This was exactly what I was looking for. It's surprisingly easy to use and surprisingly versatile. It's something that could be fun for kids to play with, and fun for older adults like me to play with. Can you make a commercial game with it? Probably ... if it's for people who like quirky old-school games. What I love is the ability to literally draw the walls and floors with pixels, and create my own objects if I want to. I love that I don't have to make the art in another program and port it in, but can just simply use this. I love that it's not a base program with hundred of dlc art sets. I was looking for something simple and fun to use, and that's what it is. How much do I like it? I got this for free through another game store, and liked it so much, I came over to steam and bought it here just to give support to the dev.