I've wanted to make a game just as a side hobby. Got most of my writting down, but this is not the point of my post.
I've wanted to make this game in RPG style, and my go to engine was going to be RPG Maker MV or above, but those are too expensive where I'm from. Is there any good free alternatives? Or at the very least, cheaper alternatives?
I don't know about expensive, or what region of the world you are in, but RPGMaker MV (not the latest edition, but more than enough still, with fantastic plugin support) is always below 10 USD or 10 EUR whenever there is a large Steam seasonal sale (spring sale will be the next big thing)... and often times, individual games/genre of games go regularly on sale as well - like an RPG week where a lot of RPG games are on sale. Just keep an eye out for Steam sales, you are bound to get it at a bargain.
I can think of two open-source and free alternatives to RPG Maker...
Open RPG Maker
Open RPG Maker is a discontinued attempt at recreating an open-source version of RPG Maker XP, 2003, and 2000 and is the most similar in terms of interface and appearance.
The major downsides to using Open RPG Maker is that if you're already familiar with the interface and features of modern versions of RPG Maker then you'll most likely end up having to dismiss that information as Open RPG Maker isn't going to directly translate that knowledge when navigating the interface and setting up everything to work out-of-the-box. There's likely going to be some trial-and-error when it comes to learning how to work with the limitations of this engine as well as having no official support for bug fixes as the engine hasn't seen any official updates to the codebase since 2014.
If you're okay with the fact that the last update was from nearly a decade ago and if you're okay with the fact that it never reached "release" status (it's still in beta) then you can give Open RPG Maker a try to see how far it goes:
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RPG Paper Maker
RPG Paper Maker is a 2.5d (it's not solely limited to 2D graphics as you can design 3D assets and use them in this engine) JRPG game engine that is somewhat similar to RPG Maker in a few ways but it isn't meant to be a clone of RPG Maker.
If you were hoping to get a 1:1 experience to RPG Maker from RPG Paper Maker then you'll be sorely mistaken because you'll quickly find that the interface might resemble RPG Maker in some aspects but everything else will be a major departure from what you might be familiar with when it comes to making games in RPG Maker.
Despite this fact there seems to be more flexibility with Paper RPG Maker than with RPG Maker and especially Open RPG Maker, although I might not recommend this alternative if you're wanting that RPG Maker experience from start-to-finish. Although I would recommend using this engine if you're wanting to make free games with RPG Paper Maker since you would have to spend $79.99 USD to acquire a license to sell any games you create using RPG Paper Maker.
If you're not put off by the drastic change in game style and the prospect of not being able to sell any games you make using RPG Paper Maker then you can grab it from here:
