Help:Contents/Finding Content/Game Engines/RPG Maker 200X

This is a sub-page of Help:Contents/Finding Content/Game Engines.

RPG Maker 2000 and RPG Maker 2003 are game engines developed by ASCII and Enterbrain. Their primary purpose is in the creation of games in the style of Japanese RPGs, although they are also used in the creation of indie horror and experimental titles such as Yume Nikki, and are primarily targeted for Windows platforms, although there are fan-made modifications for macOS. Due to the structural similarities between 2000 and 2003, many of the tools available work inter-changeably with either version.

Tools

• Thumbs Viewer Thumbs.db viewer for saved thumbs in file archives.
• LMU2PNG Map data to PNG conversion tool, among other utilities.
• RPG Maker 200X Translation Assistant Translation assistant used to export text from various parts of the code for comparison, which includes functions within events.
• LCFVIZ Converts room connections to graph (viz) data.

How to Use

Thumbs Viewer

1. Due to .db files being a part of older versions of Windows' operating system files, by default they're hidden within folders containing them. Enabling them is a process with variations depending on the Windows version.
   Windows 10: In the File Explorer, select View in the top-left, then Options at the right edge of the menu that popped up. Click Options, then click Change folder and search options. From the new menu that popped up, go to View and then uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). Your computer will warn you about this, click Yes and then Apply to render those files visible. The same process can be repeated if you wish to render those files invisible again.
2. Open the Thumbs Viewer program and navigate to a game folder containing a Thumbs.db file. These are generally present within folders containing graphical data, although it's worth checking every folder to be certain. Once opening a Thumbs.db file, a list of what is contained within the file will be displayed in the program, which will include references to older revisions of files and any thumbs for renamed or deleted files.
3. Once seeing files you're interested in, simply right click and select Save Selected... to extract the relevant file into somewhere else on your computer (you can also simply Save All... with Ctrl + S or selecting it from the file menu). Due to the amount of data contained within these files, it's important to properly format your information if added to an existing article. A good example of this can be found on the Yume Nikki page.

LMU2PNG

Simply drag and drop an .lmu file onto lmu2png.exe, and it will render a PNG image within the same folder.

A few important things to note about this process:

• Due to coding errors, lmu2png will not function properly if there are any Japanese characters used by sprites contained within a map file. This requires external modification of various files' names and references within the map itself to fix, which can be done by simply renaming the files and then opening the game in the editor proper to re-direct the references to the new names. Keep various backups of every file modified in this process.
• Certain auto-map graphics will be displayed improperly upon render, again necessitating external modification to rectify with an image editing program if severe enough to impact visual conveyance.

LCFVIZ

1. Download LCFVIZ from the EasyRPG website and place it in the main folder for an RPG Maker 2000/2003 project.
2. Type cmd in the address bar to open command prompt, then type lcfviz.exe. This will automatically run the program.
3. Copy the output and use it in any program that can interpret VIZ data. This site would be a good example.

RPG Maker 200X Translation Assistant

Detailed information on the programs' various functions are provided in the readme file. If there are issues pertaining to this process, a few solutions are provided in there or on the tools' download page.