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Behold the aspiring repository for all there is to know about Recreational Software Designs' Game-Maker, the original game creation system for MS-DOS. Read of its use, its users, its surrounding culture, and -- of course -- the games themselves!

The Game-Maker Archive is not for profit; just for promulgation. Please feel free to contribute. Anything you can add or enhance, however incidental it may seem, will just increase the wealth of knowledge about RSD Game-Maker. In updating, do use some common sense and courtesy; this wiki is for everyone, not just you or me. Otherwise, kick around. Break the place in.

Join the community!

Look up in the far-right corner to sign up, and contribute to the knowledge base. You can browse a list of other contributors, including several Game-Maker users past and present, or follow current Game-Maker events on Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus.

Other destinations include reddit, YouTube, and Wikipedia. For a (very incomplete) list of user created games, you can also visit MobyGames, the Internet's comprehensive game database. Feel free to contribute to any of these resources as well.

Where to begin?

RSD Game-Maker

How do you browse an archive of this scale? Well, here are some points of entry. You can begin by reading about the games -- either our featured games, a list of full articles, or our large backlog of work-in-progress listings. Typically on each game page you can read a review, plus a games's storyline, credits, and instructions (if available). You can view screenshots, download maps, and the games themselves. In most cases an online, JAVA-emulated version of the game is available.

If you find a game that you enjoy, try exploring its author's gameography -- both of other Game-Maker games and, in many cases, the author's later design career. You can also browse games by genre or theme, or look through related design tools or sound and image resources.

Game playing tips

Game-Maker was created for MS-DOS, a command-line environment that is no longer supported under modern operating systems. You can still easily play DOS games, however, with the aid of DOSBox, a cross-platform virtual machine available on every major operating system from Windows to Mac OS to Linux to Android, and even Sony PlayStation Portable.

For new users especially, the easiest way to use DOSBox is with a frontend -- a graphical user interface that remembers your settings and takes care of all of the technical things for you.

• For users running Windows 2000 and higher (XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8), we recommend Alexander Herzog's D-Fend Reloaded. After installation just drop the games in, turn the CPU cycles up to 16,000, and play. (For superior sound emulation, we also suggest selecting sbpro2 and dualopl2 in the Sound/SoundBlaster menu.)

• To create a comfortable confole-like play experience, Windows users may also do well with Joy2Key and perhaps a wired Xbox 360 controller.

• For Linux or Mac OS X users, try DBGL: DOSBox Game Launcher.

• Mac users with condensed keyboards may want to look into utilities like Keyboard Remapper or KeyRemap4MacBook.

It's as fun to make them... as it is to play them... Game-Maker: the state-of-the-art in game design tools.