Best free program(s) for pokemon game-making?

[fanh]

Hi, I'm new to game making, and I want to know which free program(s) is the best to make pokemon-style games. Please tell me about the program (and put a link to the official site, if possible). Thank you ^^

[Firemaker]

The best program is RPG Maker XP, though it costs $60 after a 30-day free trial. Another game that has been helpful in developing pokemon-like games is Sphere.

[salmjak]

Any programmin language will be fine, althought some will be harder then others.
C/C++ for unlimited opportunities.

Dream Maker (BYOND) for easy online game making, only 2D thought. http://www.byond.com/

Game Maker for simple D&D game making or advanced game making by coding. http://www.yoyogames.com/make

RPG Maker for easy game making but very limited unless you're good in some strange coding language :S (C/C++,DM and GML are very similar compared to ruby(?) in my opinion)

I'm making a online pokemon game with Dream Maker and it's going quite good. (Will lack some graphic functions (battles won't look exactly as in the GB games))

[fanh]

So... I want to make a pokemon fan game, but I'm a bit confused. Where should I start with? Can anyone show me a brief list of steps? Thanks!

[salmjak]

-Learn the coding language!
-Get some graphic (sprites)
-Start coding!

You could learn the language while you are coding through examples if you want to start of earlier.

[Wichu]

You could buy RPG Maker XP ($60), and download Pokémon Essentials - you don't need a lot of scripting/coding knowledge to use it. However, it's a bit complicated at times.

[Tentacruel13]

Game Maker! It's free, and if you want to upgrade to Pro it's only $20 and if they come out with a new version you get pro of that version too! Just Google it!

[.houndoomed]

Get RPG Maker XP, it's well worth the $60. And probably the most flexible game maker out there (although I haven't really tried any others)

[Maruno]

Can I get a specs comparison of some of these programs? Maximum number of maps, maximum size of maps, maximum sprite/tilesheet size, maximum resolution of tiles, etc.

[salmjak]

Game Maker: Everything unlimited size (I think)
Dream Maker: sprites can't be larger then 32x32 (but that can be fixed through some easy coding) but maps are unlimited.

[Wichu]

RMXP: Maps - up to 999 x 999 tiles.
Tileset - 8 x (very large number) tiles (each 32 x 32 pixels).
Up to 999 different tilesets.
I don't think there's a limit to number of resources - Essentials has at least 3000 sprites and still work.
In-game switches and variables - up to 5000, although this can be easily increased with a little scripting knowledge.
However, if you use the default systems, there is a limit of 999 on most things (enemies, weapons, skills etc). I'm sure you won't be using them for a Pokémon game, though.
And RMXP has one major thing going for it - the existence of a virtually complete Pokémon starter kit.

[sprugles555]

RMXP is easy to use, and with scripting knowledge, can be even better. Wichu was talking about Pokemon Essentials, which is a modification of Flameguru's Pokemon starter kit, which incorporates Poccils Pokemon Advance battle system along with many new features he added!
That is your best bet, to make a fairly good Pokemon Game with ease!