2D Game Engines

ZZT (1991)
- text-mode game with its own editor and scripting language
Adventure Game Studio (1997-)
- for graphical point-and-click adventure games
O.H.R.RPG.C.E. (1997-)
- Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Construction Engine (for classic NES/SNES/GBA-style RPGs)
RPG Maker (1998-)
- for rpgs! (costs $, but never buy it at full price! they go on sale in almost every steam sale)
- Discuss RPG maker on the forum!
GameMaker (1999-)
- any genre; use a drag-and-drop visual programming language or a scripting language (GML)
Ren'Py (2004-)
- for visual novels
LÖVE (2008-)
- any genre; code in Lua
Puzzlescript (2013-)
- HTML5 puzzle game engine
Godot (2014-)
- any genre; 2D or 3D; code in GDscript or C#
flickgame (2015-)
- tiny point & click maker
Bitsy (2017-)
- for little adventure games and stories
- bitsy hacks: code you can paste into your game to add new functions
GB Studio (2019-)
- any genre; drag-and-drop visual editor; games compatible with the limitations of the gameboy
Decker (2022-)
- multimedia engine inspired by HyperCard
- Discuss Decker on the forum!
Narrat (2022-)
- for narrative games with RPG features, visual novels, and interactive fiction
plano (2026)
- place photos, gifs, and text to create a little world for a character to walk around in!