Play RPG Tsukuru GB (Japan) Online

You drag sprites onto a grid, scribble dialogue for chunky little characters, and somehow end up with a playable RPG—even if your dungeon’s just a bunch of goblins stacked awkwardly together.

Developer: ASCII Corporation

Genre: Role-Playing

Released: 1999

File size: 483 bytes

Game Overview

Ever wanted to make your own little Game Boy RPG? RPG Tsukuru GB is this weird, wonderful Japan-only cartridge that lets you slap together 8-bit adventures between bus rides. You start with a blank grid for dungeons, a handful of sprites that look straight out of Dragon Quest, and way too many menu options in Japanese—but after poking around, you realize you can actually build something playable.

The interface feels like wrestling with graph paper at first, but there's something magical about placing treasure chests and writing dialogue for villagers who look like pixelated potatoes. I made a dungeon where the final boss was just three goblins in a trenchcoat, and it somehow worked. It's janky, sure, but in that late-90s way where limitations force you to get creative.

If you've ever doodled RPG maps in school notebooks, this feels like bringing those daydreams to life—just with more kanji to decipher. The game even lets you export your creations to play on real hardware, which is still kind of wild for a GBC title.