Game Maker's Toolkit
Creator of Game Maker's Toolkit
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Mark Brown is the creator of Game Maker's Toolkit, whose Design Icons series explains how one game shaped a whole genre, here the path from Dungeons & Dragons to Dragon Quest. The thing most worth learning from his account is that Dragon Quest succeeded by simplifying two proven Western games for a wider console audience.
Dragon Quest is like a distillation of a distillation of a distillation of Dungeons & Dragons.
The Birth of the Japanese RPG | Design Icons
Game Maker's Toolkit: the story and the lessons
1Mark Brown's case that the Japanese RPG is a distillation
Brown starts with early programmers turning Dungeons & Dragons into code. D&D came out in 1974, and early programmers tried to make the computer a digital dungeon master. A random number generator replaced the 20-sided die, and numbers tracked experience and hit points.
Some early games already went beyond the tabletop, with story quests, recruitable monsters, or dozens of players on one network.
He treats Wizardry and Ultima, both from 1981, as the pair that mattered. Wizardry gave a party a ten-storey wireframe dungeon. Ultima gave an open world, quests from Lord British and a hunger system. Almost every Western computer RPG franchise traces back to the two.
Both also had huge followings in Japan, which sets up Dragon Quest.
Brown names five RPG design icons and calls the history a web. His five are D&D, Ultima, Wizardry, Dragon Quest and Rogue. The series otherwise picks single games, but RPG history is full of cross-influence, so this genre needs several.
He quotes Robert Woodhead calling such games "nothing but rings in the chain that bind all games together".
2How Brown explains the making of Dragon Quest
Horii and Nakamura first moved a Western-style game onto the Famicom. Yuji Horii made Portopia Serial Murder Case after reading about Western text adventures. With Koichi Nakamura he ported it to the Famicom, using a command list instead of a text parser.
They then did the same for the RPG and released Dragon Quest in spring 1986. The menu approach carried into its battles.
Dragon Quest took Wizardry's combat and Ultima's overworld. Horii loved Wizardry and Nakamura loved Ultima, so battles used Wizardry's menu and large colourful sprites. The map used Ultima's small walking characters, with towns and castles as single tiles.
They cut choices so a younger, wider audience could play. The only character choice is your name, stats are preset and levelling is straightforward. This partly reflected Famicom limits, but Horii also saw RPGs as niche and complex and wanted everyone to engage.
Horii built the loop on growth, the pleasure he took from Wizardry. He liked building up experience, getting stronger and buying new weapons. That fight, earn XP, level up and re-equip loop became the backbone of Dragon Quest.
Akira Toriyama gave Horii's slime a personality. Horii's sketch was a retread of Wizardry's boring blob. Toriyama redrew it as funny, characterful and mascot-like, and manga-style humour made the game feel native to Japan.
Brown corrects the myth that a law governed Dragon Quest release days. Enix chose on its own not to release games on school days; no law forced it.
Dragon Quest XI still launched on a Saturday in Japan.
3Why Brown says Japanese and Western RPGs split
Brown puts the split down to hardware and audience. Console limits and a wish for accessibility pushed Japan toward a set hero and a story. Western RPGs stayed on computers for a hardcore crowd who design their own character.
RPGs only found a big audience once they reached the Apple II in the West and the Famicom in Japan.
He argues distance from D&D explains why only RPGs divide by geography. Western designers drew straight from D&D, while Japanese designers drew from copies of copies. No Japanese platformer or Western racing game exists as a category.
He adds a caveat: Japan was never D&D-free, since the Tower of Druaga's maker picked up D&D on a business trip to America.
He shows influence kept crossing between East and West. D&D was translated in Japan in 1985 and shaped the first Final Fantasy's classes and elemental attacks. Nakamura copied Rogue to make Mystery Dungeon, which has more than 30 games.
Having struck gold localising a Western game, Nakamura did it again with Rogue, which a colleague was obsessed with.
4Design lessons Brown draws from RPG history
Brown shows designers answering Dragon Quest by bending its formula. Shigesato Itoi wondered why popular RPGs all had swords and magic, so he made the parody Mother. Sweet Home copied the command list and turn-based battles, and its planned 3D remake became Resident Evil.
He points to real-time combat as another twist on the genre. In 1984, action RPGs such as Dragon Slayer and Tower of Druaga swapped menu battles for real-time combat. The Legend of Zelda followed in 1986, with Miyamoto citing The Black Onyx and Ultima.
He credits removing one system with creating whole genres. Colossal Cave Adventure dropped D&D's combat and kept the storytelling. That shaped adventure games and helped launch Sierra and Infocom.
Rogue went another way, using procedural generation for endless dungeons, which Mystery Dungeon paired with permadeath.
The Birth of the Japanese RPG | Design Icons
Traces how Dungeons & Dragons passed through Wizardry and Ultima into Dragon Quest, and shows how hardware limits, audience and local culture pulled Japanese and Western RPGs apart. The worked example is Dragon Quest, which merges Wizardry's combat with Ultima's overworld, simplifies both, and gets manga art from Akira Toriyama.
Brown starts with early programmers turning Dungeons & Dragons into code. D&D came out in 1974, and early programmers tried to make the computer a digital dungeon master. A random number generator replaced the 20-sided die, and numbers tracked experience and hit points.
Some early games already went beyond the tabletop, with story quests, recruitable monsters, or dozens of players on one network.
He treats Wizardry and Ultima, both from 1981, as the pair that mattered. Wizardry gave a party a ten-storey wireframe dungeon. Ultima gave an open world, quests from Lord British and a hunger system. Almost every Western computer RPG franchise traces back to the two.
Both also had huge followings in Japan, which sets up Dragon Quest.
Brown names five RPG design icons and calls the history a web. His five are D&D, Ultima, Wizardry, Dragon Quest and Rogue. The series otherwise picks single games, but RPG history is full of cross-influence, so this genre needs several.
He quotes Robert Woodhead calling such games "nothing but rings in the chain that bind all games together".
Horii and Nakamura first moved a Western-style game onto the Famicom. Yuji Horii made Portopia Serial Murder Case after reading about Western text adventures. With Koichi Nakamura he ported it to the Famicom, using a command list instead of a text parser.
They then did the same for the RPG and released Dragon Quest in spring 1986. The menu approach carried into its battles.
Dragon Quest took Wizardry's combat and Ultima's overworld. Horii loved Wizardry and Nakamura loved Ultima, so battles used Wizardry's menu and large colourful sprites. The map used Ultima's small walking characters, with towns and castles as single tiles.
They cut choices so a younger, wider audience could play. The only character choice is your name, stats are preset and levelling is straightforward. This partly reflected Famicom limits, but Horii also saw RPGs as niche and complex and wanted everyone to engage.
Horii built the loop on growth, the pleasure he took from Wizardry. He liked building up experience, getting stronger and buying new weapons. That fight, earn XP, level up and re-equip loop became the backbone of Dragon Quest.
Akira Toriyama gave Horii's slime a personality. Horii's sketch was a retread of Wizardry's boring blob. Toriyama redrew it as funny, characterful and mascot-like, and manga-style humour made the game feel native to Japan.
Brown corrects the myth that a law governed Dragon Quest release days. Enix chose on its own not to release games on school days; no law forced it.
Dragon Quest XI still launched on a Saturday in Japan.
Brown puts the split down to hardware and audience. Console limits and a wish for accessibility pushed Japan toward a set hero and a story. Western RPGs stayed on computers for a hardcore crowd who design their own character.
RPGs only found a big audience once they reached the Apple II in the West and the Famicom in Japan.
He argues distance from D&D explains why only RPGs divide by geography. Western designers drew straight from D&D, while Japanese designers drew from copies of copies. No Japanese platformer or Western racing game exists as a category.
He adds a caveat: Japan was never D&D-free, since the Tower of Druaga's maker picked up D&D on a business trip to America.
He shows influence kept crossing between East and West. D&D was translated in Japan in 1985 and shaped the first Final Fantasy's classes and elemental attacks. Nakamura copied Rogue to make Mystery Dungeon, which has more than 30 games.
Having struck gold localising a Western game, Nakamura did it again with Rogue, which a colleague was obsessed with.
Brown shows designers answering Dragon Quest by bending its formula. Shigesato Itoi wondered why popular RPGs all had swords and magic, so he made the parody Mother. Sweet Home copied the command list and turn-based battles, and its planned 3D remake became Resident Evil.
He points to real-time combat as another twist on the genre. In 1984, action RPGs such as Dragon Slayer and Tower of Druaga swapped menu battles for real-time combat. The Legend of Zelda followed in 1986, with Miyamoto citing The Black Onyx and Ultima.
He credits removing one system with creating whole genres. Colossal Cave Adventure dropped D&D's combat and kept the storytelling. That shaped adventure games and helped launch Sierra and Infocom.
Rogue went another way, using procedural generation for endless dungeons, which Mystery Dungeon paired with permadeath.