Mine runs in JavaScript / HTML5. To create something like it you would need a browser, a text editor, git for version control, an image editor such as gimp or paint.net, and a copy of tiled. All are free. What you really need is time, and lots of it!

HTML5 Canvas Old School RPG

If you're entirely new to programming, I'd suggest learning python. Here's a tutorial - http://swaroopch.com/notes/python/

After you get through that, try this tutorial about python gaming - http://inventwithpython.com/chapters/

The latter tutorial introduces pygame. Pygame should work for developing a pixel art RPG. There are more tutorials on the pygame website - http://www.pygame.org/wiki/tutorials

As far as making the pixel art itself, I have no idea. I'm not an artist.

Some of the people here (myself included) have a fair amount of experience with game programming, so if you get to a point where you have specific questions, feel free to ask. :)

Following those tutorials is an excellent way to get started, though.

RainHippie, dont listen to anyone about programming language, including me. Try them all and find the one which you feel comfy. I would recommend C++, its hard to learn, easy to make mistakes; but if you truly learn it, its the language for gaming.

If you need a game engine, please consider GGE/Phobos chain. Soon (our soon might differ from what you have in your mind) GGE 4.0 will be released with pixel shader support. Here are some links, and if you like I can supply several games to get you started:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gorgon-ge/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phoboseditor/

RainHippie,

As everyone is entirely different, so are their preferences.  Some additional information such as your target groups and game play-style would help a lot.  Are you trying to develop for websites, phones, or pc only?  In all reality, HTML5 can do all three so a lot of people have chosen that route.  I can't talk, however, because I haven't done an HTML5 project.. being an engineer I've only taken a class in C++ and all of my Java/Python knowledge has been self taught.  As far as the game-style, many of OGA community is very helpful and can direct you to art that you may not know existed as well as programs that deal with specific needs.  When you say RPG pixel game do you want to make a orthogonal or isometric style game?  Tiled should do both, and is what I currently use, but there are always different software options depending on your game platform.

I've noticed that OGA is blessed with many talented artists whom are good programmers as well.  Usually the two skill sets aren't embodied in one person, but we seem to defy the odds.  I've always been passionate about art and drawing, but when I found out I was good with math I naturally was encouraged to take that route.  I didn't notice how much I loved programming until college.. Now I make games which fufill both my loves in life as a hobby.

I (and probably everyone else) would be more than happy to give you advice as to what programming languages and where you can get your art if you'd like (plus art software help if you want to make your own).  Just before anyone tells you which language to use or which art programs to use it's essential we know exactly what you're looking for so we don't waste your time.  Like Gaurav said, it's quite a time commitment; you'll have to make sure you love it and enjoy it before diving in.  As for me, I'm obsessed. I have to make sure to get my homework done before coding and making my art. :)

Note: Tiled is an map editor and it can be found here - http://www.mapeditor.org/

You can import Tiled's TMX files into Pygame - http://www.pygame.org/project-Tiled+TMX+Loader-2036-.html

Google for Unity3D, its the ideal start for any hobbist game programmer

And now that we've overwhelmed you, it should be clear that there are all sorts of ways to get started on game programming. :)

@Bart: Everyone knows there is only one correct way to start game programming: http://skilldrick.github.com/easy6502/

@RainHippie: Um, what Bart said.

Now things get really complicated...

Another important part of any RPG is the ruleset. If you haven't already created your own ruleset, you should consider using an existing one. It will save you a lot of work. Using someone else's ruleset can raise the spectre of copyright and/or patent infringement however. The way around this is to find an open source ruleset, where the creator gives you explicit permission to create derivative works. There are many different open source licenses. Which license is best for your project is dependent on what you want to do with your game. If you don't mind releasing your game under the same license as the ruleset, you can use rulesets that are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, GNU General Public License, Free Art license, Free Document License, or Open Publication License. If you don't intend to try to make money from your game, you can use rulesets released under the Open Content License, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, or Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. If you don't want to release your game under the same license as the ruleset, you can use rulesets that are public domain or released under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

This comment was brought to you by copyright. Copyright: making things complicated since 1710.

It's good to look at other RPG rules, e.g. for inspiration, but not to hard to write your own system. (Personally I like to not overcomplicate the rules - it's tempting come up with complex rules, but that's often overkill if the game doesn't make use of those rules.)

Regarding copyright, it's not really clear that game rules are covered. Even in the US - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html .

I'd only worry about that if say you wanted copy the instructions themselves, rather than copying game rules. (IANAL!)

A licence that tried to say that the game as a whole would have to be distributed under the same licence as used for the rules would be pretty inconvenient in most cases, as most of the licences for documents or game rules aren't going to be suitable for software. (This is similar to the debate as to whether CC BY-SA for art would also affect the game software.)

And even if the OP isn't trying to make money, a non-commercial restriction on the game would make it incompatible with Open Source licences. (Again, the same thing applies to art - and is why non-commercial licences aren't allowed on this site.)

While the "ruleset" itself may not be copyrightable, the expression of those rules may be. The set of names used for the various classes, abilities, skills, etc. may be copyrightable, forcing you to change the names where possible. Then you find out why they used those names-- because they sound cool-- and you're left with second-rate synonyms. Secondly, rulesets are patentable and you can run into a patent infringement claim. I am not a lawyer either.

It seems pretty clear to me that implementing a ruleset in source code is a derivative work and therefore would trigger the "share alike" provisions of a copyleft license. I don't see how one can argue that it's not a derivative work.

Non-commercial licenses are only incompatible with copyleft licenses. You can release something derived from a permissively licensed work as full-blown closed source if you wanted. If you mean that you're game would not be truly open source if you had non-commercial provisions in the license, I agree.

True, I'd agree that if you're going to copy something 100%, it's perhaps better to use one that's properly released under a licence that lets you do what you want to do with it. I don't think I'd worry about the words if they're perfectly good words to describe something (e.g., "Fighting Prowess"). More specific made-up words may be best to avoid, and this also crosses over into Trademarks (e.g., everyone avoids using the word "Hobbit" because it's trademarked, even though loads of people and companies have happily ripped off large chunks of Tolkien's world, including "halflings").

Rules could be patented in some countries. There is indeed the problem that one can't know if something is patentable without doing an extensive patent search - unfortunately this applies to everything in software development, from any kind of game mechanics, to algorithms. And it applies whether you copy one thing entirely, draw inspiration from various games, or even independently recreate it yourself. In practice, I think that means that one either (a) never releases code at all, (b) hires a lawyer to do patent searches, or (c) not care so much, and avoid things which are known to be patented (e.g., Carmack's Reverse shadowing algorithm, or mp3 playback) (or (d), live in a country where pure software patents aren't enforcable).

"It seems pretty clear to me that implementing a ruleset in source code is a derivative work and therefore would trigger the "share alike" provisions of a copyleft license. I don't see how one can argue that it's not a derivative work."

In which case, I feel it would be inconvenient in many cases - as I say, many of the licences for documents/rules/art aren't suitable for software (so CC BY-SA would mean the game source/binary has to be CC BY-SA). But still, I don't think that matters, as the issue is the expression of the rules, not implementing the rules themselves in source.

"Non-commercial licenses are only incompatible with copyleft licenses. You can release something derived from a permissively licensed work as full-blown closed source if you wanted. If you mean that you're game would not be truly open source if you had non-commercial provisions in the license, I agree."

Yes I agree - it's possible to mix Free software with non-Free art/rules. But it's worth considering the consequences of non-commercial restrictions (e.g., http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC ), just as with non-commercially licensed art. Thanks for the links anyway btw - I just wanted to point out for people to beware that not all of the categories are Free licences.

Do you realize that you are talking about patents/rules and the like to someone who just asked where to start?  Its not like this is a waste, in fact, im reading everything; but i think you just scared Rainhippie for life

@Danimal: Oops.

@RainHippie: You can avoid this headache by only using rulesets that are in the public domain or released under the Creative Commons Attribution license. See my comment above for links. Even if you dislike most of a ruleset and end up changing 90% of it, you've still decreased your workload by 10%. That's the beauty of open source: not having to reinvent the wheel.

I don't want to hijack RainHippie's thread, but since the discussion is going in this direction, where would one find such open rulesets?

 I'm making an rpg also (post apocalyptic), and have a similar system to that of Fallout games - base stats, skils and perks / traits. Now I didn't just blatantly copy fallout, but it was a natural progression, many games use the same stats like strength, inteligence, charisma, dexterity/agility, endurance/constitution etc, only difference is  that the Fallout team made some fuss about it and they slaped a name on their 'system' - SPECIAL.  

Skills that are derived from base stats are also pretty common in games, and having skills such as explosives, guns, melee, barter, speach, lockpick is also pretty standard and I don't know how one canb copyright such common names, or how would I (and everybody else) go about naming them differently.

I'm using traits (working name) to describe npcs personality, like aggresiveness, bravery, etc. so for instance intimidating an npc wouldn't just be a roll againts his strength, so I can have strong characters that are easily scared / intimidated..  While I plan for the player to aquire additional 'perk's during gameplay mainly in the form of special training from different npcs, as a reward not level based like say every 2nd level..

One type of currency I planned was bullets, did a quick search and found that a game called Metro already used this idea, can this also be a potential  'problem'?

So how much am I infringing / deriving here? What must I change or rename to be in the clear?

If you want to make sure, you should do a patent search. Its not possible to copyright game mechanics, wording cannot be considered infridging unless you copy it. The only problem becomes patents. 

I don't know how similar to Fallout that is, though I note what you've described sounds like most of the RPG systems out there... I don't know if there's ever been a court case covering RPG rule systems(?) The cases I know apply to complete remakes, which includes issues such as trademarks and copyrighted art (e.g., I think there was a case involving the Talisman game, but can't find a link atm).

As for patents - as I say, remember that could apply to every aspect of a game, as well as every algorithm you write. Sadly the only 100% way to be sure is to get a lawyer, but we have to be pragmatic, in practice most individuals, hobbyists and Open Source programmers aren't going to be able to do this, and it seems to be a better tactic simply to steer clear of known patents. I don't think there's anything special about "RPG rules".

And yes I hope we haven't scared off RainHippie! Really my point is that one shouldn't worry too much about things like patents when you're learning to program.

For open rulesets, see my third post in this thread: the one with all the links. For simplicity's sake, just limit yourself to the ones that are in the public domain or under the Creative Commons Attribution license. In fact, from now on I'm only going to suggest permissively licensed rulesets unless I know for sure someone is familiar with intellectual "property" law, which is really a shame because I like copyleft licenses and I use them for my own work. Another thread, another lesson learned.

Again, for the record, I am not a lawyer. My understanding is that the set of words used may be copyrightable, not every individual word. For instance, if D&D has a set of six characteristics they call "ability scores" and they're named "strength," "dexterity," "constitution," "intelligence," "wisdom," and "charisma" and your game has a set of six characteristics you call "ability scores" that you've named "strength," "agility," "constitution," "intelligence," "wisdom," and "charisma" you may have a problem because it's almost identical (you only changed one word). If however, you've got a set of four characteristics you call "attributes" and they're named "strength," "agility," "health," and "intelligence," you should be fine because it's substantially different. But, no, someone cannot just say, "I've copyrighted the word 'gun' and now no one can ever use it."

Again, IANAL. My understanding is you cannot copyright, or even patent, a mere idea like "bullets are used as currency." If, however, in the Metro system, one chicken = one .50 caliber bullet, one spatula = one .22 caliber bullet, and one stove = one hundred .45 caliber bullets, and in your system one chicken = one .50 caliber bullet, one spatula = one .22 caliber bullet, and one stove = one hundred .45 caliber bullets, etc. you may have a problem, assuming Metro is patented.

I strongly suggest looking at engines that come with a toolset and scripting language and do the tutorials.

The best fitting for your purpose are Gamemaker (for 2D games in general, it can do 3D too, but the toolset is clearly tailored towards 2D output) and RPGMaker (Specialised on 2D RPG's).

This will save you the time and effort needed to learn a real programming language before learning to create a game with it.

If you try Tiled and do not like it, try Ogmo.  Ogmo is great for a RPG, because you can customize entity types to place on each map.  You also do not have to recreate those entities later.  They are all saved in your project file.  To me, Ogmo feels much like a RPG Maker map editor.

As far as game engines go, it is a toss up between Unity3D and Flixel to me.  Flixel has been great for quick prototyping in FlashDevelop.  Unity3D has that nice do-whatever-you-want feel, but it lacks the programming environment I am used to.  I am experimenting with NeoAxis, though, as yet another alternative in case I want to step away from Unity3D.

As far as languages go, I love ActionScript, and Haxe is like ActionScript on steroids, but both of those are part of very tough platforms to get into.  If you are a beginner, I recommend using either Maratis or Love2D.  Maratis is a Blender-based game engine that utilizes Lua scripts.  Love2D is a simplistic 2D engine that utilizes Lua.  Love2D is brilliant, and I strongly recommend you start with that, but if you need 3D/Blender support, Maratis is also pretty good.

@RainHippie

Sorry, sometimes the spam filter can be overzealous (although unfortunately, right now the alternative is to have so much spam that I can't take care of it at all).  In any case, the spam filter shouldn't give you any more trouble, so feel free to post whatever.

Honestly, I'd assumed we'd scared you off with information overload, so I'm glad that's not the case.  It can be pretty daunting to get into programming, so feel free to ask questions here if you have any.

Bart

I was thinking the same as Bart, glad you're still around!

I'd love to see a blog or youtube vids or something to see how it's coming along. :)

I have been using lua/love2d lately. Once you figurer some of the nuances of it, its not to bad to use. I also like Flash/as3, its easy to learn and lots of tutorials and resources for it plus you can hit most every platform with it one way or another.

Corona SDK is currently free with few limitations... it is a really nice mobile game development platform: http://www.coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/

I'm currently using MTE to help with the development of my game: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/33119-million-tile-engine-beta-release/

MTE's creator, Dyson, is brilliant and does most of the hard lifting and coding for you.

You could check out https://github.com/Bertram25/ValyriaTear . That's a game in development and while it's tone and execution is different it's still an RPG. Maybe it might give you ideas.

That has a CodeBlocks project file, too, shirish, which is pretty cool.  I wouldn't recommend it to beginners to try dissecting C++ code, though.  I would send them to something simpler, like Flash or Game Maker or Love2D.  I would also recommend they not look at open source projects until they've read up on object-oriented programming and design patterns.