(Cool retrospective on RpgMaker History and it's various communities)
(from Felipe Pepe - June 30th, 2023)
It was common in Japan to have magazines and game publishers create design contests for their readers/gamers — that’s how many industry legends began, such as Dragon Quest’s creator Yuji Horii.
In 1995, ASCII released RPG Maker: Super Dante, a version for the SNES / Super Famicon, and held a game design contest to celebrate it.
They received 3,447 entries. Yes, over three thousand Japanese in 1995 made a game in RPG Maker and sent it to a contest!
The winner was Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, which got around the severe limitations the tool had by making a comedy RPG where you play as Pal, the pet rooster of a rich boy gone broke. Together with a cat (that calls himself “God of Death”), you must work to help the kid recover his finances, alternating between the three characters.
Arguably the first noteworthy RPG Maker game, it was distributed for free using the Japan-only Satellaview modem for the Super Famicom. Later it was remade for RPG Maker Dante 98 (released in 1992 for the Japanese PC-98 computer). You can use this Dante 98 Player to try it on Windows computers.