Right on schedule, Fahed Al-Daye has released the editor for Sand Castle RPG Maker, his Ultima VII/Ultima VIII-style construction set, and posted it on itch.io. When we first wrote about the project last month, there was nothing to download yet: just screenshots, a short video clip and a lot of enthusiasm. I said then that “the proof will be in a build you can actually open.” Well, now there is one, and the release note is short and sweet:

Enjoy the editor. I released it today. Any new updates will be posted here for new download. All I ask, is you make games and send me link to your game so I can post it here (and so i can enjoy it hehe).

The itch.io page promises a no-code event editor with more than 100 commands for NPC schedules, branching dialogue, global variables and inventory logic. It also describes a framework meant to eventually cover the styles of Ultima V, VI, VII, VIII and Underworld. It’s still billed as being in alpha (itch.io lists its status as “Prototype”), so expect rough edges. Fahed notes, for example, that saving and loading works but isn’t “100% complete” yet.

Alongside the 2.7 MB editor, there’s a 32 MB demo game to show what the tool can do. It also has a few handy keys: Z pops up a character’s stats, and S saves or loads. Fahed says he plans to turn that demo into a full game.

The platform ambitions haven’t shrunk any, either. A devlog post from just prior to the release shows the engine running on a classic 68k Amiga (a 68060 is the minimum). Fahed hopes the editor can already build games for that platform, with MorphOS, AmigaOS 4, Linux and Mac OS to follow. After that, he lists PlayStation 2 through 4, the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One as target platforms. That’s a long road for a one-person construction set!

In the last day or so, Fahed has dropped a couple of different patches, and an updated build, of the toolset. Downloads are on the Sand Castle RPG Maker itch.io page. If you build something with it, Fahed would very much like to see it… and so would I.