When comparing RPG Maker VX Ace vs Tiled, the Slant community recommends RPG Maker VX Ace for most people. In the question“What are the best tools for your epic 16-bit JRPG?” RPG Maker VX Ace is ranked 1st while Tiled is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose RPG Maker VX Ace is:
Built for ease of use to get your game made quickly!
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Quick and easy to learn
Built for ease of use to get your game made quickly!
Pro Plenty of premade assets to get you started
Super high quality art assets get you making a game quickly without it looking terrible.
Pro Steam support
Get a ton of great assets for the community by the community through Steam’s Workshop support.
Pro Large community
Never a shortage of user tutorials, assets, or support.
Pro Simple scripting implementation
Quickly script simple events with a few clicks. This powerful part of the editor allows you to get through the tedious amount of content for quests and other in game sequences quickly.
Pro Creating maps is simple
Choose a tileset and get to mapping! Supported tiles will connect automatically to help you speed through the mapping process. Setting events on tiles is easy to do and populating your world with NPC’s and other items is easy to do.
Pro Uses Ruby as a scripting language
Need more power for things like battle systems, plugins, or awesome effects? RPG Maker uses Ruby along with its own library to bring you the tools you need to stand out.
Pro Powerful Database for everything you need
Everything you make is done through this powerful expansive database. You customize every character, weapon, enemy, and skill through this and so much more to make a designer's life easier.
Pro Ton of customization options
Create things quickly with things like the character customizer or the experience curve editor. RPG Maker is made to let you change every single thing in your game swiftly and simply.
Pro Relatively cheap
Although not free it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get RPG Maker VX Ace. You can buy RPG Maker for $69.99 or get a free trial to see if it’s right for you.
Pro Multi-platform
Not everyone uses the same operating system and why should they? Tiled supports Windows, Mac, and Linux so you can work in any environment you like. Also with daily builds you get to stay ahead of the curve!
Pro Free and open-source
Using the GPL license means you get to use this software free and are free to make changes to it as you see fit.
Pro Unlimited layers
Sometimes you need 20 layers to make something epic. Tiled lets you create as many layers as you need.
Pro Use shell commands
Setup shell commands within Tiled so you can setup workflows for each of your games.
Pro Supports Orthographic and Isometric tiles
Whether you want a straight on look at your world or a slightly skewed one Tiled has you covered.
Pro Terrains
Setup boarders with your tilesets so making tiles provide the correct connections automatically. This feature will speed up your level creation.
Pro Auto-mapping
One of the coolest things is to create rules so you can automate the mapping process. Want to have certain tiles to always have a collider? Simply make a rule for it and it'll do it automatically. Speed up your mapping process with this feature.
Pro Many engines already have support
A big list of engines already have support for Tiled provided by those in the community. See if the engine you use is already on the list.
Pro Can create colliders and triggers within editor
Tiled makes it easy to setup triggers and colliders with its vector tools or you can set up a tile that’s invisible in your game. Change collider/trigger properties so you can access them within your game.
Pro Tile size and image size do not have to match
Want to import a giant object but don’t want to split it up? Import it and place it the exact size you want it as one object.
Pro Properties
Create properties for your map, layers, tilesets, tiles, and objects. Have the flexibility you need to create the best levels for your game.
Pro Engine agnostic
Tiled provides an easy solution for tile maps for any engine even the custom engine you are now making. This makes Tiled a very versatile tool for 2D games.
Cons
Con Windows only development
With the ability to only work and deploy on Windows RPG Maker misses a major opportunity to create awesome RPG’s that anyone can play.
Con Multi-user development can be a hassle
RPG Maker was not really intended for multi-user support. There are a few tactics but for those of you who are used to with multi-user development may get annoyed.
Con Isometric not out of the box
Want to make a tactics game? Well you’re going to have to do some extra work to get those awesome isometric tiles in your game.
Con RPG Maker stigma
There is a major stigma with using RPG Maker since it does have such a low bar to entry. If you do use this engine just make sure your game is so awesome that no one will care what it was made in.
Con Only one tileset per map
While a tileset in RPG Maker can encompass many files it also can be a hassle if you want to use multiple tilesets on a map. You can switch tilesets through code for multi-world game though.
Con Must implement .tmx if your engine doesn’t support Tiled.
It’s not a huge deal but you do need to implement Tiled into your engine if you don’t have it. Don't be lazy just follow this guideline to get your game running. Must implement .tmx if your engine doesn’t support Tiled.