Cannot play RPG Maker made games, "file cannot be opened"

I've just done a system restore on my computer and wanted to grab some games for it, so I've picked a few dozen that were made via RPG maker. These include:

The Witches House

Space Funeral

Schuld

Flow

Flesh Child

Lisa

Pen Palz

After downloading the games themselves I opened them up, and extracted them into a new folder, since they were compressed files. At first, whenever I tried to play the games it would tell me something along the lines of "you need RPG Maker (insert different type) to open" so I got 2000 and 2003. Now everytime I try I'm told a file cannot be open, such as "Systemgrafik" or "system-1default".

I've tried keeping the files compressed, thinking maybe I had to open it in winrar to access it, but then it tell's me the game's name in Appdata\Local\Temp cannot be opened.

Also now that I've tried it again while typing this, some of the boxes won't even disappear. Sometimes they do, sometimes they dont :/

I don't really understand RPG Maker, so I could just be missing something really simple, if I could grab some help that would be great. Also sorry if I'm in the wrong section, I read through the FAQs and pinned messages so I'm hoping this is right.

Some of those are RPG Maker VX games ofcourse they won't open with RPG Maker 2000 or 2003.


By the way, I believe that talking about 2k or 2k3 is forbidden here because they're illegal.

Trying to open a game while it's inside the zip won't work as it won't be able to access the files..


@BCj - 2k and 2k3 in themselves aren't illegal. Talking about them here is forbidden because there's no legal ENGLISH version of them.

Ahkay, grabbing VX now, will let you know how it goes. Gonna get rid of the others as well, thanks for the tip

To play the games, you don't need any maker - you just need to have the RTP installed and starting the game.exe of that game.
However, you need the correct RTP for the maker that game was made with.


And I really hope that by "grabbing" you mean either installing the 30-day-trial or purchasing the maker - pirating any maker or any resource will get you instantly banned.

I guess it was a 30-day trial? I google'd "run time package" like a friend told me to and went to the first link available, which didnt charge me so I dunno, havent seen it around with a price so I guess I got a 30-day trial. 

Also aren't the RTP the things that play the game? I'm really confused. So is VX not a RTP?

Also my last post didnt show up?

After installing VX and getting rid of the 2k lot, the witches house and IB now works, but the others still do not, so I guess we're on the right path. Thank you guys for all your help, but are there any other ideas? I'm really appreciating the help.

The RTP is not the engine itself. For an oversimplified explanation, it is the package that contains the needed graphics, audio files, etc, in order for the game to run properly. It can be installed separately from the RPG Maker engines.

If you installed VX and some of the games are working, it is likely those games were made with VX and the others were not. There is a possibility you need to install the VX Ace RTP for the others to work.

Here is where you can download just the RTP. http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/additional/run-time-packages

Each maker consists of two parts: The editor needed to create a game (which needs to be purchased, and has the 30-day-trials to test), and the RTP's (short for run-time-package) which contains all the data (pictures, sounds, and more) needed to play the games.
The RTP's are free, and there are different RTPs depending on which maker a game was made with. You'll need the XP-RTP for any game made with RPG Maker XP, the VX-RTP for any game made with RPG Maker VX and the Ace-RTP for any game made with RPG Maker VX Ace.


Some games can be played without RTP, but those are usually a lot larger because the creator included the RTP into the game.

Thanks for the explanation guys!

I've downloaded all 3 RTPs (please let me know if this was the wrong move) and yet those games will still not work

Then most probably those games were not made with the RPG-Makers from here. Or their files have been damaged.
If you can give us the links to those games, we can check what type of games they are.


EDIT: also, please tell us what you click in order to start the game, and how you extracted them - perhaps you made a mistake there. For example, you should NOT use any external programs for extraction, only click on the installer itself.

Did you extract them first, as already advised?

Okay so it was me being the absolute biggest idiot of all time. I wasn't extracting, I was drag+dropping, which some games can do, but obviously not all. I dont even know why I was doing that, I'm so sorry for taking all of your time. Thank you so much though guys it was a big help.

You can still drag and drop from the extract to somewhere on your computer, but you have to drag and drop ALL files, and THEN run it from the place you copied/extracted them to (which is what you're doing by dragging/dropping)