The Game engines category stands apart: here Recalbox does not emulate a machine, it runs an engine — the program that replays a game's data. ScummVM runs the point-and-click adventures from LucasArts, Sierra and many others; EasyRPG replays RPG Maker 2000/2003 creations; OpenBOR runs the beat'em ups of the Beats of Rage scene; Solarus powers Zelda-like action-adventure games; the Z-Machine brings Infocom's interactive fiction back to life; Visual Pinball simulates pinball tables; and Uzebox runs the games of that small open-source build-it-yourself console.
The practical consequence is simple: what you put in the rom folder is not a cartridge dump but the game's data files — a folder or an archive, depending on the engine. A ScummVM game, for instance, is a folder holding its assets; an OpenBOR game is a .pak file. Each page states the expected format and how to name the files. These engines being lightweight, they run on virtually every supported machine.
New in Recalbox 10.1: Solarus moves to version 2.0.3, and Visual Pinball has been updated with a sound fix.
| System | Author / publisher | Year |
|---|---|---|
| EasyRPG | EasyRPG Team | 2006 |
| OpenBOR | Senile Team | 2004 |
| ScummVM | ScummVM Team | 2001 |
| Solarus | Solarus Team | 2011 |
| Uzebox | Alec Bourque | 2007 |
| Visual Pinball | Randy Davis / VPinball team | 2000 |
| Z-Machine | Infocom | 1979 |
Most of these engines ship with free games, or have a large catalogue of free creations available: they are an ideal way into the homebrew scene without hunting for roms.