Hey, let's have a thread listing all of the rapid game development tools we know about! I'll keep the list updated.
- Klik N' Play (free, terribly buggy, doesn't work on 64-bit, beloved by all)
- Scratch (free, multiplatform, designed as an educational tool)
- Construct Classic (free, open-source, Windows, not really updated)
- Stencyl (free lite version, multiplatform, produces Flash games)
- Game Maker (free lite version, Windows)
- Ren'Py (free / open-source, crossplatform everything, great for visual novels, questionable for anything else)
- Adventure Game Studio (free, games vaguely crossplatform, editor Windows-only)
- Multimedia Fusion / The Games Factory (François Lionet sez: Get $20 off everything with coupon code GTFGR4U. Good 'til June!)
- Construct (HTML5 output, free lite version)
- Processing (free, multiplatform, simple Java-ish programming environment)
- Unity (free, multiplatform, 3D, requires programming)
- ---- TOOLS BEYOND THIS POINT ARE WEIRD ----
- BYOND (free, networked)
- VERGE (free, RPG-oriented, crossplatform)
- MegaZeux (free, textish, platforms?)
- ZZT (DOS, even more textish)
- Scrolling Game Development Kit (free, Windows)
- Scrolling Game Development Kit 2 (free, Windows)
- Ray Game Designer 2 (free, 3D)
- ZGameEditor (free, 3D, crossplatform, procedural)
- Novashell (free, crossplatform)
- DS Game Maker (Nintendo DS)
- AMOS / STOS (Amiga / Atari ST)
- Garry Kitchen's GameMaker (C64)
Anything else worth looking at?