November 2024 Recap

Hi all, below you can see all of the updates Casper Gaming released in November 2024, in case you missed any of them. You can also get notifications when an update occurs in the Casper Gaming Discord or by following me on various social media.

New Releases

[CGMZ] Message Log - Automatically keep track of messages shown to the player via Show Text for later, including name box and face graphic (if any). You can also add messages here via plugin command without showing them to the player. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-message-log-116033160

[BGM] Goldenrod of the Plains - Harvest some crops on your farm, mine some ore in the mines, or take a trip on a fishing boat to catch some fish with this peaceful theme playing in the background. This track will help make your players feel cozy and at home in a rural setting where the game may focus on a slow paced life on the farm. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bgm-goldenrod-of-115246785

Alpha Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Menu Customizer - Options were added to display variables, location, and playtime to the gold window in the menu. You can also control other windows better, such as by setting their background type individually. Integrations with Scene Backgrounds and Controls Window were added. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-menu-100638576

[CGMZ] Quest System - This plugin received a massive update with the main feature being a quest tracker window that can display multiple quests (determined by which are pinned in the quest log). The plugin code was overhauled and now supports text codes everywhere by default, quest dates now use the user's locale, multiple bugs were fixed, header options were added, some integrations were added, and much more. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52804166

[CGMZ] Item Popup - This plugin now allows you to display a custom image for the item instead of the blown up icon. The scene itself was updated to be more user friendly, as any input (ok or cancel) should now exit the scene, and you can also set a minimum number of frames to wait before the scene can be exited. Some bugs were also fixed. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-item-popup-114134301

[CGMZ] Skill Levels - This plugin was updated to add complete control over enemy skill levels, including ranges! Previously, you set one skill level for all an enemy's skills. Now, you can set a precise minimum and maximum skill level for each skill the enemy knows, or a fallback minimum and maximum skill level in case the enemy does not have the more precise skill level set for the chosen skill. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-skill-105274648

[CGMZ] Scene Backgrounds - You can now show weather in your menu scenes. Despite the plugin name, you can display weather behind or in front of the scene's windows. You can hard code specific weather to display always, or simply let it continue the map's current weather. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/81531935

[CGMZ] World Map - Map markers are no longer limited to static icons. Show custom images (including spritesheet animations) as a marker, and apply blink or float effects to your markers to make them stand out more. Icons are eligible for float or blink effects too. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-world-map-109992307

[CGMZ] Custom Vehicles - This update adds a lot of plugin commands that mimic the event commands for default vehicles, such as setting a custom vehicle's location, changing it's BGM, or changing it's image. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/88512860

Beta Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] IconSet Generator - This plugin can now automatically rotate the hue of your individual icons before placing them on the final iconset graphic. You can set multiple hue rotations to get the rainbow effect seen across many iconsets where each icon will come recolored in various colors right next to each other. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65508340

[CGMZ] Encounter Conditions - You can now create party minimum and maximum level conditions to troops, so your party is not encountering late game monsters in a starting area, and they are also not encountering trivial enemies for their level. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/76262737

[CGMZ] Map Name Window - This plugin was updated to add the much-requested ability to change the text in the map name window in different areas of the map. Now you can change the map name when the player moves around the map. It also fixed a bug that could have caused infinite map name windows from being shown indefinitely. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50122245

[CGMZ] Debug - A debug integration with [CGMZ] Currency System was added to allow you to add or subtract custom currencies from your inventory during playtest. No more making debug events to add these and then restarting the playtest and then needing to remember to remove your debug events later. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41012219

[CGMZ] Treasure Maps - This plugin now has more customization options available for the display window headers, and you can prevent the player from selecting a map to enable manual scrolling of the display window. Integrations with Scene Backgrounds and Controls Window were added. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64909830

Free Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Core - The monthly update added some more utility functions [CGMZ] plugins will make use of, like calculating the average battler level in the party and to get a sprite's bitmap after any effects were applied to it. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/core/

[CGMZ] Professions - You can now display floating text above the player showing the amount of exp they gained when performing an action. This is triggered by gaining exp so should automatically be compatible with other plugins of mine that add exp on the map to a profession. You can also automatically show balloon or animation on screen when leveling up. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/professions/

[CGMZ] Game Over - This update brings my Game Over plugin's command window in line with my other command windows, where you can create background images for each command, show icons for them, and even create your own custom commands. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/gameover/

[CGMZ] Extra Stats - This plugin now comes with a Statistics scene completely customizable by you to show various statistics tracked by this plugin or others. Create a Combat category that displays how much damage the player has taken / dealt, or an Economy category that displays how much the player has spent at shops. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/extrastats/

[CGMZ] Skill Shop - This update adds a confirmation window when purchasing a skill, as well as the option to show all missing pre-requisites if any are missing. You can now also have a level requirement to learn skills, so the player cannot just buy the best skill at the start of the game. Scene Backgrounds and Controls Window integrations were also added. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/skillshop/

Micro Updates

[CGMZ] Infinite Balloons - This plugin was updated to no longer force you to place the empty balloon image used in drawing icon balloons in the system image folder, it can now be in any folder. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/infiniteballoons/

[CGMZ] Vehicle Landing Restrictions - This plugin was updated to be slightly more efficient by pre-processing the parameters a bit more before they are used by the plugin. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/vehiclelandingrestrictions/

[CGMZ] Title Command Window - You can now change the title command window's windowskin, padding, back opacity, and tone. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/titlecommandwindow/

Other

Social Media - Casper Gaming has started to post on social media again. While I do not use social media personally, I know many in my community do. So, I am now posting to my Facebook/X (Twitter)/Instagram/Pinterest again. In addition, I signed up for a Bluesky account and now post there as well. You can follow me on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/caspergaming.bsky.social. I try to check each social media once per day.

Micro Updates - As you might have noticed, there is a new category of update called the Micro Update. These are a solution to something that has been bugging me for some time now, and that is that some of my plugins are updated far less often (not that popular or no new features to really add). Think things like Infinite Colors or Vehicle Landing Restrictions.

Because they are updated less often, they often fall behind coding standards of other [CGMZ] plugins, creating more of an inconsistent experience for users of multiple of my plugins. Micro Updates are a way for me to update documentation, add tiny features, optimize the code, or just general maintenance of these plugins that otherwise would not happen. These are posted on the weekends to not take up weekday slots which is when I post my major updates.

Maintenances - Casper Gaming has been going down for short maintenances. These will likely continue throughout December, but are nothing to be worried about, it is more so to prepare my website way ahead of time in case a new RPG Maker version would be announced as we are now on MZ's 4th year and usually a new version releases after around 4-5 years.

Polls - The poll for the next small plugin has ended. The small plugin will be [CGMZ] Steal, which will allow you to have a steal command in battle that can attempt to steal items from enemies.

Thanks for being a part of the Casper Gaming community 😁 Happy RPG Making!