March 2025 Recap (Patreon)

Hi all, below you can see all of the updates Casper Gaming released in March 2025, 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] Item Categories - Create as many categories for your items, weapons, and armors as you want. No more are you limited to just having Item/Weapon/Armor/Key Item (though of course you can keep the defaults). This can be useful if you have things like crafting ingredients you don't want to clog up the normal item list. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-item-125415988

[CGMZ] Timer - Customization for the built in timer, with option to swap between presets even while the timer is running via simple Plugin Command. Change the color, add a label, use text codes, change the speed of the timer, make it count upwards, and much more. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-timer-124393450

[CGMZ] Patch - Runs some code immediately after a saved game is loaded with the goal of patching it, so your player does not need to abandon their old save file when your game updates. Comes with some built in no-code options like manipulating switches or variables as well as a powerful custom JS option to allow you to patch any save file as long as your JS knowledge is good enough. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-patch-123817287

[BGM] Orders From The Capital - Feel like royalty with this castle themed BGM. Either meet the king or help get rid of an evil impostor in the castle. Whatever the need is in your game, this tune will fit with your castle maps. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bgm-orders-from-123655813

[Graphics] Keyboard Icons - A pack including a light and dark as well as pressed and unpressed version of every key on the keyboard in icon form. Some larger keys such as Backspace also come in picture form if you want to use a fuller image of the key somewhere in your game. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/icons-keyboard-123888408

Alpha Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Message Log - This plugin was updated to allow you to reverse the order messages appear, as well as having more control over which messages appear in the log such as automatically preventing duplicates from occurring and a plugin command to clear the log. Some integrations with other [CGMZ] plugins like [CGMZ] Window Backgrounds were also added. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-message-log-116033160

[CGMZ] Fishing - This update added catch chance to your fish. Previously what fish was caught went by its weight, with larger weight fish more likely to be caught, however if an eligible fish was hooked it was always caught. Catch chance instead determines if the hooked fish is reeled in or gets away. The Fishing Journal got a small refresh as well to make it more customizable. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/61640306

[CGMZ] Button Mash - You can now have a sound effect play when the player mashes the button, which can increase in volume/pitch/pan as desired according to the percentage of the bar that is filled. You can also start the bar with some progress pre-filled, to make it easier for your player. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-button-mash-122159122

[CGMZ] Window Backgrounds - Your window background image can now have a tint applied to it. This update also added a debug option to report the expected dimensions of any window, so you can easily know how large to make an image for a specific window without needing to get the ruler out. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-window-118741571

[CGMZ] Currency System - A new Currency Exchange scene was added, to allow you to exchange one custom currency for another. This can have custom exchange rates so you can have different currency vendors with slightly more or less favorable rates for the player. Integrations with other [CGMZ] plugins were also added. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62959824

[CGMZ] Map Upgrade - Auto-shadows can be annoying to deal with if you are using more advanced lighting or parallax mapping, as the editor automatically creates them while drawing some tiles. Erasing them can take a bit and you might miss one. This plugin was updated to automatically disable auto-shadows from displaying, so you now no longer need to worry about erasing them from the editor to be sure they do not display. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-map-upgrade-119956007

[CGMZ] Quest System - Your pinned quests in the quest tracker will now appear in the order they were pinned! Some other heavily requested features were also added in this update that included a lot of little things, such as playing a sound effect when accepting a quest, a missable flag on quests, separate descriptions for failed/completed quests, and better blank space options for the quest log. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52804166

[CGMZ] Footsteps - This plugin received two major QOL updates that should make it much easier to pick up and use. Footsteps can now occur on terrain tag or region id 0, which was previously used to tell the plugin not to play any footsteps (now -1 does that). This makes it easy to play a footstep sound everywhere. The enable/disable functionality was changed to be ON by default, and controlled by a switch instead of plugin command. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-footsteps-108212317

[CGMZ] Event Names - You can now control the visibility of event names by a simple switch. Event Names already had a global x/y offset, but now you can also give them a local x/y offset that only affects that one event name instead of all event names. This should allow you to easily align the name no matter the sprite size of the event. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-event-names-94910357

[CGMZ] Gathering - This plugin's transformation into more of a farming plugin continued this month, with an update that added plantable seeds along with a special menu to select which seed the player wants to select. Some integrations were enhanced, such as the [CGMZ] Rumble integration, and more control over advancing node stages was added to the existing plugin command. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59344299

[CGMZ] Message System - This plugin received 4 new text codes. One to change the font face, one to change text depending on the player's last input type (gamepad or keyboard), one to show the current date, and one to change the speed at which the Message Window displays text. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86064608

Beta Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Debug - This month's update separate the [CGMZ} debug options out to a new scene, though users of this plugin should not really notice any difference. However, this will allow you to also use other debug plugins alongside this one, so if another debug plugin has a feature you want that this one does not, now you can use both and get both sets of debug features! Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41012219

[CGMZ] Treasure Maps - This plugin now displays New! and Update! marker text on maps that are newly discovered or newly updated until the player views them at least once. You can also have more control over the display window with new blank line and custom space options. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64909830

[CGMZ] Rumble - This plugin moved from Alpha to Beta this month! It was updated to include some more auto-rumble situations, such as player transfer. The rumble functionality was moved to being controlled by a game switch instead of by plugin command, so it should now be easier to turn ON/OFF mid-game. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-rumble-95290702

Free Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Core - The monthly Core update added better scrolling for scrollable windows, utility functions to help parse RMMZ 1.9.0 parameter types, and better error handling for text drawing functions in case an empty or undefined string somehow makes it to a text drawing function that would previously crash by calling string functions on the undefined text. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/core/

[CGMZ] Vehicle Interiors - Micro update that converted parameters to the new 1.9.0 location type, allowing you to select a map square directly instead of typing mapId/x/y separately. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/vehicleinteriors/

[CGMZ] Fast Travel - Micro update that converted parameters to the new 1.9.0 location type, allowing you to select a map square directly instead of typing mapId/x/y separately. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/fasttravel/

[CGMZ] Crafting - This plugin was updated with a fix for an instant crafting bug that was introduced with version 1.10.0, that ended up turning instant crafting into a true instant craft instead of a craft with a 1 frame wait time. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/crafting/

[CGMZ] Plugin Commands - Some new plugin commands were added. You can now wait for a random amount of frames within a given range, and you can wait for an amount of frames according to the value stored within a Game Variable. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/plugincommands/

[CGMZ] Screenshots - Controls were added to assist users in taking screenshots. You can now set a separate keyboard key for screenshots, as not everyone has a Print Screen key (previously the only option). You can also set a Gamepad button that will take a screenshot so your controller players can easily take screenshots. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/screenshots/

[CGMZ] Game Info - Social Media Buttons can now have negative x/y values, in case you need your button image to begin off screen for some reason. The plugin was simplified in removing the Draw Background Rect parameter - since it was also controlled by having a height of 0 this parameter was redundant and just extra setup for no reason. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/gameinfo/

[CGMZ] Game End Window - The first step towards converting this plugin from a "Command Window" style plugin that only focuses on commands to a "Scene Customizer" plugin that allows total control over the scene. You can now adjust window x/y, and set some integrations for the Game End scene such as [CGMZ] Window Backgrounds, [CGMZ] Scene Backgrounds, and [CGMZ] Controls Window. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/gameendwindow/

Other

March saw the launch of a major new Casper Gaming project - The Casper Gaming Wiki! While still a massive work-in-progress, the wiki will be a great place to put documentation, quick-start guides, and information for just about anything Casper Gaming. The best part of it is that you can edit the wiki too!

If you want to translate documentation into your native language, help with maintenance, create a page that is currently a red link, add a helpful tip, or anything else, any user contribution is very much welcomed and encouraged. Seriously, I cannot overstate how much user contributions will help the wiki succeed. Link: https://caspergaming.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

The poll for the next small [CGMZ] plugin has finished and the winner was:

Battle Swaps - A plugin that will allow you to swap an active battle member out for a non-active battle member mid-combat. For example, if Reid was currently in battle and Kasey was not, you could use Reid's turn to swap him out for Kasey.

Thanks to all who voted and suggested plugin ideas for the poll!

Want to have your voice heard? You can vote in the poll for the next BGM still, which ends in 2 days: https://www.patreon.com/posts/poll-next-bgm-125239317

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