December 2024 Recap

Hi all, below you can see all of the updates Casper Gaming released in December 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] Steal - This plugin adds a steal skill to your game. Actors can use it to steal from enemies. Configure enemy steal info via plugin parameters, with different items or max times stealing is allowed per enemy giving you total control over how steal works in your game. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-steal-117867957

[CGMZ] Window Backgrounds - This plugin allows you to specify the window background image instead of using the tiling windowskin background. This allows you to use larger static images or larger tiling images as the window background. It can also enable scrolling if your image is set up for scrolling. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-window-118741571

[CGMZ] File Types - With this plugin you can load any image file type, including the popular webp format. Set up which files you want to use which extension in the plugin parameters, and the plugin handles the rest. If your game is an image heavy game, this can drastically reduce file size without sacrificing image quality as webp and other formats can be much more efficient than png. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-file-types-119057121

[BGM] Hero on Trial - A foreboding BGM track that lets you know the character currently on screen is a big bad. It is not battle music, rather a theme that can play when an evil character is being shown. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bgm-hero-on-117401222

Alpha Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] New Game Plus - This plugin had a lot of integrations added, including with [CGMZ] Scene backgrounds, [CGMZ] Window Backgrounds, [CGMZ] Extra Stats, and [CGMZ] Controls Window. This makes the new game scene one of the most customizable scenes in the [CGMZ] library. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-new-game-98801926

[CGMZ] Fishing - This plugin now comes with a built in fishing journal scene where the player can view fish they have caught previously, including some flavor statistics and how many of each fish have been caught. Rumble support for controllers was also added. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/61640306

[CGMZ] Hooks - Some new hooks for [CGMZ] plugins were added, including a hook for new game plus via [CGMZ] New Game Plus, actor recruit via [CGMZ] Recruitment Board, and a skill level up via [CGMZ] Skill Levels. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/79987888

[CGMZ] Gathering - This plugin now allows you to customize the gathering window on the map. If you want a different colored progress bar for gathering a berry vs mining some copper, now you can do that! Rumble support was added and an event priority bug was also fixed. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59344299

[CGMZ] Rumble - This plugin now does more than add the option to rumble the controller via plugin command as automatic rumbles were added. Now you can have the gamepad shake by default when the player takes or deals damage, for example. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cgmz-rumble-95290702

[CGMZ] Daily Rewards - The Daily Reward can now be customized to be collectible at a certain time each day, rather than 24 hours after the last collection time. You can also optionally have the plugin automatically collect the reward when the game is loaded, if eligible to do so. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60561458

Beta Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Autosave Enhancement - This update added the much requested feature of making the autosave save over the current file, instead of the special autosave slot. You can also change the autosave slot to anything you want, instead of forcing it to be the first slot. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/77783060

[CGMZ] Light Effects - You can now have directional lights, which change direction based on the direction of the character they are attached to. Think of things like a flashlight. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57452022

[CGMZ] Idle - This plugin was released into Beta from Alpha this month. Along with this, the plugin was updated to keep track of the total frames spent idle throughout the playthrough. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/82921781

Free Plugin Updates

[CGMZ] Core - The monthly update added some more utility functions [CGMZ] plugins will make use of, like parsing rumble parameters and allowing scrollable windows to work better for controller players. https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/core/

[CGMZ] Difficulty - The difficulty window was starting to get a bit cramped with all of the new information being added, so now it can scroll! The window was also adjusted to work automatically with font size changes via text codes. A bug with the list window using the wrong padding was also corrected. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/difficulty/

[CGMZ] Encyclopedia - This massive update added the encyclopedia to the battle scene natively, so you do not need to switch scenes to call the encyclopedia in battle anymore. Each entry can now have a custom image. The bestiary shows kill count now. Selecting windows now makes more sense for controller players, and your windows can have custom spacing between elements. Font size changes should also be handled automatically by the plugin now. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/encyclopedia/

Micro Updates

[CGMZ] Vehicle Interiors - This plugin was updated to add gamepad support. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/vehicleinteriors/

[CGMZ] Vehicle Encounters - 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/vehicleencounters/

[CGMZ] Screenshots - This plugin was converted to use newer [CGMZ] Core functions instead of deprecated ones in preparation for January's core update. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/screenshots/

[CGMZ] Menu Command Window - This plugin now has an easy way to call a common event for your menu command. Simply select the common event in the parameter set up and the plugin will handle the rest, no coding necessary anymore. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/menucommandwindow/

[CGMZ] Achievements - This plugin received a bug fix to stop drawing item requirements twice in some cases. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/achievements/

[CGMZ] Menu Theme - This plugin now has volume, pitch, and pan settings instead of being hard coded to the RPG Maker defaults. You can now also optionally reset the theme each time the menu is entered. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/menutheme/

[CGMZ] Infinite Colors - The error message text was updated in case you set up any parameters incorrectly. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/infinitecolors/

[CGMZ] Item Conditions - The error message text was updated in case you set up any parameters incorrectly. Link: https://www.caspergaming.com/plugins/cgmz/itemconditions/

Other

2024 Stats - With 2024 coming to a close, this is where [CGMZ] stood at the end of the year. [CGMZ] is now made up of 97 plugins, with a total of 120,000 lines of code. Not bad for a single developer! Four years ago when RMMZ first released, I had no idea that Casper Gaming would grow so big. Thanks to all who have supported and continue to support Casper Gaming 💖!

Maintenances - Casper Gaming has finished with some back end work in December and maintenances on the website should now become more rare until the next time back end work is needed.6

Polls - The poll for the next small plugin has ended. The small plugin will be [CGMZ] Map Upgrade, which will add meta data to maps which will be used in various ways or by various other plugins. The poll for the next [BGM] ends tonight, you can vote here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/poll-next-bgm-118570914

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