Day 1 of my RPGMaker Experiment

My experiences with my first experiment of a turn-based RPG, in which an LLM controls the NPCs, were mixed: On the one hand, it was cool to convince a peacekeeper to defend me against a monster, to chat with him, and then see him accompany me. It was cool to intimidate a merchant so that he gave me his treasure. But my (AI-generated) tile graphics were terrible, and a game loop in which, after my action, all NPCs were queried in sync, each taking 2–3 seconds, was unbearably slow.

So a second attempt: a plugin in RPGMaker should save it.

RPGMaker

If you don't know RPGMaker, it's a fun (paid) tool for developing JRPG-style games without much programming knowledge. I came across it during the pandemic, when I was looking for an activity for my ten-year-old son and me during the summer holidays. Very fun and worth the 80 dollars (plus additional costs for tile sets, etc…)

The UI

And how my game looks

Below is a screenshot of the tool and my fine zombie game from 2020/21. Okay, I'm digressing, but I still find it funny that my story “Super-rich enslave humanity by turning them into zombies” culminates in a final battle with a boss named “Donlon Mump.” Call me a prophet.

Donlon Mump

A Hello World. What else.

Of course, the first attempt is a Hello World plugin. Time to find out if GPT5, operated by Cursor, even knows how RPGMaker plugins work – I didn't know beforehand, and documentation is also hard to find.

But of course – the machine has memorized the internet thoroughly, including exotic places for role-playing game development. My Hello World plugin works immediately.

The UI