Round-up - Herding Minigame for RPG Maker MZ: Drive a Generated Flock Into Your Pen

Drive the flock into the pen before the bell.

Round-up is a herding minigame for RPG Maker MZ, played on your own map. Paint a pen with a region ID, call one plugin command, and a generated flock scatters across your farmyard. The player has until the bell to drive every animal through the gate, with the movement they already know. No new scene: the animals walk your map, behind your trees and in front of your fences, and sort with your characters.

Every animal is drawn by the plugin, and every one is different: sheep in six fleeces with four faces, horned or polled; hens in seven plumages; pigs in five coats; geese in three breeds. 89 looks, in four facings with a walk, at the size of a stock character. Nothing is loaded but your map.

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⚠️ Compatibility — the question you actually have

Tested against RPG Maker MZ with the stock scripts unmodified, verified by running the plugin in the real engine rather than only in tests.

Plugin Manager order:

1. RoundupCore.js — Round-up 1/3 - the rules: a flock that flees, flocks, bolts and charges, the pen, the bell. No engine code.
2. RoundupDraw.js — Round-up 2/3 - the drawing: livestock generated per round, the trough, the bell clock, the tally board.
3. Roundup.js — Round-up 3/3 - a timed herding job on your own map: drive the flock into the pen before the bell.

Core methods extended — 7 by saved-original prototype extension, none replaced: Game_Map.prototype.update, Game_Player.prototype.triggerButtonAction, Scene_Map.prototype.processMapTouch, Game_Player.prototype.canMove, Scene_Map.prototype.updateMapNameWindow, Scene_Map.prototype.isMenuEnabled, Spriteset_Map.prototype.update.

Because nothing is clobbered, Round-up co-exists with other plugins that patch the same seams, including large suites.

Each species moves by its own rule

• Sheep flock. Move one and the rest follow; sheep already in the pen draw the others in.
• Hens scatter in zig-zags and will not be driven in a straight line.
• Pigs bolt from you in a straight dash, then stop dead to get their breath. Line one up and spook it at the gate.
• Geese stand when you crowd them, and may charge before they run.

A calm animal grazes; a startled one runs, and shows it (a little "!" overhead, feathers off a hen). A cornered animal dodges along the fence past you, so a corner is never a dead end. The whistle (OK, or a drawn button for mouse and touch) calls the animals near you into a bunch, then needs five seconds to cool down.

What is in it

• Your map, your fences: walls, fences and water are your map's own passability, the same rule your player walks by. Events standing on the map block the animals too.
• Three presets and custom: easy 6 head in 90 s, normal 7 in 115 s, hard 9 with geese in 135 s, or any mix of the four species up to 32 animals and your own clock.
• Tuned, not guessed: a scripted herder that moves the way MZ's player moves was run over 200 rounds per difficulty. With a two-tile gate and the feed trough it penned everything in 51% to 57% of rounds on every difficulty; a player who just chases penned them all in 0% to 9%.
• Drawn on your map: a feed trough inside the gate, a brass clock and a tally of heads, a painted opening sign, dust, feathers, the whistle's rings, and a county-fair tally board at the bell with up to three prize rosettes.
• Results go back into your game: penned count, stars and seconds left into your variables, a switch when every animal is penned, and a common event when the board closes.
• Saved mid-round: a round saved half way resumes where it was; it pauses for messages, events and the menu.
• A demo yard: a painted 816 x 624 farmyard and a herder character sheet to try it on an empty map.
• Raw, readable JavaScript with a Readme that documents every parameter and argument.

More minigames for RPG Maker MZ

• Table Service ($11.99): a timed waiting shift on your own map, the same grammar as Round-up: seat the parties, carry the dishes, read the ledger.
• Derby ($12.99): a race meeting the player bets on: a card of runners with form and odds, a race on a drawn course, a photo finish and a payout.
• Pinfall ($9.99): a ball-drop prize board the player bets on, with generated pin patterns and prize pockets that pay your own items or gold.
• Sapper ($7.99): Minesweeper over one of your own pictures, every field solvable without a guess.

AI disclosure: the code, the drawing code, the demo pictures, the store images and the cover were produced with AI assistance. Round-up contains no audio; its default sounds are files from MZ's own RTP.