Schuss - Downhill Run Minigames for RPG Maker MZ: Ski, Board, Sled, Mine Cart, Raft

A SkiFree-style downhill run, inside your game.

Schuss is a downhill minigame for RPG Maker MZ. Call one plugin command and the screen scrolls down a course the plugin lays out and draws: a groomed slope with pines, rocks, moguls, ice and ramps; a mine with rails, switches and gaps; a river with rocks, eddies and falls. Your own hero rides it: the party leader (or any actor) stands on skis, a snowboard, a sled or a raft, or sits in a mine cart, using the walking picture your project already has.

No image files ship and none are needed. Every slope, obstacle, gate, coin, pursuer and letter on screen is drawn by the plugin's code: 42 obstacle forms across the three places.

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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. SchussCourse.js — Schuss course engine: lays out every downhill course from a seed and runs the rider's physics. Needed by Schuss.js.
2. SchussDraw.js — Schuss painter: draws every slope, mine and river, every obstacle, the rider's board, sled, cart or raft, and the HUD lettering. Needed by Schuss.js.
3. Schuss.js — Schuss: downhill run minigames (ski, snowboard, sled, mine cart, raft) on a course the plugin lays out and draws, with your own character riding.

It patches no core RPG Maker method at all, so there is nothing of anyone else's for it to collide with. Any load order works: it was tested with Schuss.js loading before both of its helpers.

Five ways down

• Ski and Snowboard: carve between the trees; the tracks stay in the snow behind you and spray flies on the hard turns.
• Sled: slower to turn than skis, so the line has to be read early.
• Mine cart: change rails only at a switch, and hop the gaps in the track.
• Raft: the current pulls you toward the middle of the river, eddies shove you sideways, and rocks, logs and snags stop you dead.

Three goals

• Slalom: race the clock through the gates. A missed gate adds seconds (you choose how many).
• Collect: coins down the course, and each coin can give the player one of your items.
• Chase: a yeti, a rolling boulder, a flood wave or one of your own enemy images follows you down. Reach the bottom first.

Every course can be finished

Each course is laid out around a hidden safe line from the top to the bottom, and the plugin's own autopilot rides it once before the player sees it: anything that ride hits is taken out and any gate it misses is moved onto its path. Over 7,500 generated courses (every mode, goal and difficulty, two seed sets) that check found 0 courses that could not be finished cleanly, while a rider who never steers failed 95.7% of them. Harder courses narrow the line and crowd the rest of the slope, so the run always asks for something.

What is in it

• The same seed is the same course, so a run can be a race for a best time; best times are kept per course in the save file. A blank seed makes a new course every run.
• Results go back into your game before the event continues: time in hundredths, gates, coins and crashes into your variables, a switch for a clean finish, a common event, and your item once per coin.
• Difficulty 1 to 5 and a course length from 15 to 240 seconds.
• Demo mode: the autopilot rides by itself, for a title screen or a preview before the player tries.
• Keyboard, gamepad, mouse and touch: hold the left or right half of the screen to steer.
• Any screen size; big $ character sheets are drawn down to fit the vehicle, never cropped.
• Light to run: the scrolling slope, the carved tracks and the running clock upload almost nothing per frame (measured in the real engine on a hard run).
• Raw, readable JavaScript with a Readme that documents every parameter, command argument and script call.

The riders in these pictures are Wildmark 01: The Party ($5.99), a sprite pack from the same studio. In your project the rider is your own actor.

More minigames for RPG Maker MZ

• Round-up ($11.99): a herding minigame on your own map: drive a generated flock into your pen before the bell.
• Derby ($12.99): a race meeting the player bets on, with a card of runners, a drawn course and a photo finish.
• Pinfall ($9.99): a ball-drop prize board with generated pin patterns and prize pockets that pay your items or gold.
• Table Service ($11.99): a timed waiting shift on your own map: seat the parties, carry the dishes.

AI disclosure: the code, the drawing code, the store images and the cover were produced with AI assistance. Schuss contains no audio; it plays the OK and Buzzer system sounds from your own database.