how does one download/play RPG maker MZ games

I’ve been throwing my head against a wall for a while, for some reason i can’t seem to figure out how to properly install This sample game so i can make a decision on if i should Buy MV or MZ if i were to use it for game development, but no matter what i do i can’t seem to figure this out. I’d like to get some help on this because i did what i could (if it’s something very obvious that i’m missing then that’s on me.)

To open and edit / play MZ files, you need RPG Maker MZ.

Concerning MV vs MZ, they’re both pretty similar, MV has more community content (plugins etc) while MZ has a few engine improvements.

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For most MV/MZ games, you just need to unzip the game download and run Game.exe, assuming you’re using Windows.

Most sample projects, like the VisuStella one you linked, aren’t games so much as they are demos for plugins that change how the engine works. Sample projects are generally loaded and play-tested through the RPG MV/MZ editors, but if you want to play-test them anyways, download the latest version of NW.js for your operating system (normal or SDK version will work), extract the files into the same folder as the sample game’s game.rpgproject or game.rmmzproject file, and start the game by double-clicking the nw executable. It takes a little bit more work to set it up to behave like the editor’s play-test environment, and I think you’d want the SDK version of NW.js for that, but it’s not really something you should concern yourself over at the moment.

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this is very helpful, though something i don’t fully understand yet is how other users on this forum post RPG maker games and have those be playable for other player. for 2k to VXace there are RTP’s but for beyond i assume having the game.exe file will do the trick. asking since i’d like to publish small little projects and knowing how this goes can really be helpful.

The RPG Maker editor has a simple option to export your games - for MV/MZ, it’s ‘Deployment’ in the file menu. Choose an output folder, choose a build type (Windows, Mac, or just a plain HTML version to upload to a server or to use in a custom iOS/Android build; MV supports Linux but it might actually be broken out-of-the-box). From there, just zip up the output folder and upload it to whatever site you want to share it through.

By default, MZ and MV deployments contain everything needed to run the game. For older versions, I believe you can specify whether or not you want to bundle the RTP assets with the game so that players don’t have to download them separately.

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very good to know, i’m still a bit torn about if which one to pick, each have the perks and cons,

MV is more limited in terms of overall things you can do, having 2 layers as opposed to MZ’s 4
map, common events limits i ain’t too worried about since you’ll be hard pressed to make a game that pushes those to their limit.
MZ does have some good QoL things like being able to see the route you set events and having a build in effekseer support, though 3d effects isn’t really high on my priorities, i’d rather have 2d effects and make those if need be (coming from one that hasn’t touched Effekseer yet so no idea how that goes)
MV usually has the lower price when it goes on sale.

not to mentioned MV has the age to have better plugin support where MZ is still evolving.

both have perks and cons which make the decision difficult.

if it were up to me i’d use VX ace which is the one i have the most time spend on but that is held back by the fact that in order to play VX ace games you need to buy the engine itself (or so i’ve heard since i did spot VX ace RTP which may have obsoleted that problem but nothing has comfirmed that for me yet.) not to mention VX ace custom scripts while still there has become either lost in time or some have been removed entirely, and it’s kinda all over the place,

I’ll wait for a sale before buying either MV or MZ, the decision as to which one is like two peas in a pod for me. nothing has convived me of one or the other, should a sale surface and i’m able to get both i might as well get both.

giving an short update:

i was able to buy both MV and MZ, and i’ll be spending some time playing with both and i’ll see which one i like better.