Bout - One-on-One Fighting Game Scene for RPG Maker MZ: Your Actors, Specials From Their Skills

A one-on-one fighting game, inside your RPG.

Bout is a real-time duel scene for RPG Maker MZ. Call one plugin command and two of your actors square off side-on, best of three rounds against the clock: walk, jump, crouch, guard, light and heavy attacks, a low attack, a throw, and specials made from each actor's own skills.

Every actor in your database is a fighter on day one. Bout fights with the side-view battler sheets your project already has, mapping MZ's own battle motions onto the fight. No new art, no image files, no fonts: the arenas, bars, lettering, sparks and specials are all drawn by the plugin.

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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. BoutCore.js — Bout 1/3 - the rules: a real-time one-on-one fight, frame data, guard, rounds, specials from skills. No engine code.
2. BoutDraw.js — Bout 2/3 - the drawing: arenas, health and guard bars, arcade lettering, element hit sparks and every special. No engine code.
3. Bout.js — Bout 3/3 - a real-time one-on-one fight between two of your actors, their own side-view battlers fighting side-on.

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 Bout.js loading before both of its helpers.

Specials made from your skills

Each fighter gets up to three specials from the skills it knows, then the skills its class will learn, then its attack skill. The skill's element decides the look and the way it reaches its target decides the move: a projectile, a rush, a rising strike, a wave along the ground, a rain from above, a burst, or a draining tether. MZ's nine stock elements each have their own hit spark (flame, ice shards, a forked bolt, a ring of drops, stone chunks, gusts, a star, a void, an impact), and an element you named yourself is matched by its words, so "Frost Nova" strikes as ice.

A real fighting game, not a reskinned battle

• Mix-ups: a low attack only a crouching guard stops, a jump-in only a standing guard stops, and a throw that beats any guard but loses to any attack.
• Frame data per move: a light is safe on block, a heavy can be punished.
• Four AI strengths, tuned by measurement: a player new to fighting games wins more than half their matches against Beginner; a competent player wins most against Easy, about half against Normal and about a third against Hard (120 best-of-three matches per strength). Mashing one button wins against none of them.
• Five arenas: Dojo at Dusk, Moonlit Courtyard, Harbour Pier, Desert Ruin, Snow Shrine.
• The HUD of the genre: tapered health bars with a damage trail, guard bars, round markers, a round timer, special meters, and ROUND / FIGHT! / K.O. / PERFECT / TIME lettering.
• Results go back into your game: the winner into a variable, a switch when your fighter wins, an optional common event.
• Demo mode: both fighters play themselves, for an attract screen or a showcase.
• Light to run: measured in the real engine, a duel takes 2 draw calls a frame and repaints almost nothing.
• Raw, readable JavaScript with a Readme for every option.

Version 1.0 is one player against the computer, with a keyboard or a gamepad.

The fighters in these pictures are Wildmark Battlers ($6.99), a side-view battler pack from the same studio. In your project they are your own actors.

More minigames for RPG Maker MZ

• Schuss ($9.99): SkiFree-style downhill runs on skis, a snowboard, a sled, a mine cart or a raft, on a course the plugin lays out and draws.
• 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 and a photo finish.

AI disclosure: the code, the drawing code, the store images and the cover were produced with AI assistance. Bout contains no audio and no story text.