JAO Forge

Your RPG Maker MV project. Forged better.

JAO Forge is an independent companion editor and development toolkit for RPG Maker MV.

RPG Maker builds your game. JAO Forge helps you inspect, edit, translate, organize and protect the project behind it.

Forge does not replace RPG Maker MV. It works alongside it, opening an existing MV project and giving you an additional view of your maps, events, texts, localization data, plugins and project resources.

🔨 What can the Alpha do?

The first public alpha already includes tools for:

🗺️ Projects, Maps & Events

• Open and scan existing RPG Maker MV projects
• Browse maps and events
• Inspect event commands, text and choices
• View event structure and statistics
• Visualize maps and event positions
• Edit supported event data

💬 Text & Localization

• Find and inspect I18N references
• Edit existing translations
• Work with RPG Maker message text visually
• Insert text codes such as icons, variables, actors and colors
• Preview message layout and faces
• Work with project fonts

🧩 Plugins & Resources

• Inspect and manage supported JAO plugins
• Install validated plugin sources
• Audit and install project fonts
• Keep project-specific Forge data together with the project

🛡️ Safe by Design

Writing directly into an RPG Maker project should never be careless.

For supported write operations, JAO Forge uses a controlled pipeline with:

• automatic pre-write backups
• validation
• project-local revision history
• Forge activity logging
• rollback protection
• Undo / Redo where supported

The current RPG Maker project files always remain the source of truth.

Forge-specific project data is stored inside:

.jaoforge/

Backups are never silently treated as the current project state.

🧪 This is Alpha software

JAO Forge is still under active development.

Expect rough edges. Expect unfinished areas. And yes — expect bugs. Probably some creative ones.

For important projects, an additional independent backup is strongly recommended while testing the Alpha.

Real-world testing is exactly why this release exists.

Large, old, unusual and heavily customized RPG Maker MV projects are especially interesting.

💻 Requirements

• Windows x64
• An existing RPG Maker MV project

This Alpha currently supports RPG Maker MV only.

RPG Maker MZ and other RPG Maker versions are not currently supported.

JAO Forge does not include RPG Maker MV, RTP resources or proprietary RPG Maker assets.

🌱 Where is Forge heading?

JAO Forge is intended to grow into a broader development toolkit around RPG Maker projects.

Future areas may include deeper project-wide search, additional database editing, mapping tools, reusable project fragments and stronger integration with the JAO plugin ecosystem.

But the direction of Forge will also be shaped by something much more important:

real projects and real users.

🐛 Alpha feedback wanted!

If something behaves strangely, breaks, refuses to write, looks confusing or simply feels unnecessarily complicated — tell me.

Useful reports include:

• what you were trying to do
• what you expected to happen
• what actually happened
• which kind of MV project you were using
• relevant Forge Log information, if available

Feature ideas and workflow feedback are welcome too.

⚠️ RPG Maker Notice

JAO Forge is an independent third-party project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Gotcha Gotcha Games Inc.

RPG Maker and RPG Maker MV are trademarks of their respective owners.

JAO Forge does not distribute RPG Maker MV, RTP resources or other proprietary RPG Maker assets.

Welcome to the Forge. 🔨