Rpgmaker: Save Portable

For players? Next time you hit that save menu, remember: you’re not just storing a point in time. You’re writing a small JSON story of your entire journey so far. Have you ever tried editing an RPG Maker save file? Or built a custom save system for your game? Let me know in the comments!

Yes, that’s right—RPG Maker MV/MZ saves are basically JSON with a .rpgsave extension. Those use Ruby’s Marshal serialization. You can’t just open them in a text editor. But if you know a bit of Ruby, you can load one: rpgmaker save

If you’ve ever played an RPG Maker game, you know the drill: find a bed, a glowing crystal, or just hit the menu and click “Save.” It feels simple. But if you’re a developer (or a curious modder), you’ve probably wondered: What’s actually inside that Save01.rpgsave file? For players

Open a .rpgsave file in a text editor (like Notepad++ or VS Code). You’ll see something like this at the very top: Have you ever tried editing an RPG Maker save file

"system": "party": [1, 2, 3], "gold": 1250, "saveLocation": "Map001", "saveLocationX": 12, "saveLocationY": 8 , "variables": [0, 42, 100, 0, ...], "switches": [true, false, true, ...], "actors": "1": "level": 5, "hp": 245, "mp": 67, ... , "items": "1": 3, "5": 1

For unencrypted saves (common in development or open-source games), the structure looks like:

U2FsdGVkX1... That’s —if the developer enabled encryption. But if they didn’t? You’ll see readable JSON starting with {"system":{"party":...