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[Katlynnia]

This is a beginner’s tutorial on how to make a dynamic follower in your games. The idea came to me while attempt to make my own and not jolly with the scripted straight lines and through set characters. This will make your followers not only dynamic, but also is a base to create more complex eventing. It is set up so that a follower follows you around, can be pushed back to move around, and set up so that you can interact with him or stop him from moving all together.

One needs to have a basic knowledge of RPG Maker events and know how to use switches.


1. Create an event near the load point of your player on the map. I recommend 2 squares away from your character to prevent he/she from causing your player too much grief.

2. The first page is your dynamic graphic, the on this page set your graphic to whatever you wish. Set your Autonomous Movement; Type: “Custom”, Speed: “4: Normal”, and Freq: Highest. Then set your Priority to “Same as Characters” and Trigger to “Action Button. Under "Custom" click on Move Route… make sure that the event “Moves Towards Player”.

It’s important to keep the Trigger as Action Button. Your follower will love your player and often times when moving with them will block them. So using the action button allows the player to shove the follower out of the way.

In the List of Event Commands create a Set Move Route. Set it to “This Event” with the following commands:
Direction Fix On
Move away from Player
Direction Fix Off
Wait: 60 frame(s)
Make sure that this event under Options “Skip if cannot move is checked” and “Wait” is unchecked , just in case the follower bumps into a non passable tile and to give the player time to move around the follower.

Optional: You can always set up a conditional branch to make it so that your player can say something to the follower before they move or in place of a movement. Though, have the above settings as the default.

3. Make a new page for your follower. On the second page is your static graphic, on this page check the first Switch button and create a new switch called “Mover”. This is the switch that you will use to turn on and off the static movement. Set your graphic to whatever you wish. Set your Autonomous Movement; Type: “Fixed”, Speed: “3: x2Slower”, and Freq: Normal. Then set your Priority to “Same as Characters” and Trigger to “Action Button.

This will be your static graphic, it prevents your follower from moving and is useful in cut scenes and when you need them to stop moving. To activate just turn on “Mover” and to turn off set the switch to off.

4. The next step involves when the player moves to another screen and comes back. The event will stay at his/her origin point causing your follower to run up to you from a their origin point. To remedy this perform the following.

Make a new event in an area where the events can’t get stuck on it. I recommend in the corner near the drop site. Check the first switch box and name it something like “UpLocationChange”. Set your Trigger to Autorun.

In the List of Event Commands find the Set Event Location under the second tab. When the option box comes up Select your follower’s event for Event. The first box that comes up under the Location called Direct designation is where he will be. Set it like you would a teleport near the character, but not right next to, and facing the way the player would enter the area.

Next turn off “UpLocationChange” and set a FadeIn.

5. On your other map where the player is exiting from set in the teleport so that you turn on the switch “UpLocationChange” and Fadeout the screen before the teleport. Otherwise you will have a blinking follower.

If there are multiple entry points then you need to create multiple events with different corresponding switches. For example if the player can enter through the north then you need to have an event that will run when the character enters from the north and a separate event and switch. It’s the set up explained in 4 and 5, just different facing and location. You don't need to create a new switch for each map, just one switch for each type of entry (e.i Up, Right, Left, Down)

That completes this tutorial. I hope this was thorough enough. Please note this is for a very basic tutorial and you may need to adjust it for your eventing needs and only a sample of what you can do.

Thanks for reading!