User:Kernelmethod/Sandbox

Modding Tutorial: Snapjaw Wizards!

Welcome! If you're looking to get started with modding Caves of Qud, this tutorial is a good place to start.

In this tutorial, we're going to add a new creature to the game -- the great and mystical snapjaw wizard. Along the way we're going to be helped by my friends Rulimispruce, legendary sprouting orb and Pyovya, legendary mopango.

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Howdy!

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Let's get started!

Getting started

TODO:

• Setting up development environment
• Where to find game files.
• Player.log
• How to perform a wish
• The _Quickstart game option

Prerequisites:

• Have played through a good chunk of Qud

Basic concepts

XML

• What is XML?
• Tags vs attributes

Creating a mod

• Adding new mod with manifest.json to the Mods/ folder.
• At the end of this section, modders should have a no-op mod that appears in their mods list.

SnapjawWizard
├── manifest.json
└── preview.png

Your first creature

Adding a new creature to Creatures.xml

In your mod directory, create a new folder called ObjectBlueprints/, and within that folder open up a new file in your text editor called Creatures.xml. Let's start by adding the following to Creatures.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<objects>
</objects>

Save this file! Before continuing, make sure your mod directory looks something like this:

SnapjawWizard
├── manifest.json
├── ObjectBlueprints
│   └── Creatures.xml
└── preview.png

With that out of the way, let's start adding our new snapjaw wizard to Creatures.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<objects>
  <object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard" Inherits="Snapjaw">
  </object>
</objects>

Let's break this down:

• The object tag tells Qud that we want to add a new creature.
• The Name attribute is a unique identifier for our new creature (it's not the name of the creature as it appears in-game -- we'll get to that shortly). You'll use this identifier whenever you want to wish for a new snapjaw wizard.
• The Inherits attribute says that our new creature should "inherit" all of the properties of the Snapjaw creature.

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Hey, why'd you add the Pyovya_SnapjawWizard bit to the front of the name of the creature? Why not just call it a Snapjaw Wizard?

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When writing a mod, it's common courtesy to prefix unique identifiers with your name, an underscore _, followed by the mod's name. This ensures that if somebody else writes their own Snapjaw Wizard mod, your mod won't conflict with theirs.

So far we haven't actually added anything to our new creature; for all intents and purposes it's a plain ol' snapjaw. Let's change that by adding some parts.

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What's a part?

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A part is a special piece of code that can be added to a creature to modify its appearance, behavior, stats, and any number of other things. There are a lot of parts -- over a thousand! You won't need to worry about most of them; many of them are highly-customized bits of code written for just one or two creatures. For instance, there's a CryptSitterBehavior part that is used exclusively by crypt sitters.

We're going to add two new parts to our creature: Render and Description.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<objects>
  <object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard" Inherits="Snapjaw">
    <part Name="Description" Short="A great hero of the snapjaws." />
    <part Name="Render" DisplayName="snapjaw wizard" Tile="Assets_Content_Textures_Creatures_sw_snapjaw_warrior.bmp" ColorString="&amp;Y" DetailColor="R" />
  </object>
</objects>

Before I did into the new XML we've added, save Creatures.xml. Reload your mods, start a new game and wish for a Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard. You should a new snapjaw like the one below show up:

(IMAGE HERE, INCLUDING DESCRIPTION OF SNAPJAW)

Congrats! You've successfully added a snapjaw wizard to your game.

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I did?

Well, it's still a little bare-bones, but you have indeed created a new creature called a snapjaw wizard and spawned it in your game! Give yourself a pat on the back, Rulimispruce.

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*rustling noises*

Now, back to the parts that you just added:

• The Description part changes (as you might guess) the description of the creature when you look at it.
• The Render attribute changes the creature's appearance, as well as its name (as it appears in-game). This tag has the following attributes:
  • DisplayName: how the creature's name is displayed in-game.
  • Tile: a .png or .bmp ("bitmap") image that's used to display the creature. Check out Modding:Tiles for more information. In the snippet above, I just used the tile for snapjaw warriors to get us started.
  • ColorString and DetailColor: these are the primary and secondary colors used to color in the tile that you supply. You can look at Modding:Colors & Object Rendering for a full list of all of the available colors; in this case, we used Y (white) as the primary color and M (magenta) as the detail color.

Using custom tiles

Instead of having our snapjaw wizards look like off-color snapjaw warriors, let's add a snazzy new tile to the game to use for our wizards! Just pop open a pixel editor, create a 16px x 24px black-and-white tile, save it as a --

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I'm just a lil old sprouting orb, I don't know how to do any of those things.

Ah, alright, fair enough. Well in that case, feel free to download the tile that I've already made for you here:

DOWNLOAD LINK FOR NEW TILE

In your mod directory, create a new folder called Textures/; in that folder, create a new subfolder called Pyovya_SnapjawWizard/; and in there, create another subfolder called Creatures/. Save snapjaw_wizard.png there, so that your mod folder now looks like this:

SnapjawWizard
├── manifest.json
├── ObjectBlueprints
│   └── Creatures.xml
├── preview.png
└── Textures
    └── Pyovya_SnapjawWizard
        └── snapjaw_wizard.png

Now, let's change the Render part for our wizards to use this new tile:

<part Name="Render" DisplayName="snapjaw wizard" Tile="Pyovya_Snapjaw/snapjaw_wizard.png" ColorString="&amp;Y" DetailColor="R" />

Now when you spawn a snapjaw hero, it'll look something like this:

IMAGE

Cool!

Filling out your new creature

Let's keep adding some more stuff to our snapjaw wizard to round them out a bit more. First of all, like any good wizard, they need a walking stick and some books. Let's give them some clothes to equip while we're at it. Add the following XML to your creature:

<inventoryobject Blueprint="Walking Stick" />
<inventoryobject Blueprint="Woven Tunic" Number="1" />
<inventoryobject Blueprint="Sandals" Number="1" />
<inventoryobject Blueprint="StandaloneMarkovBook" Number="2-3" />

Let's give our wizard the Cudgel skill as well, so that they're a little bit better at fighting with that walking stick:

<skill Name="Cudgel" />

TODO: stats

TODO

<property Name="Role" Value="Artillery" />

TODO

<tag Name="DynamicObjectsTable:Snapjaws" />
<tag Name="AggregateWith" Value="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard" />
<tag Name="BaseObject" Value="*noinherit" />

FINAL VERSION OF CREATURE XML BEFORE GOING TO THE NEXT SECTION

Using your creature as a base: Elemental Wizards

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Hold up a second. How is this creature a wizard? It doesn't have any kind of magic spells!

I was just getting to that!

So far, we've sketched out most of the properties, skills, and stats that a snapjaw wizard should have. Now we're going to create two types of wizards: fire wizards and ice wizards. Under your definition of the Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard creature in Creatures.xml, add two new creatures:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<objects>
  <!--
  Skipped: the XML that defines the "Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard" creature
  -->

  <object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Flame Wizard" Inherits="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard">
  </object>

  <object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Ice Wizard" Inherits="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard">
  </object>
</objects>

Referencing the Modding:Colors & Object Rendering page, we're going to change our fire wizard's detail color to red. We're also going to give them the Flaming Ray mutation:

<object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Flame Wizard" Inherits="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard">
  <part Name="Render" DisplayName="snapjaw wizard of {{R|fire}}" Tile="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard/snapjaw_wizard.png" ColorString="&amp;Y" DetailColor="R" />
  <mutation Name="FlamingHands" Level="1" BodyPartType="Hands" CreateObject="false" />
</object>

TODO: explain syntax for changing text color.

TODO: explain what's going on in the <mutation> tag.

<object Name="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Ice Wizard" Inherits="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard_Snapjaw Wizard">
  <part Name="Render" DisplayName="snapjaw wizard of {{C|ice}}" Tile="Pyovya_SnapjawWizard/snapjaw_wizard.png" ColorString="&amp;Y" DetailColor="R" />
  <mutation Name="FreezingHands" Level="1" BodyPartType="Hands" CreateObject="false" />
</object>

TODO:

• Inherit from the Snapjaw Hero
• Add mutations, change colors