Mod System for Rance 10

This is a system for creating Rance 10 mods. In this system, multiple mods are able to coexist within the same game and build upon each other.

A mod designed for this system is just a directory containing the source code, images and other data needed by the mod. The installation process for a mod is to simply copy the directory into the correct location and run a build script to rebuild the modded game files. Example mods can be found in the examples directory.

In addition to defining a standard format for creating mods, this project also comes with a library of useful functions and hooks to make common modding tasks easier. The code for this library can be found at src/system.

Installation

Grab the latest release from the releases page and extract it to your Rance 10 game directory. The directory containing the files build.bat and build.sh should be one level below the main game directory. E.g.

Rance 10/
    Rance10.ain
    Mods/
        build.bat
        build.sh
        ...
    ...

On Windows, a compatible build of alice-tools should be included with the release, so no further action is required here.

On linux, you must compile alice-tools and put the alice binary somewhere on your PATH. alice-tools >= 0.11.0 is required.

Updating

Follow the below steps to update to a new version of r10-mod-system:

Unpack the new release into a new directory inside of your game directory
IMPORTANT: copy the files src.ain and srcpact.afa from your old r10-mod-system directory to the new one
Copy any installed mods from the src directory of your old installation to the new one
Rebuild the mods by running the build script from the new installation

Building

Each time a mod is added or removed, the build script must be run to rebuild the the modded game files. On windows, this script is called build.bat. On linux, use build.sh instead. The script should be run from the same directory that it is located in.

Installing Mods

Mods are installed into the src directory. For example, to install the example chibi restoration mod, you would copy the directory examples/chibi to src/chibi. Once you've installed a mod, you must run the build script as described above.

Creating Mods

Each mod should contain a file named source.inc which describes the files to be included in the mod. The contents of this file should look something like this:

Source = {
    "code.jaf",
    "data.txtex",
}

CG = { "png", "png", "qnt", "qnt" }

With this source.inc, the following occurs during the build process:

The source code file code.jaf is compiled and added to Rance10.ain
The static data file data.txtex is packed and added to Rance10ModEX.ex
The .png images in the png directory are converted to the .qnt format and stored in the qnt directory
The .qnt files in the qnt directory are added to Rance10ModCG.afa

Study the mods in the examples directory and the code in src/system to get a better idea of how to write mods. In order to create a mod that does something new (i.e. not covered in the examples or supported by the system library), you will need to study the game's code and data files (Rance10.ain and Rance10EX.ex, respectively). These files can be dumped with alice-tools.

Naming

Public functions defined in the src/system library have the prefix ML_ (Mod Library). Functions beginning with _ML_ are private and should not be used by mods.

Functions beginning with ML_HOOK_ are meant to be overriden by mods, e.g. to run code at startup, you can override the ML_HOOK_init function:

override void ML_HOOK_init(void)
{
    initialize_my_mod();
    super();
}

You should always call the super function at the end when overriding these functions so that other mods can use the same hooks.

Version History

0.1.1

Add file size check for src.ain and srcpact.afa
Add support for editing Rance10Pact.afa
Implement English DSL for battle conditions

0.1.0

Initial release

Bugs

The compiler used to build .jaf source code files is not very mature and it is very possible that you will encounter bugs if you stray from the well-trodden path. Please report any bugs in the compiler via the issue tracker at the alice-tools repository.

Disclaimer

The Rance series and associated intellectual property is owned by AliceSoft.

nunuhara / r10-mod-system