#game modding

A user on Twitter recently discovered this "Sonic Lost World" PS2 bootleg that was actually Sonic Heroes with changed music(and one changed FMV).

Book of travels is now 5.99 USD on Steam and is well worth it even if you only engage with current live content.

But now modding is allowed! There are no formal mods yet but hopefully this will open it up to a community who may want to explore a lot of the unused game code. These are early edits and it's important to run these on an offline downloaded character. Especially since data corruption could hurt your game. Always back up files to a separate machine or hard drive when possible.

Current community projects: -adding cooking -adding in the forms that were unreleased (with full art) My wishlist projects: -setting up co-op mode if possible (networking issues) -figuring out community servers -bring back old combat (imporved if possible) -add a non-combat mode -more readable text (high contrast mode) -add in already coded new dialogue and levels FIRST

Save your characters for offline using the download button. if you have more than 4 characters you will need to make multiple save files, move them to a different drive, then open the game and delete the data.save file and save new characters:

If you have more than 4 you'd like to save, "Download" 4 to fill the slots, backup your save file, then start a new one to fill to 4 again as many times as you'd like, so each save would be a collection of 4 to keep swapping out

The save file is located in \AppData\LocalLow\MightAndDelight\BookOfTravels\data.sav on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/MightAndDelight/BookOfTravels/data.sav on MacOS, and ~/.config/unity3d/MightAndDelight/BookOfTravels/data.sav on Linux.

*please label a separat folder to keep all the data.sav info in from these folders. These are the early goals that we think are feasible/most important. If you would like to contribute to mods please join the Discord as several artists are also working on bringing the unreleased forms to life among other things!

Mods (all credit to scarab and others in the Discord who contributed to explanations of how to see and edit the game's code/start making mods) Directly from a modder on the Book of Travels Discord Community-

Option for modding on Linux: https://github.com/FatigueDev/BoT_Modding_Example

-by Crona

Setup

Navigate to your Book of Travels installation directory.

Follow the installation instructions for BepInEx 5.4.23.4 (Effectively, drag + drop into the root game folder).

If you use Linux, Add a new, non-steam game to your library with the following settings:

Target: BookOfTravels.exe

Start In: "/home/some_username/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Book of Travels/" (I.e. Full path to Book of Travels install directory)

Launch Options: WINEPREFIX="/home/some_username/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1152340/pfx/" WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winhttp=n,b" %command% (WINEPREFIX may be optional, but I would rather be safe than sorry considering Proton may use a 'new' prefix when we want to use the existing prefix but modded).

To enable debugging with BepInEx, it's quite simple. Just open doorstop_config.ini in the root Book of Travels game directory provided by BepInEx and set debug_enabled = true.

In order to use Unity Explorer, simply drag and drop it into steamapps/common/Book Of Travels/BepInEx/plugins/. Remember to read it's documentation.

Only use it when playing in Offline mode; don't be silly with it on a live server.

Building your plugin

Open BoT_Modding_Example.csproj

Set the  key to the full path of your Book of Travels install.

Set the  key to bin/(Name of your mod)

Run dotnet restore

Run dotnet build

This should have copied the result of your build from the local project to Book Of Travels/BepInEx/plugins/(Name of your mod), saving you a bit of time having to copy and paste it every time you make some changes.

Start Book of Travels, quickly press F5 (debug) in VS Code.

If all went well, you should hit a breakpoint and be able to debug your code without any problems. If not, look over .vscode/launch.json in this modding example and ensure that the address and port match those within doorstop_config.ini in your Book of Travels installation directory.

You can also set debug_suspend = true in doorstop_config.ini, which will cause BepInEx to hold the process hostage until you attach a debugger. I personally don't prefer to do this, though; it slows down development.

How to mod on Windows currently:

One of the best ways to look at data and begin messing with code in-game is to use UnityExplorer + (MelonLoader/BepInEx).

Windows: I use MelonLoader because it possibly plays nicer with UnityExplorer and mostly because it's really easy to install, play modded, uninstall, play online - without having to always be dragging & dropping files around.

Linux: must use BepInEx for Unity Explorer support. (main files of interest Years.General.General.Assembly.dll)

Windows: MelonLoader: https://melonloader.co/download.html, When you run the exe, point it at your Book of Travels installation, and install version 0.5.7, Click on the "folder" icon next to the game's path to open up the game's install directory in prep for the next step, From UnityExplorer here, download the UnityExplorer.MelonLoader.Mono.zip and extract it, Copy the two folders inside the zip into your game folder alongside the BookOfTravels.exe file, Load the game; you should see a terminal window showing the MelonLoader logs; you might see 4 red errors & then you should see "1 mod loaded", Linux: See instructions here, General Notes:, By default UnityExplorer is initialized; you can hit F7 to close it. Whether or not you need to load into the game (only use offline mode) depends on what data you're trying to look at; some things require being loaded into a scene (eg events). For things like items, you can use the Object Search at the menu screen.

There's a lot of stuff you can do with UnityExplorer - I've primarily been using the Object Search to look for specific items or NPCs and inspect them, as well as using the C# Console to write code that interacts with the Unity classes/objects, prints stuff to the log file as I'm messing about, and export data out.

So you want to write a mod ref

On Linux (to be tested)

BepInEx 5.4.x: https://github.com/bepinex/bepinex/releases, Download the BepInEx_linux_x64_5.4.x.zip (assuming you're on a 64 bit computer), Extract the zip above; copy the contents of the archive into the game folder game should be at ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Book of Travels/ (you can also open Steam > right-click on game > manage > browse local files), note that the game is a native linux game and does not run through proton, when you're done you should have a BepInEx folder alongside the BookOfTravels_Data folder, & a run_bepinex.sh file alongside the BookOfTravels.x86_64 file., , Follow steps 2-4 in this guide: https://docs.bepinex.dev/articles/advanced/steam_interop.html, From UnityExplorer here, download the UnityExplorer.BepInEx5.Mono.zip and extract it, Navigate into the …/common/Book of Travels/BepInEx/ folder and copy the contents of the UnityExplorer zip into this folder (should end up with …/common/Book of Travels/BepInEx/plugins/sinai-dev-UnityExplorer/), Load the game; there probably won't be a BepInEx window but you'll see the logs in …/common/Book of Travels/BepInEx/LogOutput.log; UnityExplorer should be initialized when the game finishes loading.

->

Enable Dev Debug Mode / Menu

Install UnityExplorer (⁠[Tool/Unity] UnityExplorer + (M…), Load the game with UnityExplorer active, Hit F7 to hide the UnityExplorer screens for now, Click "Play Offline", Load whichever character you want, After loading, press F7 and click on the "C# Console" button at the top in the UnityExplorer toolbar, Copy & paste the code below into the console window and click "Compile", You should instantly see some red debug text appear; hit F7 again to close UnityExplorer, Press Right Alt to cycle through all dev debug screens, With the inventory/backpack open, press 0 at the top of your keyboard or - on a numpad to open the item debug menu,

BE VERY CAREFUL with this!! (and only use it offline!) - on the Local Settings debug screen, there's buttons that can clear steam achievements and steam stats; the "Initiate Oppulence" might trigger achievements accidentally as it gives lots of items & XP & skill books to your character instantly.

var player = PlayerBase.LocalPlayer; var field = typeof(PlayerBase).GetField("accountUnlocks", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic); field.SetValue(player, (AccountUnlocks)6); // this is a combined enum value, combines Admin and Dev; we're setting it directly here rather than in the save file. PersistentTools.Instance.DebugTextOn = 3; // this turns on the full debug UI, use Right Alt to cycle through screens