This is a mod for the game Storyteller, to add the ability to load custom levels. Right now there is no in-game editor, you need to use a text editor if you want to create your own levels. The custom levels page is placed after the epilogue.
- Download the correct version of BepInEx. You will need Bleeding Edge #667 rather than the release version, for those who know what that means. The windows link is here, the mac link is here.
- Install BepInEx by following these instructions. Ignore the bit at the start about about downloading, since you've already done that.
- Download the latest version of this mod from the releases page (CustomLevels.dll, not the source code). Put it in the folder "BepInEx/plugins". Run the game, and the mod should load and create a folder called "custom_levels" in the game root. You can then add levels into this folder and they will immediately be detected by the mod.
- You may optionally choose to disable the BepInEx console. To do this, open the config file, find the
Logging.Consolesection, and change the lineEnabled = truetoEnabled = false, and save the file.
The level format consists of a series of commands. To explain the format, here's a sample level - you might recognise it:
Frames 6
Music OthelloLigeia
Goal Murder of Jealousy
Murders Ligeia None
Subgoal but everyone meets their demise
Died Edgar
Died Eleonora
Died Ligeia
Setting Marriage
Setting Poison
Setting Study
Actor Edgar
Actor Eleonora
Actor Ligeia
The level consists of a series of commands in order. I will run through the possible commands here.
Music <level>specifies that the music from the given level should be used.Music <level> Devilspecifies that music from the devil variant of the level should be used.Frames <n>specifies thatnframes should be used.Actor <actor>specifies a specific actor that can be placed.Setting <setting>specifies a setting that can be placed in a frame.WitchStartsHotspecifies that, if present, the witch should begin the story as a young woman.Goal <text>specifies that a goal for the story should be present with the given text.Subgoal <text>is as above, but a subgoal instead.Verboseis a debugging feature, that causes all events to be logged to the console when checking goals, and also logs any assets retrieved (see below).
To specify how goals or subgoals work, you will need to give a list of events that the goal is checking for, and the characters that need to be involved. For simple goals like the ones we see here, the goal will be completed only if all the events are found. All events can be specified in the form <event> <source> <target>, where source and target are actors. You can also specify that the any source or target is valid using None, so Murders Ligeia None implies that Isobel (who is internally called Ligeia) murdered someone, but it doesn't matter who. If you specify only one actor, this will be assumed to be the source and the target will be set to None, so Murders Ligeia None is equivalent to simply Murders Ligeia. If you specify no actors at all both will be taken as None.
For some events, like Idling, only one actor is involved. In this case, it will be as if the source and the target are the same.
There are four commands that can affect the way goals are checked - SEQUENCE, ALL, ANY and WITHOUT. The SEQUENCE command specifies that events must occur in the order specified; the ALL command specifies that all events must occur, in any order; the ANY command specifies that only one of the given events needs to occur; and the WITHOUT command specifies that the event must NOT occur at any point. To understand these, it's best to look at the example levels.
To see possible values for the arguments, you will probably need to consult the enums directory. This gives possible values for actor, event, level, and setting names. Some of these names are quite different to the name the game actually displays.
Each subfolder in the custom_levels folder will be turned into a chapter. If there are no subfolders, then the custom_levels folder itself will become a chapter, and levels can be placed in the chapter directly.
Some of the available actors, settings and levels do not appear in the main game, and thus may have missing assets. Even if you avoid these, some sets of interactions (eg pushing Lenora off a cliff) may not work quite correctly. For these scenarios, there is a way to add in or replace assets - simply place a png file with the correct name in the custom_levels folder or the chapter folder, and it will be used correctly. To add a still image as an asset, the name of the png file should be the name of the asset, eg adamgen_idle.png. To add an animation, add the number of frames in the animation, eg adamgen_idle_5.png, and the image will be split into that number of frames. You can obtain the names of assets using the Verbose command in a level.
There is one asset that has special behaviour. Putting an image called illustration.png in a chapter folder will cause that image to be displayed as the illustration, to the left of the levels. The image should have dimensions 818x1228, although the edges of the image will always be overwritten by the image border.
To add another character to the game, you need to overwrite an existing actor. There are some unused actors you can use, such as BlackCat. You need to replace all the relevant animations, and also their name (so that they will be correctly shown in the toolbox). To replace the names of actors, create a file called actors.txt in the custom_levels folder or the chapter folder, and write a line for each new character giving the actor id and new name, eg BlackCat Bard to rename BlackCat to Bard.
You may wish for some characters to start a level with special properties, which you can do by adding fixed events. To do this, create a file called events.txt and specify the events you want to add. For instance, TakesCrownFrom Baron specifies that Baron starts the level wearing a crown. Events will be ignored if one or more characters involved are not in the level.