NOTICE: This guide is now outdated. Character modding is no longer supported in 3.0. If you want to mod the game you have to select the old_campaign_compatible beta branch in Steam.

Since version 2.x you can mod several aspects of Turmoil to create your own characters to play with! You do not need to own The Heat Is On expansion to be able to do this. This guide will explain the steps you need to take. Make sure to follow the guidelines or your custom content might not be displayed correctly.

To customize the game it is preferable that you know the basics of the following:

• Browsing and finding files in your operating system of choice
  
• Optional: knowledge of the JSON file format (for editing portrait background and text colours)

Below are some example images of what the game might look like after adding your own content.

To create a Turmoil mod you need to access two directories.

• The folder that contains the game files. Here you will find examples of replacable images, language files and the colours file.
  
• The save file directory. You will store your mod's files here.

To locate the Turmoil game data, right click Turmoil in Steam and select Properties. In the properties window select "Local Files -> Browse Local Files..." In the now opened folder you will find three things:

1. Language files
These contain all the dialogue, names and more. They are named "lz_yourlanguage.txt". You need to read parts of this file later, but you will not edit it! If you edit the files in the game folder Steam will overwrite them when updating the game.

2. Colours file
A JSON file containing the colours used in the game called "turmoilcolours.json". You can open it using your favorite text editor. Just like the language files you will be reading this one, not editing it.

3. Example images
The game directory contains a folder mod with another subfolder named "example". Here you will find an example of a mod with three custom character portraits, customized colours and their own dialogue.

This is where you will save your edited files. It is located in a different place depending on your operating system.

Warning! Make sure that you are storing your customized files here. If you store your mod in the game's installation directory it will be removed when the game updates!

Windows
Press Windows+R and enter the following:
This will take you to the save file directory.

Mac OS
On Mac OS the save file directory is located at:

Ubuntu
On Ubuntu the save file directory is located at:
Where ~ is your home directory.

In the save file directory create a new empty folder named "mod". This is where you will store your edited files. For a quick start move the contents of the "example" directory (as described in the "Game files" section) to your newly created mod folder.

This section lists which portions of the game you can customize to create your own character.

You can replace sprites for the following items.

Character portraits
Stored as spr_portrait_[name].png. For the possible entries for [name] see the section "Character Names".


Land auction pawns
Stored as spr_pawn_[name].png

Stock auction tokens
Stored as spr_token_[name].png
Not used for characters in The Heat Is On.


All of the text in the game can be replaced, including character dialogue and names.

Character introductions


Land auction and stock auction dialogue

The mod directory is set up to overwrite existing characters. For instance, adding a "character_portrait_blanche.png" to the mod directory replaces the portrait of Blanche with your own. This also goes for dialogue: in "lz_english.txt", editing the value for "guy_name_short_blanche" allows you to set your own name for a character, replacing Blanche's original name.

• daisy
  
• ricardo
  
• blanche
  
• joshua

• henry
  
• jimbob
  
• larry
  
• lisa

• guy1 (Blanche)
  
• guy2 (Kai)
  
• guy3 (Isabelle)
  
• guy4 (Joshua)

• mayor (Turmoil mayor)
  
• william (Bank)
  
• edward (Workshop)
  
• fred (Factory)
  
• raynor (Stable)
  
• daphne (Turmoil Saloon)
  
• jill (Wagon driver)
  
• kyle (Left Inc.)
  
• onno (Right Inc.)
  
• barney (Spillage fines)
  
• anthony (Underground/Diamonds)
  
• mayortrain (The Heat Is On train machinist)
  
• mayor2 (The Heat Is On town mayor)
  
• maeve (The Heat Is On Saloon)
  
• jack (Methods For Magma)
  
• philip (Higher/Lower minigame)
  
• tootsie (Village cat)

Let's try a little example. We will start with the sprites of Blanche.

• Go to the game files directory (as described in "Finding the right files").
  
• Then: copy the contents of the mod/example folder to the mod folder that you created in the save file directory. Note that the other characters have already been customized.
  
• Edit the portrait, pawn and token to your liking. Make sure to stay close to the dimensions and spacing of the original image.
  
• Open the game and start a new Turmoil campaign or open an existing campaign, Blanche's portrait has now been replaced with your own character images!

Lets give your character some custom dialogue as well. In your mod folder in the save file directory, open "lz_english.txt". In this file you will find the lines that will overwrite the original dialogue. Edit the lines for Blanche (e.g. prelude_blanche, this is the intro text that you will see first). Make sure to keep a space after every equals sign like this: " = " or the game might crash. Open the game again with

Finally you can edit the portrait background color and text colour of your character. Open turmoilcolours.json. Here you can edit the colour by entering a red, green and blue value (rgb). If you're not sure how this works use this colour picker[www.w3schools.com] and copy the rgb values from the website into the file.

That's it! You have now finished your very own character.

My images are not showing up in the game!
Make sure you gave your images the correct names.

My dialogue is not showing up in the game!
When modding dialogue, you are only editing one language at a time. If you placed an edited lz_english.txt in your mod folder, your dialogue will only be displayed when the ingame language is set to English.

If you have any other questions post them in the comments below.

If you created an awesome mod, make sure to send it to us at turmoilmods@gamious.com and we might feature it in a future blog post. Note that NSFW mods are not elligible, and we are more likely to feature a mod that fits with the style of the game.