User:GuyThatExists/DTL1 Text Modding Guide
it should be much more interesting than Terezi talking to the Black Queen”
–Me, right now
Alright babey lets go, text modding for Drawn to Life 1. Just the first one. TNC is weird, Wii is weird, SB is weird (I think? I haven't looked into it), and TR is weird. Maybe later it'll be fully possible but for now, this is what we got.
Things You Need
- A DTL1 .nds file. They're out there on safe sites, I promise
- Tinke 0.9.2 (any version should work, this is just the one I have)
- Some way to actually check that the mod works
- DeSmuME (Download Link)
- MelonDS (Download Link)
- If you wanna go through the trouble of uploading an .nds to your physical 3/DS/i/XL, be my guest, but I would save that for after you know it's working.
Setup
1. Install your Tinke and Emulator if you haven't already.
2. Open Tinke and navigate to whatever folder your DTL rom is in. Select the rom.
3. All relevant files are going to be in the Events folder. The following table is a description of every file and subfolder in this folder:
| File/Folder Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Challenge | Contains the text used in levels. Syntax for these is "World X Level X" (wxlx). |
| DrawMode/dm_s1 | Seems to hold the generic text for draw mode (i.e. Clear All, Are you done?, etc.). |
| /dm_s2 | Only has the "Done" menu and warps you to a level afterwards. |
| /dm_s3 | Only has the "Done" menu and warps you to Rapoville afterwards. |
| Village | Has all of the text used in the overworld. All of it. This is likely where you will want to be editing. |
| /default | Contains text for the Generic Raposa Characters, separated by world, then by character. |
| /grove | Contains text for all the Developer's Grove Avatars. |
| /wXlXsX (read as "World X Level X Scene X) | Contains text for each scene in the overworld. |
| //{ } | Some wXlXsX folders have subfolders used for specific scenes (i.e. darkness, rapohouse, etc.). The text for these scenes is found here. |
| WiFi | Contains text relating to WiFi functions. |
| challengeText | Contains generic text for use in levels (i.e. found a secret, Frostwind's text, etc.). |
| drawTutorial | Contains all the text for the Draw Mode tutorial. |
| DWX | Doesn't have text, but has scripting for opening the World Gates and sending you to the map. |
| save | Contains text for when the game is saving. |
| savinginfo | Contains text that warns of turning the game off while saving. |
| villageText | Contains text relating to the Wishing Wells prizes |
| yousure | Contains "ARE YOU SURE?" "YES" "NO" |
4. To actually view the text, you need to click on the file you want to see, then click "Unpack". This will reveal a file type that Tinke does not recognize.
5. Click on this new file, then click "Open as...", then "Texts". You should now see the file on the right side of the window.
6. Just for ease-of-use, click the box next to "WordWrap" so you can see all the text at once.
7. Make sure your Encoding is set to "shift_jis". This can be found underneath the text, near the WordWrap option. Making changes in any other encoding style will cause an error.
Text Instruction Syntax
Text appears in all caps in these scripts, as the game only looks at these characters to render text. Text is always proceeded by a t command with varying syntax. These commands determine how the text box appears on the screen.
- tlt# - Text (Left, Top, # lines)
- trt# - Text (Right, Top, # lines)
- tlb# - Text (Left, Bottom, # lines)
- trb# - Text (Right, Bottom, # lines)
- tc# - Text (Center, # lines) [This option will remove the actual text box and simply render the text in the center of the screen.]
Text also has some indicators that come after the #, but these are all optional.
- l - large text
- c - centered inside the text box
At the end of each line, there is a semicolon (;), indicating a new line. There should be a number (ending with 00) after the last line of text. DO NOT CHANGE THIS (unless you know what it means and how to work with it).
Editing the Text
Once you've located the line you'd like to change, simply edit the text, being sure to only use ALL CAPS INSIDE THE TEXT. Make sure you keep the number of lines the same OR change the # in the instruction. As mentioned earlier, make sure your encoding is set to shift_jis before making your changes.
Saving the Modded Text
Once you've made the changes to the file, click the Change button in the bottom-right corner of the window. There will be no visual feedback. Click on the file you Unpacked earlier, then click Pack. There will be no visual feedback here either. Finally, click Save ROM and save your ROM. Hooray! You did it! Boot up your emulator (or load the ROM on your console if you really wanna) and check to make sure your changes stuck. If not, uhhhhh shoot me a message here on the wiki, I'm always around.
Misc Text Stuff
There's some other things that you don't need to worry about, but soon I will put a table here that has the color code characters and the special characters and stuff like that.
