Brief Summary of my project: I wanted to learn how mod the Binding of Isaac and try making my own mod. My idea was learn how to mod the game and to try to make a mod. My goal wasn’t to make a complete mod but to instead try to make one.
October 7th, 2016: Today I did research on how you would go about modding a game like the Binding of Isaac. A lot of the modding is changing the artwork and if you want to add new items or characters or anything new like that, you will have to learn how to code it. I decided I’m mostly going to focus on making a visual mod for the game. The mod I want to make is a Mario mod, where a lot of things are based off Mario.
October 14th, 2016: Today I continued my research. I learned that to mod the game, I was going to have to unpack the game files so I could access them and be able to mod it. I also learned a lot about where I can find everything. I learned where the title menu files are, where the character models are, etc. .I also learned how to change some of the code so you can change the names of items, descriptions, and characters.
October 28th, 2016: Today I started editing the files and coming up with ideas of what I should mod. I decided that first I would start off by changing the main character into Mario. There’s a lot to modding characters in Binding of Isaac because you have to change the head and do it multiple times. It’s mostly a lot of copy and pasting what you already made on to ones you have to change, but you still have to edit even though you’re copy and pasting because sometimes their facial expression is different which changes what you have to do. I also learned that modding this game is much more difficult than i thought.
November 4th, 2016: Today I kept working on Mario and finished most of the heads. There were still some left to do but they were pretty tedious because some look up which was really difficult to do. I tried to do them but they were too difficult and I was unable to get it right.
November 18th, 2016: I decided to work on something other than Mario because all that was left was doing his body but it’s super tedious. The first problem was that there was a lot of them. The second problem was that there was a lot shading which is super tedious. I decided to work on changing some items to items from the Mario games. I was looking for items that had similar effects to the actual items. I decided to change the mushroom items in the game. In the Binding of Isaac, there is a 1up, a red mushroom, and a mini mushroom. All I had to do was make the mushroom look more like they did in the Mario games. For the 1up and red mushroom I did the same design with different colors, but for the mini mushroom I had to make it smaller.
November 25th, 2016: Today I decided to work on some of the flower items. There’s an item in the Binding of Isaac that freezes enemies and one that burns them. I decided to to change them to the fire flower and the ice flower. It was more difficult changing these because I was having some difficulty making the right shape. I also remembered that there was a tear effect item that makes your tears drop coins sometimes, so I decided to make the gold flower which is a newer item in Mario that turns enemies into coins.
December 2nd, 2016: I continued to work on items because it wasn’t too hard and quite enjoyable. Today I decided to make the start item which is a space bar item. When you press space bar, it makes you turn invincible and be able to kill enemies which is similar to the star item in Mario. This was the most difficult item yet and I had a lot of trouble making a star shape, but eventually I was able to do it. I used the star on the wiki page as reference for shading it.
Sometime in between December 2nd, 2016 and December 9th, 2016: I decided to work on my mod in my free time. There was a tanooki leaf item in the game already, so all I had to do was change the item to look more like the Mario one. The one already in the game was a leaf which was green. I decided to make it brown and change the shape of the leaf. I also went into some of the coding of the characters and the items and changed their names to the names that they have in the Mario games. For example: I changed Isaac to Mario. I also gave Mario starting items that fit him better. Before he started with a dice, but I decided that a red mushroom and a book on how to jump would fit better.
December 9th,2016: Today I decided to work on something other than the items. I decided it was time to work on something other than the game portion. I decided to start working on the title screen. When you load up The Binding of Isaac, there is a starting screen with Isaac sitting on the floor With the title at the top. I decided to add “Mario Edition” directly under the title in Golden Letters. I used the same font that the game used, which was a bit tedious because I had to go on the internet find the letters in the font, and then copy them and connect them in a similar way to how the game did it.
December 16th,2016: Today I decided that I should add something else to the title screen. I decided to make a hat for Isaac using the same style the game did it. It was a bit annoying that I had to do it twice because there is a small animation and that the head was a different size in each part of the animation. I also decided to change a hat item in the game. This hat protects Mario from bomb damage. There is an item in Mario that you can put on his head. It’s a shell so i recreated the shell in the game. I didn’t get a chance to edit what the item looks like when Isaac/Mario is wearing it, so the appearance of it when you have picked it up is still the same. If I get a chance I’ll have to fix that.
January 6th, 2017: Today I decided to start working on my presentation and putting things together.
January 13th, 2017: Today I decided to continue working on my presentation.