How To Install
Welcome to the Visceral Toolkit. This application is a set of tools which should help users make mods for some games created by Visceral Games (also EA Redwood Shores). The current list of games with some degree of support is currently - "The Godfather", "The Godfather II", "The Simpsons: Game", "Dead Space (2008)", "Dead Space 2". Dead Space 3 has not been tried, it does not mean it is not supported though.
This tool is very early in development, so you may encounter bugs. If you do, please report them! A considerable effort is made fixing these bugs! If you have any ideas on how to improve the tool, do bring them up! Either as a GitHub Issue, on Discord, or NexusMods.
To begin with, start by unpacking the entire .zip into an empty folder. Please make sure this tool is not installed on the C drive in any folder with Program Files in the name. These folders are notoriously strict (and weird) on what modifies the files and folders in these directories. When the tool has been unpacked, Double click on VisceralToolkit.exe. You will be greeted with the ability to create a "Game Instance". Please read the section named 'Game Management' to understand how this Tool attempts to make game management easier for modders and users.
Once the application has started, you will be greeted with a window looking similar to the image below:
This is an important step because the Toolkit can be used to create and install mods. The Toolkit has a built in option to minimise the complexity of the tool if that is what the user desires. For example, selecting "I want to install mods" will limit the functionality to mod management. If "I want to create mods" is chosen, the Toolkit will be not limit what the user can do. This can be changed at anytime by navigation to Settings -> Options.
The user needs to fill in all parts of this window to continue. Brief descriptions on each section in this window:
- This is the game you want to create mods for / install mods for. The application asks for the game because some games have different formats or versions, and this makes it easier for the application to distinguish what is not available and what is.
- The name of the GameInstance. It does not need to be the same as the game or the directory the game is installed in. This name is purely for the user to identify what the game install is for. For example, a user might have two installs for "The Godfather II". One with 4K graphics and one with a total conversion. In this situation, they would probably name their GameInstances "The Godfather 2 4K", "The Godfather 2 XYZ Mod", respectively.
- This is where the game is installed. Please be very thorough when selecting the directory. The directory should be where the game executable can be found. If this is incorrect, it could have some serious problems when creating or installing mods.
As soon as the Game Instance has been created, thats it! The user is ready to make or install mods!
The Visceral Toolkit contains a Game Manager which allows the user to create and manage an "Instance" (aka "Game Instance") for the game installed on their PC. A Game Instance is a way of allowing the Toolkit to store meta-data to keep track of what has been installed, what files need to be backed up, or any patches which might still be in development.