Overview
Learn how to install and use the Simple Mod Launcher. It’ll allow configuring custom shortcuts that enables running Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap with different mods while still keeping the original game assets intact.
Installation
The installation is simple, basically extracting the launcher and renaming some files inside the game folder. You can download pre-compiled binaries from the GitHub repository[github.com], then proceed as following:
- Download the latest release and extract it somewhere.
- Now, open the game install folder (right click Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap in Steam Library, select “Properties” => go to “Local Files” tab => click “Browse Local Files”), there’ll be two folders named exe32 and exe64.
- Go inside each one, rename the existing wb.exe file to wb.bkp.exe, then move the corresponding launcher executable there (wb32.exe for exe32 folder, wb64.exe for the exe64 folder) and rename it back to wb.exe. You should end with something like this, on both folders:
That’s it. Before continuing, it’s advisable to try launching the game to ensure everything still is working fine. If it’s not, check the executable names. The launcher will also throw some messages if it detects unusual scenarios.
Usage
Once the launcher is installed, you can start creating shortcuts specifying different resources folders, essentially enabling the execution of mods without permanently overwriting the original game assets. This guide will show how it would be done to install the Brazilian fan-made mod “Turma da Mônica em: O Resgate“, but the same procedure applies to any other mod.
- Open the game install folder (right click Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap in Steam Library, select “Properties” => go to “Local Files” tab => click “Browse Local Files”) and create a copy of the bin_pc folder, but with a different name (on this guide, the duplicate is named bin_pc_monica). Due the way the launcher works the duplicate folder name has two restrictions, it can’t contain spaces and must not be named bin_pc.bkp, otherwise it’ll complain when you launch the game.
- You would normally download the mod and unzip its contents inside bin_pc folder, overwriting existing files. For the mod launcher, you’ll still do the same, but instead of extracting to bin_pc, extract to the duplicate folder you created earlier (on this guide, the duplicate is named bin_pc_monica).
- Now, all you have to do is to create a Steam shortcut as a non-Steam game (regular Windows shortcuts also works). Name the shortcut to something of your preference and point the game executable to <game folder>exe64wb.exe (or <game folder>exe32wb.exe if you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows). You can also customize the icon, if you wish.
- Now we need to tell the launcher which directory it should use when running the game through this shortcut, so, on the previous window, click on “Set Startup Parameters” and add the parameter –data-dir=<folder name without spaces nor quotation marks> (on this guide, the parameter would be –data-dir=bin_pc_monica):
Apply the changes to the shortcut and it’s done. Whenever you launch the game through this shortcut, it’ll load the resources from the specified data directory instead of the default bin_pc directory. You can set up as much shortcuts as you wish, just remember to create another bin_pc duplicate with a different name for every mod you install.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I use <insert your anti-virus software here> and it complains the launcher contains malware!
A: It’s a false-positive. The launcher is completely safe but it was made with AutoIt v3, which is known to trigger false-positive alerts on some security-related softwares. If you’re still worried, you can also upload the binary to VirusTotal[virustotal.com] or even compile the launcher by yourself, the source code is publicly available on GitHub[github.com].
Q: How it works?
A: By magic™. Joke aside, when you specify a directory through command line parameters, the launcher temporarily renames the original bin_pc folder to bin_pc.bkp and the specified directory is renamed to bin_pc, then it executes the game. Once you exit the game, the launcher restores the previous folder names to the same they were before running the game. That’s also why you can’t name a mod folder as bin_pc.bkp.
Q: But what happens with the folders if the system crashes, my computer shuts down unexpectedly or <insert another problem here>?
A: While the game is running, the launcher keeps track of the original directory names through two small, hidden files on the game folders. If on the next launch these files still exists, it’ll properly restore the original names before attempting to launch the game. In other words, the launcher is robust enough to fix those kind of issues.
Q: I use other custom command line parameters with the game. Will they break if I use this launcher?
A: In short, no. The launcher searches and removes –data-dir parameter from the command line and forwards anything that’s left to the main game executable. But it’s not advised to specify other parameters in the custom shortcut, they will be correctly passed to the game but Steam will pop-up a question like this every time you launch the game through the custom shortcut:
If you really need to use custom parameters, a better approach is to specify them directly in the main Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap game in your library and keep only –data-dir on the custom shortcut. That way your custom parameters would still be passed to the main game executable but without triggering the Steam pop-up question even when launching from a custom mod shortcut.
