Installing BepInEx

DiceKingdoms uses the IL2CPP backend. This means you need BepInEx 6.x for modding.

Installation steps:

1. Download BepInEx 6.x for IL2CPP. You can find the latest builds on the github release page.

2. Extract the archive into the game's root folder. This is the folder containing DiceKingdoms.exe. Simply copy the entire contents of the BepInEx archive there.

3. Run the game once. This is required to generate configuration files and perform initial setup. The first launch may take longer than usual while BepInEx analyzes the game.

4. Verify the installation. After launching, you should see LogOutput.txt and a config folder with BepInEx.cfg inside the BepInEx folder. If there are no critical errors in the log and the plugins folder has been created, the installation was successful.

Creating a project

BepInEx provides project templates for convenient development.

1. Install the .NET SDK. You will need .NET 6.0 SDK or newer. Download it from the official Microsoft website.

2. Install the BepInEx templates. Open a terminal and run the following command to install the templates for BepInEx 6:

   dotnet new install BepInEx.Templates::2.0.0-be.4 --nuget-source https://nuget.bepinex.dev/v3/index.json
   

3. Navigate to the folder where you want to keep your project and run the command that creates an IL2CPP plugin structure:

   dotnet new bep6plugin_unity_il2cpp -n PluginName
   

This will create a PluginName folder containing Plugin.cs and PluginName.csproj.

Setting up access to game code (Interop)

For your mod to access DiceKingdoms classes and methods, the project needs access to the Interop assemblies. BepInEx generates these on the first game launch, and they contain managed wrappers for the game's native code. The most convenient way is to create a symbolic link to the interop folder in the game root. This lets the project see up-to-date assemblies without copying them manually.

ln -s "/path/to/game/BepInEx/interop" "/path/to/your/project/PluginName/interop"

mklink /D "C:\path\to\your\project\PluginName\interop" "C:\path\to\game\BepInEx\interop"

Now you need to tell the project where to find the game DLLs. Open PluginName.csproj and add following element:

<ItemGroup>
    <Reference Include="interop/*.dll" />
</ItemGroup>

Building and installing the mod

1. Build the project. In the terminal, from the project folder, run:

   dotnet build
   

2. Copy the mod into the game. After a successful build, your mod's DLL will be located at bin/Debug/net6.0/PluginName.dll. Copy it to the BepInEx/plugins folder in the game directory.

3. It is recommended to create script for copying mod

cp -f "bin/Debug/net6.0/PluginName.dll" "/path/to/game/BepInEx/plugins/"

copy /Y "bin\Debug\net6.0\PluginName.dll" "C:\path\to\game\BepInEx\plugins\"

After these steps, you can launch the game and BepInEx will load your mod.