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Parhedros: The Tunnels of Sethir - Guide to Customization

How Can I Customize My Game of Parhedros: TOS?

We have designed the interface for Parhedros: The Tunnels of Sethir so that you can easily customize your playing experience. For example, by modifying a simple text file, you can to create your own playlist for background music. Similarly, with just a bit of work in an basic art application, such as Photoshop or PaintShopPro, you can create your own customize character portraits and even splash art for the game!

Also, be sure to check the Downloads section of this website for free downloads of portraits and splash art, or our DeviantArt Gallery.

Note: often, Windows automatically write-protects files you have installed from a disk. If the files you want to work with are write-protected, you can make them writable simply by right-clicking on the file, and opening the “Properties” interface, usually near the bottom of the list of options. On the “General Properties” tab of the interface, you will see a check-box that reads “Read-only”; uncheck it, and click “Apply”. Now you can modify the file!

Customizing Background Music

We have provided a sample playlist with the game, consisting of some real cool open source music from various sources. But who’s to say that your tastes in background match ours? Maybe you really want to rock out to your favorite indie band during arena battles? Or perhaps you want to chill to the melodies of your favorite classical composer while you are exploring the dungeons? You can do it!

Using the Start Menus, go to your Windows “My Computer” interface, select your local disk, and find the directory and file to which you installed Parhedros. Now open the Parhedros folder, and then open the “Data” folder, and then open the “Music” folder inside of that. You need to concern yourself with three elements here: the “Arena” Folder, which contains the music played during battles; the “Explore” folder, which contains the music played as you wander around in the game levels; and the file named “play_list.txt”, which tells the game engine what music exists in your game and where to find it.

Changing music is easy, but you must follow these directions carefully! To add any mp3 format song to your game, simply copy the file and paste it in the appropriate folder. Now, open the “play_list.txt” file. Notice that there is a section that lists paths and file names for Explore music, and one for Arena music. Also note the warning that you can have no more than 30 songs for each type of music on your playlist; the game will ignore any song over 30. Now, using the exact format you see for the sample songs, add a new line in the appropriate section and write the path name and the file name for the song you have just added; be sure to leave no blank spaces between the lines listing paths and file names, and also between the carot ( ‘>’ ) symbols.

And that’s all there is to it! Now, say you don’t like the sample songs we provided. Then just delete their path and file names from the playlist, again being sure to leave no blanks spaces, and you will never hear those songs again! You can also delete the mp3 files from the folders, if you wish.

Now, what if you make a mistake and mess up the “play_list.txt” file? Not to worry! We provided a back-up copy of it, in the folder named “Backup”. Just be sure to always leave a clean, unchanged copy of this file in the “Backup” folder, and you need have no worries as you tinker with customizing your music!

Customizing Character Portraits

If you have any experience using image manipulation programs, such as PhotoShop or PaintShopPro, you will find that adding your own custom character portraits is a snap! Here’s how to do it!

First, create the portrait you want to use, and size it exactly to 130 pixels wide by 150 pixels high. Then create a new ‘frame’ image that is exactly 256 pixels wide and 256 pixels high. Add your portrait to this new frame image, so that it is exactly centered; the left margin of your portrait should be at 63 pixels on the x-axis, and the top margin at 53 pixels on the y-axis. Save the merged image as a bitmap (.bmp) file, and it is now ready to add to the game.

Now, to add your portrait to the game, you will need to use it to replace once of the starter portraits we provided. Open the “Data” folder in the Parhedros directory, and then open the “GUI” folder, and finally open the “CharPortraits” folder. You will need to find the portrait you wish to replace (more on that in a moment), and rename the old portrait file; we suggest putting an ‘X_’ in front of the filename. Now, copy your new portrait file (make sure it is a .bmp file!) to the “CharPortraits” folder, and rename it with the original name of the portrait you are replacing. And that’s all there is to it!

How do you know which files go where in the game? Simple. Portraits 0-thru-19 are for the female player character, while portraits 20-39 are for the male player character. All others are for monsters, familiars and NPCs. You may refer the Chart of Portraits on page 101 of the Parhedros Game Manual to find which portrait belongs to any given character.

Customizing Splash Art

Customizing your Splash Art, those images that appear when you escape to the Main Menu, is a little trickier. Any one can download new splash art from our art assets web-site for free, and easily install it in the game. But making your own splash art is something that we recommend only if you have some experience with digital art.

If you want to install a new Splash Screen that you have downloaded from our art assets web-site, simply open the Parhedros “Data” folder, then open the “GUI” folder, and then open the “Splash” folder. Each Splash Screen is divided into two parts (for easier loading and handling on ALL computers). Find the two files of the Splash Screen you want to replace, and rename them both (we suggest putting an “X_” in front of the file name. Now simply copy and paste the two new Splash Screen files into the “Splash” folder, and rename them with the old file names. Just be certain that the narrower of the two image files has the file name ending in the ‘a’ suffix!

If you are able to make your own Splash Art, you will already know what you must do just by looking at the source images in the “Splash” folder, so we won’t insult you by giving you step-by-step directions. But here are some essential tips: each of the two image files must be a .bmp file, and they must be 512x512 pixels in size. The narrower of the two image strips must be centered on its frame image, so that its right margin is 171 pixels on the x-axis. And be sure to observe our file-naming conventions!