Uploading Mods

Table of Contents:

• Uploading a mod to GameBanana
• Adding an update to your mod
• Verifying that your mod uploaded correctly
• Promoting your mod in the community

Prerequisites

Celeste mods are typically published on GameBanana, a mod hosting site. You must register an account in order to upload mods - click here to be taken to the signup page.

To comply with the Celeste category's rules, please ensure you have:

• A properly structured mod zip file. See the Mod Structure article if your mod doesn't meet this requirement.
  • To verify that your mod is structured properly ahead of time without uploading, visit maddie480's Mod Structure Verifier. Upload your zip and press "Verify" to diagnose it for issues.
• One cover/promotional image for the mod and at least two in-game screenshots, for a total of three images. All images should be representative of the mod's content.

Check the version field in your mod's everest.yaml. Most of the time it should be 1.0.0 when making the initial release.

Uploading your mod

1. Go to the Celeste category.
2. Press the Add button in the navigation bar as shown below.

3. Select the section of your mod. Most of the time, you'll want to choose Mod. If your mod is a Lönn plugin or a 3rd party program, choose Tool.
4. Fill out the information in all of the sections. GameBanana provides clear descriptions of all fields on the form - make sure to read them! The sections you'll want to pay attention to are:

• Main is for basic information about your mod.
  • Make sure to upload your mod in the correct category. For example, if my mod is a standalone map, I'll choose the Standalone category.
  • In the Body field, it's recommended (but not required) that you provide some information so the player has a better idea of what they're about to play. For example, gameplay styles, number of strawberries, tech used, difficulty, etc. You should try to provide some context on what your mod contains and who might want it.
• Ownership lets you credit your contributors.
  • A few author groups are provided by default. You can press the bin icon to remove ones that don't apply to your mod.
  • If you know your contributors' GameBanana usernames (you can ask them!), type them in the Username field and click the result that appears in the dropdown. This will link the entry to their GameBanana account, listing your mod as a contribution on their profiles. For example, here's the mods where I'm credited.
  • When publishing on GameBanana, your mod is published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license by default. This license allows sharing of your mod, as long as credit is provided. It also forbids commercial use and derivatives of your mod. This license should be fine for most people, but stop by the License field if you'd like to provide your own.
• Media lets you upload the files of your mod.
  • In Screenshots, upload the images of your mod that were mentioned at the beginning. Click and drag the "arrows" icon on the left to reorder images - The first image in the list will be what people see when scrolling the mod list on GameBanana or Olympus, so make sure to order them properly!
  • If the name of the mod zip that you're uploading already exists somewhere on GameBanana's servers, a string of letters will be added to the end. This is just a quirk of how the site works and is nothing to worry about.
  • Once again, make sure your files are ordered properly. The latest version/primary file should be at the top.
  • The description field on files lets you write a short blurb describing what the file is e.g. Latest version. It is optional.
  • Attaching a video is recommended but not required. The video can be something like a trailer or a playthrough/guide.

The remaining sections are not relevant to most mods, but here's some notes:

• If you want to make your mod private or disable comments, go to the Settings category. Making your mod private lets you preview how the page will look before going ahead with full launch.

5. Once all is done and filled out, press the Submit button at the very bottom of the page and wait a moment.

Skip to the Verifying your upload section to learn more about the auto-updater and how to diagnose issues.

Updating your mod

These instructions are for if you've updated your mod's contents. If you just want to update the details of your mod, follow step 3.

1. Increase the version in your everest.yaml file. This tells the update checker that your new version is in fact a newer version of the mod than the previous.

• If increasing the minor version (second number), reset the patch version (third number) to zero.
• Increasing the major version (first number) is advised against, as it indicates a "breaking change" and may have bad effects on updating if your mod is currently depended upon by other mods.
• These guidelines are derived from the semantic versioning system. If you want to read a technical paper about it, click the link. It's not required knowledge for this article.

2. Make a new zip file of your mod. Make sure that the zip file directly contains your mod's contents, without a folder between; you can do this by selecting everything at the everest.yaml level.
3. On GameBanana, navigate to your mod's page. Press the Edit button as shown below.

4. Navigate to the Media section. Upload the new zip file that you made - reorder it if needed so that it's the first file in the list. Removing older files is optional.
5. Press the Submit button at the very bottom of the page and wait a moment.
6. Your updated file is now uploaded! From hereon the rest of the steps are optional so you can safely end here. The rest of this guide explains how to publish patch notes on GameBanana.
7. You should be redirected back to your mod's page. Between the description and the screenshots, there will be an Add Update button. This will open a window where you can describe the changes you've made to your mod in more detail.

• Title is anything you'd like, feel free to come up with a witty title for your version, like "The Cheese Removal Update".
• Version should match the version in your everest.yaml.
• Changelog is the fun part - describe the changes you've made here. Each entry should match a change, followed by the type of the change (in the dropdown). e.g. Readjusted spike positioning for gameplay leniency.
• Blurb lets you write a description of the update. Any additional info should go here.
• In Files, select the new file you uploaded earlier.
• Uncheck Significance if this is a small update.

8. Hit the Save button at the bottom of the window to publish your patch notes.

Verifying your mod

This section describes the update checker and how to do troubleshooting on new uploads.

After uploading/updating a mod, give around 5-10 minutes for the update checker to verify the mod. You can tell your file has been picked up when the "Olympus - Everest Installer" button shows up on your mod files. This means your mod is now listed in the download mirrors, updating system, and the mod browser in Olympus. Congratulations!

If the button does not appear within that time, something went wrong with your mod upload, or (more rarely) the update checker is down at the moment. The Celeste Discord server has a channel that notifies when an invalid mod is picked up.

1. Join the server if you haven't already. (https://discord.gg/celeste)
2. Navigate to the banana-watch thread in #modding_dev. Here's a direct link.
3. You should see a message from the "Banana Watch" bot with a link to your mod and a short message describing the issues it found. This message will help you diagnose and fix issues with your mod's files.

• Don't be afraid to ask for help in the modding category if you're having trouble! The community is friendly and will be glad to help.

4. Follow the steps in Updating your mod to reupload the fixed zip file.

Promoting your mod

For beginner modders, it can be difficult to get eyes on your mod. This section describes just one of the several ways to promote your mod (but by far the easiest).

The Celeste Discord server is a major avenue for self-promoting your work. This encompasses a few channels:

• #modding_showcase is for uploading initial releases of finished mods. Before posting there, make sure you've followed all the steps in Uploading and Verifying correctly. Write a short message outlining what your mod is and why it might be interesting to some, and attach a link to the GameBanana page.
• #modding_updates is where you can post your patch notes for recently updated mods.
• #modding_wip is not for finished mods - rather it can be used for things like project announcements and teasers for upcoming mods. If you intend to build hype before releasing, this is the place to go. Keep in mind there is a limit of 2 posts per month per project.

This is by no means a complete description of the channels - please make sure you read the channel topic and pins to fully understand the etiquette and requirements of these channels, else you risk having your message removed. If you're having trouble coming up with things to write, take a look at existing messages in each of the channels for an idea of what kind of content is to be expected.

You can also Publish the message to get even more exposure in servers that are following the Celeste Discord, if you want.

Addendum

Are you making a map and you feel like you need peer review? Check the pins in the #modding_general channel to find the link to the Community Playtesting Server. There you'll find resources for getting a second (maybe several more) pair of eyes on your map to iron out bugs and quality issues prior to release.

After uploading your mod, you might get some pings in the #modding_feedback channel. This channel is dedicated to sharing constructive feedback on community-made mods - make sure to be patient and listen to what the community has to say.