llamamod/README.md

LlamaMod – mods and a level editor for The Emperor's New Groove (PC, 2000)

German title: Ein Königreich für ein Lama. PC port by Argonaut, built on the Croc 2 engine.

LlamaMod is a one-click mod manager and a full 3D level editor for the PC game, for Windows and Linux. It installs the game from your own CD or ISO into its own folder, applies mods without ever touching the original files, and lets you build new levels, edit the original ones and share them as small files. Everything is based on a complete reverse engineering of the game's level formats and its object scripts ("strats").

The launcher: tick the mods you want, set their options, click Apply and Play.

The level editor with Village chapter 1 open: outliner (left), 3D view, inspector (right), assets and scripts (bottom).

More pictures:

Launcher: mods with options, save-game editor, one-click play	Level editor: brushes, tiles, meshes, objects, textures, play-test with F5
Test World: all 253 figures and objects of the game in one level	Alligator Arena: a minigame with new, scripted enemies
Debug view: collision and invisible objects in the running game	glTF/OBJ export and import for Blender

Features

• Mods – tick, Apply, Play: Test World, Alligator Arena, your own levels, Boot to level, Intro skip, Mirror mode, Practice tools (save/restore position, extra checkpoints), Randomizer, Draw distance, Built-in cheats, Debug wireframe, Free camera & noclip.
• Level editor – new levels from templates or editing the original levels; brushes, the base level's tiles, OBJ/glTF meshes; textures (import, paint, animate); objects from every world; waypoints, cameras, triggers; fog, music, lights, visibility regions; strat scripts (read, change numbers, write new object types); checks for problems; F5 starts the game directly in the level.
• Sharing – a level is a small .llamalevel file with only your changes and no game data; the receiver's LlamaMod builds it from their own copy. New levels live in the hidden TestLevel world.
• Save games – unlock worlds and chapters, coins, collectibles; backups before every change.
• Safe – the original CD/ISO and files are never changed; Restore original switches all mods off.

Get it

You need your own copy of the game (CD or ISO image). Development used the German CD; other language versions should work but are untested.

System	Package	Start
Windows	LlamaMod-<version>-full-windows-x64.zip	unzip, start LlamaMod.exe (no installation, no admin rights)
Linux	LlamaMod-<version>-full-linux-x64.tar.gz	unpack, start ./LlamaMod; install Wine to run the game

Both bring their own Java runtime; the editor needs OpenGL 3.3. A launcher edition without the editor is also built. What changed: CHANGELOG.md.

Build from source

Needs a JDK 25 (toolchain) and Gradle running on Java 21 (for Spotless):

./gradlew spotlessApply build fatJar   # tests + build/libs/llamamod-<ver>-all.jar
java -jar build/libs/llamamod-*-all.jar            # LlamaMod
java -jar build/libs/llamamod-*-all.jar --editor   # the level editor alone
./gradlew packageAll                   # Linux + Windows packages, full and launcher edition

Details: For developers.

Documentation

docs/ – start there.

• Build your own level – a step-by-step guide for newcomers.
• Level editor manual – every tool and dialog, with tutorials (also built into the editor: F1).
• Reference – file formats (WAD, geometry, collision, objects, textures, music), TestLevel, engine limits.
• Strats – how the game's object scripts work, the script language, custom object types, and the Alligator Arena walkthrough.
• Tools – the app's command line, the Python kit, in-game test harnesses.
• Lab notes – the detailed engineering notebook.

The Python kit

The project started as a Python reverse-engineering kit, which is still in tools/: byte-exact parsers and writers for every level chunk, OBJ export/import, a script-driven level builder (tools/levelbuild.py, example levels/testwelt.py), texture and picture converters, a music decoder, the debug-view generator and an automated in-game tester for Linux/Wine. Python 3.8+ with numpy and Pillow.

# export a level to OBJ (+ collision and object markers)
python3 tools/geom_export.py /path/to/cd/wads/t1l1m001.wad out_village --collision --objects
# build the original test world from its script
python3 tools/levelbuild.py levels/testwelt.py testwelt.wad --base /path/to/cd/wads/t1l1m001.wad
python3 tools/levelbuild.py --types               # object types you can place
# music to WAV, loading picture to PNG
python3 tools/asf2wav.py /path/to/cd/music/Village.asf village.wav
python3 tools/cor2png.py /path/to/cd/t111.cor t111.png

Where the tools look for the game files (or pass --base/--src):

Variable	Meaning	Default
LLAMAMOD_CD	the CD folder (wads/, music/, …), also for the Gradle tests	~/.wine-lama/iso-dk/Setup/Eng/Cd
LAMA_WINEPREFIX	Wine prefix of a hand-made game setup (lamatest.py, levelbuild.py --install)	~/.wine-lama
APPTEST_ROOT, APPTEST_ISO	session folders and ISO of apptest.py	~/.cache/llamamod-apptest, ~/Downloads/GROOVE_DK.iso
LLAMAMOD_DATA	data folder of the app	~/.local/share/LlamaMod (Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\LlamaMod)

All tools and variables: docs/tools.md.

Key facts in one minute

• The world is made of tiles. TRAK holds 100–650 small models (render triangles + collision polygons); MAP places them on a W × H grid with height and rotation, plus baked vertex colours and a 32-region visibility table. No BSP, no single world mesh.
• Objects are "strats": compiled scripts in STPC. An object's type is its byte offset into STPC, so a level can only use the types its own STPC contains (or types merged in from other levels).
• Scale: y up, one unit per grid cell; the llama is 0.6 tall, walks 1.1 units/s, steps up nothing and jumps ~1.3 far.
• The exit fires only when the llama stands in the LevelDoor's grid cell on floor with collision material 16.
• Textures are PlayStation-style 15-bit pixels on 256 × 256 pages; there are no free UVs.

More: docs/reference.

Building on this with an AI assistant

This whole project was made by an AI coding agent (Claude Code). To continue it, give an assistant the lab notes first – they contain offsets, field meanings, confidence levels and pitfalls – and let it regenerate the decompile of groove.exe with Ghidra for questions about game logic (headless DumpAll script, see Tools). Always test in the game (tools/apptest.py) and change one thing at a time: the engine crashes on inconsistent data.

Legal

This is a non-commercial fan project, not affiliated with Disney Interactive or Argonaut Games. No game files are included – no executable, no level data, no music, no decompiled code. You need your own copy of the game; every tool works on that copy. Please share only tools and your own content (.llamalevel projects contain only your changes), not the game's files.