Using Other Mods🔗

There are many ways to use and interact with other mods - and most of them require the other mod to be present. Dependencies are how you can ensure that it is always the case.

Dependencies and Load Order🔗

GML has a dependency system that allows your mod to safely interact and depend on other mods without causing accidental game crashes. There are multiple types of dependencies you can use for your mod, but all of them are set from the manifest.json.

Standard Dependencies🔗

Adding another mod's mod ID to the dependencies list in your manifest denotes that the other mod is required for your mod to work. If the other mod is not present at all or was disabled by the user, your mod will automatically be disabled by the mod loader too.

If your mod depends on another mod, it will always be loaded after the other mod, so everything is initialized by the time you access it.

Optional Dependencies🔗

Adding optional_dependencies in the extra section will only cause your mod to be loaded after other mods you add to the list, but it will not cause your mod to be disabled when any other mod is not present or not loaded.

This is useful when you want to change the behaviour of another mod to fit better with your own, or to increase compatibility. To ensure that you can access the other mod, you should check ModLoaderMod.is_mod_active() before you access anything specific to that mod.

Load Before🔗

Sometimes, when modding other mods, you will need your mod to load before another mod - for example, when both mods are planning to replace one specific asset, the first one loaded will apply. For this, you can add the other mod's ID to your load_before list and your mod will be loaded first. Note that you can't load before and depend on the same mod simultaneously.

Distribution With Dependencies🔗

Depending on how you share your mod with others, you will have to make sure that mod users get all dependencies they need for your mod to work.

Steam Workshop🔗

Steam Workshop allows you to add other Steam Workshop items as "required items". If you add another mod here, it will automatically be downloaded when someone subscribes to your mod.

A screenshot highlighting the "required items" button in the steam workshop sidebar owner controls

Thunderstore🔗

Thunderstore packages also have a manifest.json at the root, but their dependencies require a specific mod version to be set in the following format {namespace}-{name}-{version}, e.g. GodotModding-ExampleMod-2.1.4