Big Ambitions, an innovative and immersive game that captures the essence of grand adventures, offers players an intriguing world filled with challenges, mysteries, and limitless possibilities. While the original game itself is a testament to creativity and ingenuity, modding with MelonLoader opens doors to a universe of enhancements, tweaks, and new content that can make this experience even more captivating. In this article, we will explore the enthralling aspects of the original game, delve into the exciting modding potential it holds, and discuss how mods can elevate Big Ambitions to unprecedented heights.
The Allure of Big Ambitions
Big Ambitions, developed by Ambitious Studios, is a genre-defying game that seamlessly blends elements of open-world exploration, role-playing, and simulation. Its core appeal lies in its richly detailed game world, deep storytelling, and the freedom it offers players to pursue their ambitions. Here’s why the original game is already so intriguing:
1. Vast Open World: The game world of Big Ambitions is a sprawling, dynamic landscape teeming with diverse ecosystems, cities, towns, and wilderness. The sheer scale of the world invites players to embark on epic journeys and uncover hidden secrets.
2. Complex NPCs and Storytelling: Big Ambitions boasts a cast of lifelike NPCs, each with their own stories, motivations, and quests. The game’s narrative weaves together these individual tales into a tapestry of epic proportions, making it a storytelling masterpiece.
3. Ambition System: Central to the game is the Ambition System, where players define their goals, whether it’s becoming a legendary explorer, a master artisan, or a powerful mage. The game adapts to your choices, offering a tailored experience.
4. Crafting and Customization: The game encourages creativity through crafting and customization. Players can design their own weapons, armor, and even buildings, adding a personal touch to the game world.
5. Dynamic Events: Random events, weather changes, and emergent gameplay elements keep every playthrough fresh and unpredictable.
6. Community Engagement: The game’s active community contributes to its appeal, sharing stories, mods, and ideas to enhance the overall experience.
Modding Potential with MelonLoader
While Big Ambitions is already a remarkable game, the potential for modding with MelonLoader is immense, allowing players and creators to amplify their gaming experience. Here are some key aspects of how MelonLoader can supercharge Big Ambitions:
1. Expansive New Worlds: Modders can create entirely new regions, landscapes, and dimensions within the game world. Whether it’s an otherworldly realm filled with magic or a sprawling metropolis, the possibilities are endless.
2. Custom NPCs and Quests: MelonLoader enables modders to design unique NPCs, craft engaging questlines, and populate the game world with fresh characters and stories, enriching the narrative.
3. Enhanced Ambition System: Mods can introduce additional ambitions, expanding the range of goals players can pursue. Want to be a pirate, a treasure hunter, or a master chef? Mods can make it happen.
4. Crafting and Items: Modders can introduce new crafting recipes, items, and weapons, allowing for a wider range of player customization and creativity.
5. Visual Enhancements: MelonLoader supports graphical improvements, from high-resolution textures to advanced lighting effects, making the game’s visuals even more stunning.
6. Multiplayer Adventures: While the original game focuses on a single-player experience, mods can introduce multiplayer support, enabling cooperative or competitive gameplay with friends or the community.
7. Quality-of-Life Improvements: Mods can address quality-of-life issues, such as user interface enhancements, inventory management tools, and gameplay tweaks based on player feedback.
8. Total Conversion Mods: Ambitious modders can create total conversion mods, transforming Big Ambitions into an entirely different game with its own rules, setting, and mechanics.
How Mods Can Improve Big Ambitions
Big Ambitions is already a captivating game, but mods can take it to new heights:
1. Endless Replayability: With a diverse array of mods, each playthrough becomes a unique adventure. Players can explore new lands, meet new characters, and experience fresh stories with every modded campaign.
2. Player-Created Content: Mods empower players to contribute to the game’s universe, sharing their creations with the community. This collaborative aspect fosters a strong sense of ownership and engagement.
3. Enhanced Immersion: High-quality mods can improve the game’s immersion factor, making the world feel more alive and responsive to player actions.
4. Tailored Experiences: Mods allow players to tailor the game to their preferences. Whether they seek a hardcore survival experience or a laid-back sandbox adventure, mods can provide the desired gameplay style.
5. Extended Longevity: Through regular mod updates and expansions, Big Ambitions can remain a relevant and beloved title for years, continually evolving with the community’s input.
Getting Started with MelonLoader Mods for Big Ambitions
Now, if you’re eager to start modding Big Ambitions with MelonLoader, here’s a simplified guide to help you embark on your creative journey:
Disclaimer
Requirements:
- Melon Loader 14 *Make sure you have all of its requirements installed
- DnSpy 9
- .NET SDK 6.0 x64 version 8
- A legal copy of Big Ambitions (Of course)
If you plan on creating your own mods, I recommend you have a very good understanding of Unity. You should know the engine well enough to create complex games, since reverse engineering a games code is 10x harder than writing your own.
Step 1: Installation
- Ensure you have a legitimate copy of Big Ambitions installed on your computer.
- Download and install MelonLoader from our website, following the provided instructions.
- Once it is installed you have to launch the game atleast once. You should see a new loading screen that looks like this.
- Once the game has loaded, if you open the games install directory you should see some new Folders (MelonLoader, Mods, UserData & UserLib) This means you have completed the MelonLoader installation
Step 2: Reading the games code
The first thing you must know is that this game uses the IL2CPP backend instead of Mono. I assume this is for the performance benefits of C++ (only the devs know for sure 
)
This is the reason we must first use MelonLoader before accessing the games code. With a typical Mono game, we can just read Assembly-CSharp.dll in DnSpy. With IL2CPP there is no Assembly-CSharp.dll to read from.
Once we have loaded the game with MelonLoader, A new Assembly-CSharp.dll file will be created inBig Ambitions\MelonLoader\Managed
Open this file in DnSpy. You can now admire all the hard work that has gone into coding this amazing game!
Much of what happens in the game is controlled by the GameManager so that is a good place to start.
You will notice that most of the functions look the same. This is because we are not looking at the actual source code, but rather a decompiled translation of the compiled C++ code, that was translated from IL, which was compiled from the C# source code. (This is very simplified and probably incorrect 
)
I am not an expert in code reverse engineering, but I am trying my best to better translate the decompiled code. If anyone here has more experience in this, your help would be greatly appreciated!
For now, we can mostly infer what each function does from its name (The devs have done a great job of naming).
Next I will show you how to install the UnityExplorer mod, which will allow us to inspect gameObjects right in the game, and execute code so we can test what each function does.
Step 3: Installing UnityExplorer
By using UnityExplorer, we can inspect GameObjects in a similar way to how you would use the built in Unity Editor.
You can download it from the GitHub 10. Make sure you get the MelonLoader 0.5 IL2CPP version.
Drag the files into your Big Ambitions directory and launch the game.
After a few seconds you should see this UI appear in game.
I HIGHLY recommend you create a new save game for testing at this point, as there is a good chance you will start breaking things now.
There are some instructions on the GH page for how to use the mod. You will be able to see all GameObjects and inspect any scripts attached to them which will be very useful for creating mods. You can also use Hooks and the C# console to run code directly in the game!
** IMPORTANT: **
When entering a loading screen, you MUST disable any modded UIs (UnityExplorer default hotkey is f7). If the UI is enabled when entering a loading screen it will break the UI and you will no longer see it. I assume this comes from the loading optimizations.
** NOTE **
In some cases you may need additional dll files in \UserLibs that are not included in the default build. To get these, you need to clone the UnityExplorer repo and build it yourself in Visual Studio. This may seem difficult but it is good practice for making your own mods (and you can use their code as an example for complex mods).
Step 2: Create a Modding Folder
- Inside the Big Ambitions game directory, create a folder named “Mods” if it doesn’t exist already. This is where your mod files will reside.
Step 3: Develop Your Mod
- Create a new folder within the “Mods” directory and give it a unique name that represents your mod.
- Inside this folder, you can start creating your mod. Depending on your goals, this could include adding new assets, scripting events, or altering existing content.
Step 4: Load Your Mod
- Start Big Ambitions and navigate to the MelonLoader interface. From there, select your mod from the list of available mods to load it into the game.
Step 5: Test and Refine
- Launch the game with your mod enabled and thoroughly test it. Ensure it works as intended, doesn’t cause crashes, and integrates seamlessly into the game world.
Step 6: Share Your Mod
- If you’re satisfied with your mod and believe it adds value to the Big Ambitions experience, consider sharing it with the community. You can upload your mod to modding websites, forums, or the Steam Workshop for others to discover and enjoy.
Conclusion
Big Ambitions is already a groundbreaking game that offers players an immersive and expansive world to explore. However, with MelonLoader and the creativity of modders, its potential knows no bounds. Modding allows players to shape the game world, craft new stories, and tailor their experience to their liking. The synergy between Big Ambitions and MelonLoader offers an exciting opportunity for the gaming community to participate in the evolution of this extraordinary title, ensuring its place in the annals of gaming history as a living, breathing world of limitless ambition.