== Introduction ==

Themes in Hedgewars control the look of all elements that appear on screen but weapons and hedgehogs, and are the base on which random maps are built. Read the [https://hedgewars.org/node/6768 Theme] pge on the Hedgewars Wiki to learn the basics about themes.

== Basics ==

All themes are located at `%USERDIR%/Data/Themes`, being each of the folders inside is a theme.

`%USERDIR%` is the user directory, see [https://hedgewars.org/node/6761 User directory] on the Hedgewars Wiki.

In order to create a new theme, you need to create a new folder there first and add the name of that folder to `theme.cfg`. This file defines not only the parameters of the theme, but also what objects are present and their behavior.

Then you'll need to create lots of data files (mostly PNG images) for the landscape, land objects, background, etc. Note the music is *not* considered to be part of the theme.

These were the basics. Read the following pages to continue:

 * [ThemeCfg theme.cfg]

 * [ThemeFiles Theme files]

== Sharing themes ==

You can only play with a theme against other players online if all participating players have the theme installed under the same name. You can find some themes in DLC, players will likely have those installed. If not, either try a default theme or politely point the other players to DLC.

If any player does not have the theme installed, the game will fail to start and an error message is displayed.

You are encouraged to share your themes in the “[https://hedgewars.org/forum/19 Content Creations]” subforum, where submissions are considered for official inclusion into Hedgewars.

== Inclusion in Hedgewars ==

If you want a theme to be included with Hedgewars, it **must** follow [http://www.hedgewars.org/node/704 Hedgewars graphics rules, style constraints and guidelines], so if you're unfamiliar with those, please read that first.

Note that there is no guarantee we'll include any theme, no matter how good.

Note that themes we consider to be inappropriate for the general Hedgewars “feel”, we might still reject it, even if it perfectly follows all style guidelines. We prefer a kinda “family-friendly” setting, although this term is *very* loosely defined. Two examples for such rejected themes are Military_v1 and Belly_v1.