Duck Game – Guide to Custom Hats, Capes, & Rocks (Update 1.5)

Custom hats got an overhaul with Duck Game 1.5, making them easier to create, and adding custom rocks alongside capes. Here’s how you make em.

Custom Hats, Capes, & Rocks in Duck Game 1.5

All credit goes to Articunno!

No MSpaint

To make hats, unfortunately, you are not able to use the single greatest art program ever made (MSpaint) because it doesn’t support transparency. Anything that does, i.e; Photoshop, GIMP, Paint(dot)net (not a website, thats just what the program is called), and whatever else you might have that supports transparency (and layering, I hope) is fine.

Basic Hatmaking

A basic hat, with no fancy stuff like capes or rocks, is pretty simple to make. You can either make your own 64x32px image and just go from there, or use this handy reference I stole borrowed from the old guide to custom hats by Axollyon  This template makes it significantly easier to align your hat with where you want it to be in game.

The image is split in to two halves, each half is 32×32, and that’s the amount of space you have to work with for your hat. This should be pretty obvious, but the left side is for when you aren’t quacking, and the right side is for when you are. So use whatever artistic talent you may or may not have, and go nuts, but make sure even if your hat is gonna look the same regardless of whether you’re quacking or not, that you make sure the hat is on both sides. Otherwise, when you quack, your hat will just vanish from existence.

Once you’ve made your masterpiece, remove the template (if used) from the image by deleting the layer its on, or if you didn’t layer it, deleting it manually (you monster) and save it as a .png file. From there, all you have to do is give it a name, toss it in the directory for Duck Game (steam/steamapps/common/Duck Game) and you’re ready to go! Your hat will be available in the selection menu, and all will be able to bask in its glory!

Advanced Fashion

But what if you don’t want just a hat? Mayhaps you fancy a cape, or even just a custom rock to hurl down the field? Well that’s where the advanced template comes in.

Same as before, with opening it up in your program of choice, using your creative muscles to come up with your fantastic idea, and then removing the template and saving it as a .png before tossing it in the game folder, but now there’s extras.

If you want to do just a hat and cape, but leave the rock as a rock like John Mallard intended, just crop out the bottom 24px of the advanced template. Likewise, if you want a hat and a rock, but no cape, just crop out the cape square on the template.

Some quick pointers on the advanced template.

• The coloured borders show the total area, meaning things drawn over top of them will still show up in the final product.
• The rock in the rock section is just there for reference if you want your custom rock to line up like it does in game. The OG rock will not appear in game beneath your custom rock, so if you want to just draw a head or a face or something on the rock, you gotta copy the whole rock sprite into your custom one.
• Seriously, make sure to remove the template before you save the image, otherwise you’re gonna have coloured borders around all your stuff. Then everyone will know you followed this guide, and failed.

You’re Winner!

If you did the thing, then you should now have a functioning custom hat. Now get out there, and flex your custom hat superiority on all the normal hatted commoners.