Mikan Engine: ScummVM-like HTML5 VN engine to port everything to

[tymmur]

5 minutes ago, mnakamura said:

Do they both (Private Nurse and X-change) use the same engine?

No, though I suspect X-change use the same engine as Tokimeki Check-in!. They look surprisingly similar from an engine point of view and are both made by Crowd. I'm not sure if the engine from Private Nurse is used for anything else, though Heart de Roommate and Figures of Happiness could be worth a look considering they are all made within 2 years by Angel Smile.

[mnakamura]

On 01.08.2016 at 8:59 PM, tymmur said:

No, though I suspect X-change use the same engine as Tokimeki Check-in!. They look surprisingly similar from an engine point of view and are both made by Crowd. I'm not sure if the engine from Private Nurse is used for anything else, though Heart de Roommate and Figures of Happiness could be worth a look considering they are all made within 2 years by Angel Smile.

I've checked out Private Nurse - it seems to be using the infamous SM2MPX10 format (AKA GGD, AKA Ikura, etc). I've already tried porting one of the games on that engines, that is 子猫同名, so it shouldn't be too hard. Besides, this format is already supported by ViLE.

[Tenno Seremel]

Just wondering, will Infinity series be covered?

// At least I don’t think there is a way to run them on Linux without WINE.

[Zus]

If I'm not mistaken, porting x-change isn't even a challenge.

I think it has uncompressed easy to read scenarios.

[mnakamura]

On 08.08.2016 at 6:07 PM, Tenno Seremel said:

Just wondering, will Infinity series be covered?

// At least I don’t think there is a way to run them on Linux without WINE.

I'm only human, so I can take only a handful of simultaneous projects by myself. If you want to help and port it - you're most welcome

Alternateively, if and when this project will get some traction, probably someone (or me) will eventually port it.

[Tenno Seremel]

6 hours ago, mnakamura said:

I'm only human, so I can take only a handful of simultaneous projects by myself. If you want to help and port it - you're most welcome

Alternateively, if and when this project will get some traction, probably someone (or me) will eventually port it.

Of course, I understand that I would if I could, but I’m not even sure what exactly I can do as pure 64-bit Linux is all I have. Is there a what-needs-tobe-done list of horrors to check?

[mnakamura]

Um, sorry for the late answers — I've been unexpectedly busy with my real life and work and stuff, sorry.

Actually, I'm also mostly using Linux for desktops, and that's one of the motivators for Mikan engine for me as well

From the bird's eye perspective, it's like 4 steps:

• if there are any archives, extract their contents (90% of the time, there would be ready-made tools for it - check out usual stuff like Crass, GARBro, ExtractData, or collections like these).
• convert these contents into contemporary formats that would be widely accepted by browsers (i.e. PNG, JPG, OGG, MP3, etc) - many VNs use custom formats for graphics, animations, etc; again in 90% of cases, ready-made tools will help you
• find the script files and check them out; if they are compiled bytecode, figure it out (which opcode means what) and learn to decompile it (might be hard)
• convert script files into JSON used by Mikan (relatively easy, once decompiling is done)

As far as I understand, Infinity was developed by KID and probably uses some variation of their engine. @Scorp mentioned that he has tackled these formats, so he might provide more info if you'll motivate him enough

[haruki]

Hey, I just read through this thread and I've gotta say, this is really impressive. I hope everything goes well and Mikan takes off!

[Tenno Seremel]

On 14.09.2016 at 0:40 PM, mnakamura said:

From the bird's eye perspective, it's like 4 steps:

• if there are any archives, extract their contents (90% of the time, there would be ready-made tools for it - check out usual stuff like Crass, GARBro, ExtractData, or collections like these).
• convert these contents into contemporary formats that would be widely accepted by browsers (i.e. PNG, JPG, OGG, MP3, etc) - many VNs use custom formats for graphics, animations, etc; again in 90% of cases, ready-made tools will help you
• find the script files and check them out; if they are compiled bytecode, figure it out (which opcode means what) and learn to decompile it (might be hard)
• convert script files into JSON used by Mikan (relatively easy, once decompiling is done)

Well, there were some sort of converters for VNDS on Android for Infinity games, I’m pretty sure it extracted all that stuff and repackaged it. That’s all I know about them at the moment, though.

[mnakamura]

On 17.09.2016 at 4:37 AM, Tenno Seremel said:

Well, there were some sort of converters for VNDS on Android for Infinity games, I’m pretty sure it extracted all that stuff and repackaged it. That’s all I know about them at the moment, though.

Probably, it would be fairly easy to write a VNDS -> Mikan converter then. As far as I remember, VNDS is based on NScripter syntax.

[swit]

@mnakamura, I'm really impressed with the Mikan Engine goals and proposed .story format unified approach. I have a few questions regarding it:

1. Is there a demo of some novel using Mikan Engine hosted on some server? I'd like to test if it works on PS Vita handheld browser as it is (345/555 on html5 test, second best amongst dedicated video game platforms for HTML5 content, only behind PS4 - at least that was the case in 2015).

2. From what I see there hasn't been a progress on Mikan Engine for almost a year now. Does it mean it's already in pretty good shape (yeah, some demo would be really handy) or maybe you simply don't have time working on it?

3. If the Vita browser is not capable enough for Mikan (which is likely considering it can't play ‎RPG Maker MV HTML5 games) I'm considering developing this LUA based engine further in order to support Mikan Engine JSON .story format. The problem is I can't find any .story format documentation that would describe the functions, syntax and general flow of your scripts. Please share as much information regarding it as possible and upload some reference script using it.

4. I'm most interested in reading Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko MangaGamer's translated VN on the Vita, so I'm wondering if there is any progress in converting MangaGamer customized engine script format into .story files. All data there is stored in plain text, so automatically porting it to custom format seems like a fairly easy task, but if the work has been already done or there are plans to do it in the near future I don't want to duplicate the effort, especially considering I'm a novice, hobbyist programmer (LUA language is the only one I have any experience in).

5. I've read a lot of interesting hacking efforts in this topic and I'm wondering if anyone tried to get Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sui PS3/Vita script format that contains lip-sync data converted into something readable, that could be used to program this feature.

Thanks in advance.

Edited May 14, 2017 by swit
nick tag, links

[mnakamura]

Sorry for late reply, I haven't visited this forum for a while.

On 13.05.2017 at 6:13 PM, swit said:

@mnakamura, I'm really impressed with the Mikan Engine goals and proposed .story format unified approach. I have a few questions regarding it:

1. Is there a demo of some novel using Mikan Engine hosted on some server? I'd like to test if it works on PS Vita handheld browser as it is (345/555 on html5 test, second best amongst dedicated video game platforms for HTML5 content, only behind PS4 - at least that was the case in 2015).

Not really, but I can send you some links to the demos available in private message. There is no server part, it's all pure client-side, so you can probably just throw it into a PS Vita storage and load it from there, or deploy yourself it on any static HTML hosting, if it is http-only.

On 13.05.2017 at 6:13 PM, swit said:

2. From what I see there hasn't been a progress on Mikan Engine for almost a year now. Does it mean it's already in pretty good shape (yeah, some demo would be really handy) or maybe you simply don't have time working on it?

The concept itself is solid. However, there's been no single finished VN released, playable from the beginning till the end, based on Mikan engine. There are a few important functions still missing (like loading / saving), but that's probably 1-2 days worth of coding to get that done. Unfortunately, current state of affairs is a result of combination of:

• several teams taking on some projects => I do reverse engineering and provide tools for them => they abandon the project and disappear => my motivation keep sinking
• I'm not really a great developer myself, I'm actually a malware reverse engineer, so I wanted to promote a concept and get more people interested in it to help me developing JavaScript engine; unfortunately, looks like I've failed
• I'm having constant troubles with free time lately, can't dedicate much time to do publicity work on Mikan

On 13.05.2017 at 6:13 PM, swit said:

3. If the Vita browser is not capable enough for Mikan (which is likely considering it can't play ‎RPG Maker MV HTML5 games) I'm considering developing this LUA based engine further in order to support Mikan Engine JSON .story format. The problem is I can't find any .story format documentation that would describe the functions, syntax and general flow of your scripts. Please share as much information regarding it as possible and upload some reference script using it.

That again, is totally my fault. Partially my lack of motivation and lack of continued community interest in Mikan is to blame, but that's all excuses.

If you really want it and you're still up to it, we can try to revive the project and I'll promise that I'll finish that documentation and publish it.

On 13.05.2017 at 6:13 PM, swit said:

4. I'm most interested in reading Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko MangaGamer's translated VN on the Vita, so I'm wondering if there is any progress in converting MangaGamer customized engine script format into .story files. All data there is stored in plain text, so automatically porting it to custom format seems like a fairly easy task, but if the work has been already done or there are plans to do it in the near future I don't want to duplicate the effort, especially considering I'm a novice, hobbyist programmer (LUA language is the only one I have any experience in).

 

On 13.05.2017 at 6:13 PM, swit said:

5. I've read a lot of interesting hacking efforts in this topic and I'm wondering if anyone tried to get Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sui PS3/Vita script format that contains lip-sync data converted into something readable, that could be used to program this feature.

Looks like I haven't touched neither of them, so I can't really say anything here.

[garranaruto47]

@mnakamura: I am very interested in using your project.  However, I could not figure out how to set it up, as your githhub repository didn't have any instructions.  Sorry if I sound like a noob for asking this question.