juicedup Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 Kirigiri Sou VNDB Project team It will just be me for now because I want to try hacking a game by myself, just to have some sort of accomplishment I guess haha. Unless I get stuck to the point where I can't progress and nothing else is an option or someone else wants to join. Progress First of all I don't know where to start. This is my first time attempting anything like this because I want to try and be able to hack into games. I have minimum knowledge on how these types of projects work. I know hex editing is involved where you look at compiled code and change specific values in order to change string output. That's as far as I know. And from what I can tell with this game, when the .exe file is opened in a hex editor, no human readable text is visible. First roadblock: Find a way see decode the script and figure out how to change the string values. I have a solid understanding of Japanese already. I've played through the game multiple times already. There's nothing I don't understand in the written text. I will also need to figure out how to extract assets from the main menu, translate them, edit the assets into english, and re-encrypt them. Typing this out made me realize that this is probably impossible. But hey, I have nothing to lose, and it will be a great learning experience I hope. I'll definitely be asking for help a whole lot in the Fan Translation Discussion forum when I get to work on the meat of the project. In the meanwhile I will be searching google for guides on more in depth hex editing tutorials. tymmur, KainLegacy535 and Weiterfechten 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tymmur Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 1 hour ago, juicedup said: I have minimum knowledge on how these types of projects work. I know hex editing is involved where you look at compiled code and change specific values in order to change string output. That's as far as I know. And from what I can tell with this game, when the .exe file is opened in a hex editor, no human readable text is visible. Sounds more like generating h codes for runtime text hooking than actual script extraction. What you need to do is to figure out which engine the VN is using and then see if you can find some extraction tool. Most engines have something like that already. You could then (hopefully) end up with txt files, which can be edited and with a bit of luck you can find some encoding tool as well. Usually the engine can be identified just by the filenames of the data files. If no extraction tool exist, then you... well pray that you find one. It's good that you can't find human readable text with the hex editor. Hardcoded strings in the exe is a real pain. However you should remember that strings in VNs are usually encoded in CodePage 932 aka SHIFT-JIS (the difference between those two is MS added an MS logo or something). This means what look like garbage in ASCII can be kanji and you need an hex editor set to the right encoding to be sure. 1 hour ago, juicedup said: I have a solid understanding of Japanese already. I've played through the game multiple times already. There's nothing I don't understand in the written text. That's a really good start. This is usually where projects are lacking. Just remember that there is more to translating than just translating. Do not skip out on quality improving steps such as editing. 1 hour ago, juicedup said: I will also need to figure out how to extract assets from the main menu, translate them, edit the assets into english, and re-encrypt them. Usually they are encoded/encrypted the same way as the strings/script. If you get one, you might have both or at least you have done half the work to get the script. You should focus on assets before thinking about how to get the script itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juicedup Posted March 29, 2018 Author Share Posted March 29, 2018 4 minutes ago, tymmur said: What you need to do is to figure out which engine the VN is using and then see if you can find some extraction tool. Most engines have something like that already. You could then (hopefully) end up with txt files, which can be edited and with a bit of luck you can find some encoding tool as well. Usually the engine can be identified just by the filenames of the data files. If no extraction tool exist, then you... well pray that you find one. Thank you for sharing some of your intellect with me. Engine huh... about that. Here's the files that the game installs. https://imgur.com/HTFZnQ4 User is save files. https://imgur.com/UcoY0RK I'm guessing data.bin is where all the assets are since it's the highest file size. But it's all gibberish in the hex editor I think this means that it's a unique engine or something. And when I dragged the .exe into arc_unpacker, it made 4 text files, 3 of which are unreadable and one with some programming code https://imgur.com/StXI015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tymmur Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 The interesting file is data.bin. It's most likely a file format where each name, data and size for each file is stored and then the file is complete, the whole thing is encrypted, making the hex editor useless before the encryption is solved. The problem is that .bin is a rather common extension and I can't tell the engine based on filenames alone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tahu157 Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 I'd recommend this article on the process behind figuring out how to crack visual novel archive files open: https://hackernoon.com/reverse-engineering-visual-novels-101-d0bc3bf7ab8 It's a bit long-winded and jargon-y but very informative. Dreamysyu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tahu157 Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 Shoot I forgot part 2 is the one that deals with script extraction: https://hackernoon.com/reverse-engineering-visual-novels-101-part-2-9258f547262a Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huang Ling Yin Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 detecting game engine is not that hard, just right click the .exe and see the properties... and the tools to deal with the translation already here and here, those thread already covered most game engine available on the market, so next time search for it first. but if you didnt found what you're looking for, maybe you can try reverse engineering the game your self using method mentioned above. anyway good luck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juicedup Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 https://imgur.com/a/n7KUJ It doesn't seem to be the case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huang Ling Yin Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 then it should be same as danganronpa... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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