"The hentai games FAQ" author: Pete Karsanow - bishoujo.helper[AT}sbcglobal{DOT)net location: the latest revision of this FAQ will be posted to my site at: http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/ as the file: hgamefaq.txt If you are reading this document on some other website, PLEASE DON'T ask me about problems with that other website! See section XI. below for legal considerations. last revision: 2005-02-28 changes in last few revisions: - expanded range of height conversion table - expanded the range of the "3 sizes" conversion tables - added "What about translation software?" to XIII - added 'dojinsoft' to definitions - changed my email address - changed Copyright/public domain part of Legal section - added 'hair nude' to definitions, link to J-List glossary - expanded the range of the "3 sizes" conversion tables - minor text editing - changed my email address - ABGA FAQ put in "other questions" - several alternatives to NJWIN - translation patches discussed, minor text tweaks - added ACE compressor - expanded the range of the "3 sizes" conversion tables - added 'bishonen' and 'shoujo' to definitions, revised a few others - revised my trading policy: no English, don't need others - PeaPri is on a mission from ... not a ..., forget it. - finish conversion from the old format - put the definitions in alphabetical order, changed a few - added 'bishoujo', 'Japanimation' to definitions - photoshop for JAST games updated in III.c. - "3 sizes" for the "feet and inches" among us - switched to the "hentaihelper" email address - switched to the "hentaihelper" web address - minor text editing - strange aside added to 'bromide' definition - added 'bromide' to definitions - info about FCD and a mention of Virtual CD - dug up some info from a MS-DOS 5.0 manual - if Cyb ever updates the copy of this document on his website, maybe I'll stop getting complaints about bad links there! - added more from Curtis H. Hoffman's "Dr. Etchi's Guide to 'H' Manga" (so now I can delete the document!) - mentioned the un-mosaic software - more about files and operating systems changes to come: - none planned Document Outline ---------------- I. Introduction II. Definitions (in alphabetical order) a. anime b. BGM c. bishoujo / shoujo d. bishonen e. bromide f. CG g. chikan h. cosplay i. dojinsoft j. ecchi / etchi k. hair nude l. hentai / H m. Japanimation n. omake / photoshop o. sukebe p. Super Deformed / SD III. Hentai Anime Games a. "Where do I find the games?" b. "Where do the games come from?" c. "How do I get to see the pictures?" d. "I can't read Japanese (or Chinese)!" e. "What about trading?" f. "What about cracking or pirating games?" g. "Are there non-H anime games?" h. "How do I play these games?" i. "What are these 3 strange numbers?" j. "Why do you play these perverted games!?" IV. Files you may need to play H games a. DOS/V b. DOSJ c. NJWIN and other Asian language displayers d. WINNLS.DLL e. *.FCD, FAKECD.EXE, Virtual CD f. *.ZIP, *.RAR, *.ARJ, *.LZH, *.ACE V. DOS/V games on non-DOS/V PCs a. "This anime game doesn't work!" b. "This anime game doesn't display text!" c. "This anime game plays messed-up music!" c. "This anime game has messed-up graphics!" e. "How do I capture images from this anime game?" f. "How do I know if this game will work on my PC?" g. non-ANSI characters in filenames VI. DOS games in Windows 9x a. "What's all this about shortcut properties?" b. "Do I really need to use DOS mode?" c. "How do you increase EMS? My game won't run, or complains there is not enough EMS or expanded memory!" VII. Japanese Windows games in Windows 9x a. "I don't have Japanese Windows!" b. "This anime game doesn't work!" c. "This anime doesn't display text!" VIII. Patching and Binary File Editors a. "Why do I need to patch?" b. "What means 'patch'?" c. "OK, now what means 'binary file editor'?" d. "Where do I get one of these marvelous editors?" e. "What do I do with an editor?" f. "Is there a patch to make into English?" g. "What about translation software?" IX. Pete's or Pete's Site-specific questions a. "Where are the games on your site?" b. "Where are the hentai pictures on your site?" c. "Send me !" d. "I'll trade you for !" e. "Why is there no file for ?" f. "When will you provide a file for ?" g. "What's your trading policy?" h. "I'm having trouble downloading from your site..." X. Other questions a. "I have another question or want to know more!" XI. LEGAL --- I. Introduction After previous incarnations as a long list of rambling paragraphs, I finally got fed up and tried to organize my knowledge and opinions on hentai games and related subjects. This saves me the effort of putting the same explanations into many of the files specific to a single game that I have or will write. It also lets me respond with "read the FAQ" (RTF"faq") to people that ask questions I have gotten tired of answering in e-mail. I'm not trying to be mean, I just have too many demands on my time. A big portion of this FAQ will be general advice on how to run DOS/V games under Windows 9x or DOS for the PC. Sorry, while I used to have access to a Mac, I don't anymore, the amount of anime software is heavily biased towards the PC, and the computer-specific advice would be completely different. So, if somebody complains about the lack of Mac, *nix, Amiga, or whatever computer, they are welcome to develop that niche themselves. II. Definitions (in alphabetical order) a. "anime" - pronounced "ah-knee-meh" by me. Basically, Japanese animation ("Japanimation" is NOT encouraged). There are plenty of "clean" sites to find a good definition, and lots of pictures elsewhere that illustrate the wide range of possibilities in anime. Suffice that there's a lot more to anime than the relatively small hentai/ecchi genre. You should look on those other sites for definitions of manga and OAV, too. b. "BGM" - an abbreviation for 'background music'. Something that is often ignored in American games, but is given a lot of attention in Japanese games. For some games, you can buy soundtrack albums! When a BGM entry is present on a menu in a game, it should take you to a jukebox for all the various pieces of music in the game, or will toggle music on/off. c. "bishoujo" - literally "pretty girl" in Japanese. For the purposes of this FAQ, a game or product that is focused on beautiful young women (even if the main character is a guy). Peach Princess is on a mission to use this word instead of hentai. Unless there are no pretty girls in it at all, I'm using "bishoujo game" instead of "non-H anime game." There can be adult bishoujo, which we used to call H, and non-adult - just as there is adult and non-adult anime work in many different kinds of media. "shoujo" is "girl", and is used often when referring to media targetted at girls, e.g. "shoujo manga." d. "bishonen" - literally "pretty boy" in Japanese. From what I've seen so far, much less popular than bishoujo. e. "bromide" - a picture of a scantily-clad girl, from the Japanese 'promaido' - picture of a famous person. I've only seen this in the Playstation game "Lunar Silver Star Story Complete", but it seems applicable here. See "CG" and "omake." Strangely though, in 1900 bromide was thought to diminish sexual desire in women! f. "CG" - CG is an abbreviation for Computer Graphics, used in some games and elsewhere to refer to computer-generated anime pictures (see "bromide" and "omake"). These aren't necessarily H, although in a H game they usually are. g. "chikan" - Groper, molester of women, would-be rapist (definition courtesy of Curtis H. Hoffman's "Dr. Etchi's Guide to 'H' Manga"). Title of an H game where it specifically referred to a "train-riding pervert who fondles girls". It's apparently not uncommon for this to happen on Japanese commuter trains each day. I found a mention in a tabloid about one chikan who specifically targeted deaf girls from one particular school for the deaf. h. "cosplay" - I'm taking a wild swing at this one, but it's probably a colloquialism for "costume play". Used when talking about the people (usually girls) who dress up in costumes to pay tribute or just because they want to look like a character from some anime manga, game, or OAV. I've seen this at gaming and anime conventions in the USA, but it's apparently even more prevalent in Japan! i. "dojinsoft" - Based on "doujinshi" or unauthorized/parody manga, this is software or image files made by non-commercial fans for small-scale distribution instead of a commercial release. j. "ecchi" / "etchi" - pronounced "eh-chi" by me. The way that the letter "h" is pronounced in Japanese, and therefore another way to refer to "hentai". "Etchi" is a variant spelling I found once in a document about H manga, and I include it here only for completeness. Somebody who should know (says he's been in Japan for 9 years) said: "Ecchi" is the short form of the Japanese mutilation of the word "erotic" or "erochikku" shortened to "e-cchi". "Erotic" actually means "perverted" in the Japanese sense of the word. You may also see just "ero" as in "ero-bon" (erotic book, or "porn mag"). Or "ero-jiji" as in "erotic old man"... The use of the roman letter "H" has to do with the fact that it resembles the sound of the shortening of "erotic" into ecchi. This was first used to my knowledge in a japanese animation show of the title "H" in the early 80's and it caught on. I hope we've beaten that one into the ground now... k. "hair nude" - after several mentions of it by Peter Payne on J-List, it seems to refer to bishoujo graphics that show pubic hair but no anatomical details beyond that. Seen in the "Anime Pinup Girls" series of 4 disks, and others. Considered "censored" by some people, but a mild form compared to mosaic, flower pots in the way, or "bright light from the genitals." l. "hentai" / "H" - first one pronounced "hen-tie" by me. Hentai is a Japanese word best understood as "perverted" or "sexually oriented". Li Sun defined it on his web site as "male fun." The letter H is often used to abbreviate hentai, thereby leading to ecchi (see above). Hentai can be used as an adjective ("hentai game"), or as a noun by itself - then it means a sex-crazed male or more commonly "dirty old man" (usually with drooling). See the "ecchi" entry for where H is supposed to have come from. Peach Princess prefers using "bishoujo" instead of hentai, to avoid the commerical aversion to adult-only products. m. "Japanimation" - a deprecated (i.e. use is discouraged) term formerly used for anime. AVOID AVOID AVOID! n. "omake" / "photoshop" - first one pronounced "oh-ma-kay" by me. The omake in a hentai game is often also called the photoshop, the menu option that shows you some or all of the sexy anime pictures present in the game. Further details are specific to a particular game. I've been informed that better definitions for "omake" are "extras" and "bonus", and "present" or "gift." The omake may include a photoshop, tally of all endings seen so far, % or # of graphics seen so far, music jukebox (see BGM), extra images (see CG), previews of other products, credits and other information about the creators. o. "sukebe" - don't know pronunciation, but it's "normal sex", as opposed to the "perverted sex" in hentai, H, or ecchi. You can be a dirty old man and be sukebe, but if you're drooling or looking for panties, you're past that. Courtesy of Curtis H. Hoffman's "Dr. Etchi's Guide to 'H' Manga". p. "Super Deformed" / "SD" - SD is the abbreviation of Super Deformed. These are the really small and cute-and-silly-looking versions of anime characters that are there to be, well, cute and silly-looking. In games where you have to walk around a graphical map, or there isn't much room to display a realistic looking character, or a character is supposed to get so upset that they don't look normal, SD graphics are often used. You may also get them on the last screen before a bad ending in a game. SD usually has small body and big head, but is still anime. If there are further terms that you want defined, try looking at http://www.jlist.com/glossary.html III. Hentai Anime Games a. "Where do I find the games?" Sorry, officially I can't help you on this one, except to suggest doing a lot of Internet searching. The phrase "hentai game" is a good starting point. Why don't I help? Well, the ABPEA FAQ is pretty good there - better read it! The leech phenomenon is as bad or worse now than when the FAQ was first written. Plus it pays me to keep my mouth shut so nice people will give me access to their secret stash so I can help with more games. Hint Hint! Oh, by the way, ABPEA stands for alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime, the name of a Usenet newsgroup where people used to sometimes post games or even erotic anime pictures. Unfortunately, like much of Usenet, ABPEA is now often clogged with spam. I don't check it anymore. This also seems like a good place for a diatribe about leeches, but I'll pass, because I'm a leech in my own small way. I hang my head in shame, but I'm just as responsible as some unknown number of people for bringing down at least one Web site where game(s) were available. b. "Where do the games come from?" Originally, many of these games are written and sold in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong (well, maybe not there anymore), and South Korea. Some were originally written in Japanese and then converted to Chinese. If you are the typical American, the reliance on sex as part of the story is staggering, but it is quite normal, although maybe a bit "low-class", throughout society there. Now how do they get out here, where "here" is the rest of the world (not only Americans go for this stuff - I've found people or sites in Myanmar, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Spain, and Germany)? Well, there is apparently a thriving "cracker" and "courier" subculture out there which often distributes cracked versions of these games long before some legitimate company decides to translate it to English. I have no direct connection with any of these people. See my trading policy regarding trading translated games. Also see the ABPEA FAQ. c. "How do I get to see the pictures?" That depends on the exact game. Some are distributed with the photoshop already turned on, so all you have to do is look in the right place. Many others are supplied "new", so you have to play the game or read one of my helpful files (if there is one). And some don't have a photoshop at all, so you have to play through the game to see any pictures. JAST games, even the English versions, have all done this so far. If there's no photoshop, you may be forced to use a capture utility while playing the game, or search the Net to see if somebody else has done it already and collected the images as a series for you to download. UPDATE: Using a principle that I described long ago, it has now been demonstrated that a JAST game which uses a script embedded in a .OVL file can have a photoshop. Basically, somebody creates a sequence of .OVL files that will show all the sexy pictures in the game, and modifies a saved game file to start up the game at the beginning of this photoshop sequence. This requires that you copy the game to your hard drive and overwrite at least one saved game, but it has been made to work for "Runaway City" and "3 Sister's Story." Unfortunately, while the principle should be applicable to other JAST games like "Season of the Sakura" and "Setsuju", the hand coding of a .OVL file to make it work is difficult, and I haven't had time to figure it out for more than the two games mentioned above. d. "I can't read Japanese (or Chinese)!" Neither can I. I've compared trying to figure out what goes on in one of these games to "understanding Shakespeare just from the punctuation marks." You may recognize "..." and "!", but the quotation marks are sometimes strange bracket things not in the ASCII character set. And the ASCII character set isn't used there either - without the text being in graphics already, you need special driver software (see below) to get more than gibberish on the screen. With the right stuff, at least it looks like Japanese or Chinese. If you're really interested, you can learn the language, but it will be rather difficult, even if you already learned to speak it. If you're willing to click through lots of text without knowing or caring what's really going on, in many games you can get by just by looking at the pictures. That's the way I do it, and I write up files on many anime games. By the way, unless the translators are very good, and the program has the space for it, English takes up about double the space of Japanese. So don't expect an English version to make a lot of sense. Sometimes its the translators and lousy proofreading, other times it's trying to put 10 pounds in a 5 pound sack. In newer games, it's the former. And even if the translation is done well, there are a lot of things taken for granted in Japan that require a lot of explanation to make sense to gaijin like me. e. "What about trading?" I've done some trading of games with other people, but its not an easy process. What helps is having a current list of what you have, and maybe even what you most want to get. Then the two parties can negotiate what they will trade with each other. It also helps to have a good way to transfer the data. I'd use email as a last resort, but some people have even sent boxes of floppies via snail mail. If you don't think too many people know about your site, an FTP site is good. IRC and ICQ also has a file transfer capability. Then just make sure you follow through and actually do the trade! Somebody that gets and never gives will quickly get a bad reputation. There are too many games out there to get all of them by being a leech. Why don't I like email trading? In my case, I use a rather dumb mail client, all I can tell is that I'm getting message "m of n", and sometimes how far along the download is. When it takes 40 minutes to download your mail, and one glitch can force you to do it all over again, I'm sure you can appreciate why I sort of dread getting new mail. Same thing but worse for sending out large files - if it bounces, you get the whole thing back! With an error message added! Some people also have limits on how large an included file can be (too big and it bounces back!). All this makes email trading difficult for me, but I have done it. There's also the issue of if trading is legal - see the next question below. My policy is now to avoid trading; I don't need anything else and have more than enough to keep me busy. I definitely refuse to trade any kind of game translated into English and sold as a commercial product. That's my way of encouraging the Japanese companies and those in other countries into releasing products that at least the American and British and other English-speaking countries can use. I may ignore messages that ask me to trade English games, except to ask how to legally obtain something I haven't heard of or ordered yet. It really bugs me that I still get stuff like "I heard really good things about Nocturnal Illusion but I can't afford it. whine whine. Send it to me!" f. "What about cracking and pirating games?" There are groups out there that crack or pirate games. I don't know any personally, but I have encountered enough .NFO files to realize that I'm not seeing all the stuff that's out there. I don't crack games, just patch them to show the pictures that you'd see if you played the game all the way through. In many cases, the game is distributed cracked. Of course, everything except the ones I buy comes without printed documentation. That's the price you don't pay. If the SPA or something like it wants to beat on me, the worst they can get me for is being a user, not a distributor or producer. You can hide behind "24 hour trial" and stuff like that (like the 24 hours being counted only when you are running the game, not July 7th alone), but it sounds hollow to me. I don't have any really good answers on this one. g. "Are there non-H anime games?" You'd think these would be a lot easier to find, but it seems that sex is an incentive for people to produce, sell, trade, and pirate the H ones more than the non-H. So while there are some games out there which are not H but are still anime, they can be tougher to find! These are of interest to me too, but probably not to the true hentai. But even I have trouble staying interested in a horse racing game without pictures of naked women... Here's one of my soapboxes: I'd gladly play a game like Cobra Mission or Knight of Xentar without the sexy images, if that was all that was available. And putting those images in a mediocre game may even redeem it a little, but it shouldn't be an excuse for pushing crap on the marketplace. I have a low tolerance for badly written games or bad grammar, although people are sometimes amazed how much time I'll waste on a product that "everybody" agrees isn't worth it. On the other hand, I'm not interested in a 3-D real-time shooter - I'd rather have the kind of walk-around RPG that Knight of Xentar was. That's my opinion, and you're welcome to it. I know of at least 3 sites where you can get non-H anime games, and there may be H stuff there too. But since nobody has asked me about them in almost a year, it looks like nobody cares. h. "How do I play these games?" There are a lot of different types of H (or even non-H) anime games, just like non-anime games. However, the AVG or adventure game is a common type. There are others, such as RPG (Role Playing Game), or sub-types like SLG (Simulated Life Game or "bring-up simulation"), and even ARC (Arcade games). The subjects can vary a lot, but a common theme is a young man (the main character, you, often not shown very well) in a situation where he can meet lots of different girls (and try to have sex with one or more of them). Mahjong and horse-racing are very popular with some people. So, it's hard to give advice on playing the games in general. Often, it can be "trial and error" or just relying on your experience in playing similar games. Thanks to "Li Sun" for bringing this subject up on his web page: most of the anime adventure games are of the "Multiple Choice Text Command" (MCTC) type. Actually, they are even more particular than that. Sometimes the game makes snide comments when you pick the "wrong" choice, or it really doesn't matter what you pick sometimes. In an effort to keep the player from "losing face" (supposition on my part), in many of them you can't help reaching the end. Well, that's just the programming of only one end. There are some (e.g. Isle) with many endings, although only a few can be considered a "happy end" or "good ending." So, in many of these games, especially if you can't read the language, there is no real harm in just wildly clicking on a menu option, waiting for a lot of text to display (pressing a key or a mouse click may speed this up) and repeating it until the output text stabilizes. Then try another option, and do the same over and over with different options or repeating the same ones until you go somewhere else, judging by the graphics or music. That's my standard operating procedure. Modify only when a particular response must be given (I figure this out when I keep ending up at "bad end" situations) or you have no clue why things are not going anywhere fast. In one case, I resorted to rolling a die to generate the number of the option to pick next. You may also notice that I've copied Li Sun's short descriptions of the games when they are available. I hope he doesn't mind... Besides MCTC AVGs, it can sometimes be extremely difficult to figure out how to play some games. Try strange things! A lot of newer Windows-based games WILL do something different when you right-click. Without documentation for a particular game, and no way to read the text output, you're in the same boat as me when it comes to trying to figure things out - except that I've got a bunch of games and I'm writing files to help you guys out... i. "What are these 3 strange numbers?" Nearly all of the civilized world uses the metric system of measurement, except the United States of America, Yemen, and possibly certain old-fashioned British grocers who don't get this newfangled thing about kilograms. So when you see a person's height given in a game, or information about a game (like a demo), it will usually be given in terms of centimeters or cm. 2.54 centimeters to an inch, you know the drill... For those Americans who haven't memorized converting from centimeters to feet and inches without cybernetic aid (e.g. calculator), here's a handy table (rounded off to the nearest inch): height in cm: feet & inches: 141-143 4' 8" (56") 144-146 4' 9" (57") 147-148 4'10" (58") 149-151 4'11" (59") 152-153 5' 0" (60") } 154-156 5' 1" (61") this range is typical 157-158 5' 2" (62") Japanese female height 159-161 5' 3" (63") } 162-163 5' 4" (64") } 164-166 5' 5" (65") } 167-168 5' 6" (66") 169-171 5' 7" (67") 172-173 5' 8" (68") ------- ------------ 183-184 6' 0" (72") 185-186 6' 1" (73") 187-189 6' 2" (74") usually a guy 190-191 6' 3" (75") 192-194 6' 4" (76") 195-196 6' 5" (77") 197-199 6' 6" (78") Now to answer the original question, some games will give the "3 measurements" or "3 sizes" (bust, waist, hips - or B W H) for a girl/woman. Of course, most times these are in centimeters as well. Therefore, here's another handy table for those used to "36-26-36" (also rounded off to the nearest inch): measurement in cm: inches: 50-52 20 53-54 21 } 55-57 22 this better be a Waist... 58-59 23 } 60-62 24 } 63-64 25 } ----- -- 70-72 28 no-see-ums! 73-74 29 75-77 30 78-80 31 } 81-82 32 } 83-85 33 } 86-87 34 Bust and Hips typically 88-90 35 } 91-92 36 } 93-95 37 } (.) (.)! 96-97 38 } Therefore, Ayumi Shimizu in "Tokimeki Check-In!" is 5'2" tall, and measures 35-22-33. Japanese women in H games are often smaller than Americans are used to, but can be well-endowed for their height. I doubt that realistic measurements are always used, or what's given is the pictured girl's "actual" measurements, as sometimes very large bust sizes are given, or the hips are bigger than the bust, and the image is of a reasonable "3 sizes." Anyway, these numbers just give a better idea of the girl's physical appearance. The tables above cover all the values for the "Tokimeki Check-In!", "Lakers 2", "The Maid's Story", "LoveLoveShow", "Muto's Memories" and "Brave Soul" games. j. "Why do you play these perverted games!?" I won't get into a morality argument on the alleged sins of creating or playing adult-oriented games. My purpose in beating on these games is to see the pictures, basically. If you can read the language, the game has additional entertainment value. So, in most cases, the most important thing to both me and the audience will be "how do I get to see all the (sexy) pictures in the game?" That's usually called a photoshop, or "omake" (oh-mah-kay). In many games, you must complete: the game just once, or ... all the game's various endings at least once, or ... the game with a certain item or after a certain action in order to activate a game main menu option that will show you the pictures. Some games don't even have a photoshop, even though they have dozens of pictures you'd like to see again. For example, I've never seen a photoshop in any JAST game. Anyway, the cheat part is that either somebody who has finished the game properly, or somebody who has figured out what bit values in game files do the job, provides a file or instructions that will turn on the photoshop in your copy of a game. Some people even distribute the game files necessary, although I usually write text files with instructions on how to make your own photoshop patches. IV. Files you may need to play H games a. DOS/V is the version of MS-DOS you're supposed to have if you are running a Japanese or Chinese PC like the ones that are commonly available in the US. That's as opposed to an FM-TOWNS or NEC PC-9801 which are actually very different machines but rather common in Japan. DOS/V handles the large and complicated character sets used in those languages with special display driver software and font files. It really complicates the CONFIG.SYS file and the bootup process to have it, and will interfere in minor ways (e.g. the '1/2' and '1/4' characters display as something else) with English versions of DOS or Windows, even Windows 95. The first game that was found to require some form of DOS/V and wouldn't work with DOSJ, was KINX. Ruined a perfect record! There are others too. But DOSJ still works for a lot of DOS/V games, and I suggest you use it instead of DOS/V when you can. The implementation of DOS/V can be done several ways. One that is distributed as "dosvptch.zip" just includes some driver and font files, you have to patch your CONFIG.SYS file, and requires you to locate a COUNTRY.SYS file, but lets you create a way to switch easily between DOS/V and regular DOS. In fact, I suggest you create a DOS/V boot floppy. There are other ways to load up DOS/V, but for getting the KINX game to work, dosvptch is the way to go. b. DOSJ is a small freeware TSR program that sets up a minimal display driver function to allow the display of Japanese symbols on an American PC screen. This turns out to be sufficient for most (but not all) DOS/V games to work on your "American" PC. It uses a small amount of conventional memory, a reasonable amount of expanded memory (I forget exactly, but you won't notice it on anything less than 4 MB total). You may have to get some font files to make it work, if they aren't included with your copy of DOSJ when you find one out there on the Net. Because there are other sites where you can obtain DOSJ, I'm not bothering to put it on mine. I recommend using DOSJ, version 1.0 or later, instead of DOS/V because it takes up minimal memory, can be removed from memory later, and is compatible with several different fonts. You should be able to find DOSJ out on the Net yourself pretty easily as dosj.zip, or by doing a search for the word "dosj". If you can't, then you obviously know so little about the Internet and how to find software that I don't want to spend the hours it will take to help you. Sorry, but I'm tired of walking clueless newbies through the baby section. One thing which may not be obvious is that the DOSJ archive you get may not come with any font files. The reason given by the DOSJ author is that they would have made the archive a lot bigger, and you can get the files easily yourself. Some versions of the archive have fonts, some don't. The easiest font files to find are the JKF2.DAT, JKF3.DAT, and JKF4.DAT files from the "Angel" or B3X game. Just copy them to the DOSJ directory, or use the command line for DOSJ to tell it where the files are. This makes more sense if have read and understood the DOSJ documentation. c. NJWIN is a shareware package with a 30 day timer (until you register it) that runs under Windows 95 (there is a separate version for Windows 3.x) which allows the display of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean characters on the Windows screen. I haven't tried a printout yet to see if a screen capture or dump is supported. NJWIN has many options, appears to be very stable, and is actively supported by a software company that makes, among other things, a Japanese word processing program. NJWIN has no apparent effect on full-screen DOS sessions, which most DOS or DOS/V games need. But for the Japanese or Chinese Windows games out there, NJWIN is sometimes needed to display text correctly. I think you should get it, and support the company that produces it, if you have or get any Windows games that don't display Japanese or Chinese text properly. One annoyance with NJWIN is that in some games the text comes out with a white background, which doesn't fit in with the game. No idea how to fix that one. Another annoyance is that sometimes the text is displayed with a "[" for every character ("l[i[k[e[ [t[h[i[s"). It may be that my version is too old, but I'm not trying to read the text anyway. X-GIRL and some other Ides games had this problem. I don't have enough information about it to give it a separate entry yet, but there is another program out there called MView which does many of the same things as NJWIN, but has different sized fonts. Supposed to run slower, but you shouldn't notice it on H games. When I know more, or am forced to use it, I'll put in a full entry on MView. There are more alternatives to NJWIN. Some of them are: KanjiWEB, Babylon, MView Pro, Richwin and Unionway. All these do is attempt to properly display Chinese, Japanese and/or Korean characters under "English" Windows. They do NOT translate the foreign language to English! The individual software packages may actually do more, for instance supporting printing or foreign language character input, but for our purposes (playing games), those functionalities are unnecessary. d. WINNLS.DLL is a file that some Windows 95 (maybe Windows 3.x) anime games require to run. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be purchased from Microsoft as part of a language support package, but apparently just that one file is enough to get some otherwise useless software (e.g. a demo of KINDAN on a Japanese games magazine CD) to work. I've found several sites where you can get it, or have somebody send it to you on request. Because of the legal ambiguity, I'm not providing WINNLS.DLL on my site. There are at least 3 versions of WINNLS.DLL available. One was just a short stub, but it fails when the program really needs it to perform functions, instead of just wanting a file with that name to exist. Another was labeled as part of a TwinBridge package, and needed the file TBIMM.DLL as well to work. I'm sticking with the one I have, which is a file from a company I love to hate. Bill, you didn't really need ALL those lawyers fo' lil' ol' me... :) e. *.FCD, FAKECD.EXE and Virtual CD You may find files with the extension FCD (*.FCD) out there, especially on the newsgroup alt.binaries.games.anime (according to Steve, who asked me about them so I wrote this). It's a virtual CD-ROM file format. Others that do much the same job are .NRG (Nero CD image) and .RAW (image file for WinOnCD and ToGo). There's an FAQ for the people that burn CDs (not quite what FCD is used for) at: http://www.butthedd.com/abcdi-faq/thefaq.html FCD is the file extension for the FakeCD program, you can download that from several places: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/2812/download.html http://www.levelten.demon.co.uk/software/cracks/fakecd.exe http://members.tripod.com/~Nacho69/Filez.html (all unverified). But the absolute "horse's mouth" source for FAKECD (i.e. this guy claims to be the author) is apparently: http://www.math.uni-rostock.de/~nfa506/fakecddr.html which also has FAKEDR. FakeCD is described as a MSCDEX emulator that allows you to present a FCD file where your computer is looking for a real CD. It may require you to exit Windows 95/98 to DOS, possibly even reboot to DOS 6.22 or lower. If you don't have a CD drive -and- the CD, FCD may be the way to go. It should also have the side effect of speeding up data access, because you're using your hard drive instead of a CD. Something better and more recent called Virtual CD from an outfit that may be called FARSTONE, only other information I have is that a time-limited demo was available. f. *.ZIP, *.RAR, *.ARJ, *.LZH, *.ACE ZIP and ARJ and RAR, oh my! ZIP should be pretty familiar as a file compression format to anyone who has downloaded software off the Net or a BBS. Maybe second in popularity is self-extracting EXE files. After that, you get into special cases, but they are basically different compression programs that are incompatible with each other. You need to have the decompression program (equivalent of PKUNZIP.EXE) to get the files out of there. The .ARJ extension is for (surprise!) the ARJ program, and the .A?? (.A01, .A02, etc.) extensions as well. Here's a hint for ARJ files in particular, which may apply to other formats: if you receive multiple archive files which are in a sequence, such as GAME.ARJ, GAME.002, GAME.003, etc., make sure you have ALL the files before you start complaining. Notice I left out 001 in the example? Well, in this disguised case, GAME.001 was INSIDE GAME.ARJ. And also, my version of ARJ didn't like the 001 type of extension, it wanted A01. So, it turned out the only way to guarantee stable deARJ of the game was to rename the files and move them around so they appeared in the directory in the same order I wanted them to be extracted. The .RAR extension and .R?? as well are for the RAR.EXE or UNRAR.EXE or WinRAR programs. The .LHA and .LZH are for the LHARC or LHE program. The .ACE and .C?? extensions are for the WinAce program. You should be able to find the latest versions of these programs yourself. After all, you found the games, which is the difficult part, how much more trouble is it to find the decompression program? In all cases, it is always possible that the posting was bad, or your download was bad. Try doing a "test" on the compressed files, if possible. You should check for a virus too, before you install or play the game the first time, just to be sure. I don't want any of you people complaining to me that I didn't warn you... Note that some people try to conceal the files for pirated games by changing the extension to something else. For instance, putting a .ZIP file on a "free disk space" server, but changing it to .GIF on the end. Only the download site that links to the file will tell you what to rename it to. Or if you're really experienced, you can fire up an editor and figure out what it's supposed to be. V. DOS/V games on non-DOS/V PCs a. "This anime game doesn't work!" Well, that's rather vague! Assuming that you don't know what the game's system requirements are, because they are in Japanese or you don't have a clue what they could be, you are therefore complaining about the inability to get a game to run properly or at all. The "properly" is handled in multiple cases below, the "at all" is handled here. - OK, first let's make sure you've got a supposedly workable copy of the game. If it came compressed (ZIP, ARJ, RAR, whatever), use the decompression software's "test" function to make sure that the game's files weren't damaged. If they are, go get another copy somehow, or let your source know there is a problem and maybe they can locate a working copy, or ask the source to upload one. - Verify that you have performed any setup steps required for the game. A game may need to be "installed" using an INSTALL.BAT, SETUP.BAT, INSTALL.EXE or something similar, which may further uncompress game files and place them in another location. You may also need to run some kind of sound or graphics setup program (sound more likely than graphics) to inform the game of your particular computer's configuration. - Be sure you are invoking the correct program to start the game. You may have to run one particular .BAT, .EXE, or .COM file to start the game, and the wrong one may crash your computer. This one requires some experience-based judgement, because the situation can change with each game. Learn how to interpret the contents of .BAT files to see if they are performing installation, cleanup, or game startup tasks. Know that executable files with the names of other executable files buried inside them are probably calling those other files, and so are more likely to be able to start a game. - If you can't find an EXE, COM, or BAT file, then you either got an incomplete piece of something, or it isn't even for the PC. For example the FM-TOWNS (incompatible with PC) appears to use .EXP for executable files instead of .EXE. - Make sure you have all the files the game requires. If you get an error message with a filename involved, check that the file is indeed present, and the size isn't zero. - Satisfy game requirements for memory, other files, and hardware. Some games may require expanded or extended memory, or need a minimum amount of free conventional memory, or must have a mouse or sound card before they will work. You may get an error message, in some cases it may even stay on the screen long enough for you to try to read it! The best remedy for this one is to have a robust configuration for your PC that provides all the things the game might need: lots of conventional memory, at most 2 MB of expanded memory, and whatever's left as extended memory, plus a working sound card and mouse. Try running DOSJ to provide text support on the off chance that the game is stopping because that display function wasn't being supported. - If it still doesn't work, it may not ever work! Because you often don't know what you're getting in this business, don't assume that a game is meant to run on your American PC. Some fool may have given you a PC-9801 version and not made any note of that at all. They may have forgot to include some of the files needed. Try asking around, and you may find that others have the same problem with this game. KINX is a prime example: under DOSJ the opening graphics work, but the main part of the game will crash. Playing with how the game is started produces different kinds of crashes. The consensus on the Net for a while was that the copy of KINX we all got "just doesn't work". Then some bright person tried it with DOS/V instead of DOSJ! I don't remember who to thank, but I'm glad somebody went to the trouble of finding this out and letting us know. b. "This anime game doesn't display text!" If this is a DOS-based game, then using DOSJ usually fixes the problem. Some Japanese and Chinese DOS games will not show ANY text on the screen if you don't have DOS/V or DOSJ to allow the text to display properly. Others will show strange blocks or graphic arrows, or even refuse to run at all. But not all anime games require DOS/V or DOSJ, particularly Chinese games may have internal text support, and so will only have a problem in this area if some game files are missing or damaged. c. "This anime game plays messed-up music!" Sometimes the music provided with a particular game is rather strange, and without knowing what it's SUPPOSED to sound like, you may have a hard time telling the difference. For instance, the MIDI music in ISAKU is so creepy that I felt really uncomfortable with it on at all, so I muted my sound card while playing! On the other hand, one version of a game played music extremely fast, which I found annoying but not obviously wrong, until I got another version of the game which played what turned out to be the same music at a "normal" speed. Turns out there is some kind of incompatibility between my sound card and that game. If this kind of thing is happening to you, let me know details about the game title and your sound card, and I'll keep working on a fix for the SB32 AWE PnP or whatever I have now. - In hint/cheat/walkthrough files that I've written, I made some references to audio compatibility for sounds and music. I used to have a Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS16) sound card, and given the proper settings for Sound Blaster emulation (8-bit sound), it usually was automatically detected and things worked fine. Then I upgraded to a SoundBlaster 32 AWE PnP, and most games responded automatically to that too. But some DOS/V games (Mobius Rod from Silky's is one) that used to play MIDI in MS-DOS mode now play tinny PCM music when invoked with a MS-DOS shortcut. I should try it out with MS-DOS mode to see if Windows 95 is messing up the nice music somehow... Anyway, if you notice a difference in how I treat sound and music compatibility in some of my files, that's the reason. - You may be suffering from System Exclusive (SysEx) data placed in the MIDI file by the author. I'm not sure if these are ignored if your sound setup doesn't have the appropriate hardware, but a lot of the games I've gotten recently had it. The MIDI files are usually also compressed into a single track, which means my MIDI editor can't read them above a certain size, so I can't even fix them to remove the SysEx data. - In the case of the SB 32 AWE PnP, there is a workaround of sorts. If the music sounds strange (usually low bass piano chords throughout), try changing the settings in Windows 95: Settings / Control Panel / Multimedia / MIDI tab. Change 'Single instrument' from AWE32 to OPL3. If you're using custom settings, do something similar for all channels. It may also be damaged software drivers (get latest from Creative). - If you get strange piano noises and no percussion, make sure you have turned the percussion channel on properly. It's very easy to mess up the settings in Windows. In 95, it's Start / Settings / Control Panel / Multimedia / MIDI. Beyond that, once you get into Instrument Definitions and channel assignments, look out for accidentally clicking on something that will turn off channel 10 or 16 use as percussion. - Make sure that you haven't turned on all 16 MIDI channels. Some pieces have one version on channels 11 to 16, and another on 1 to 10. Playing both at once may cause strange sounds. I've settled on 1-10 with a backup setting for 11-16 in case nothing comes out. Read a good MIDI FAQ for more about this. d. "This anime game has messed-up graphics!" - If you're referring to objects or "mosaic" or shading in the way of the female pubic region, or nothing there at all, live with it! That's a number one newbie FAQ on the various anime newsgroups, and I refuse to get involved with it. Same thing goes for the male equipment. Note that some English versions of Japanese games tout that their graphics are "uncensored". Often that means that the blank spots or other concealment has been removed by drawing in some version of what should be there, but sometimes by a different artist, and possibly not done as well as the original. "Uncensored" graphics in English H games CANNOT be legally imported back into Japan! There is supposed to be a software utility that can turn some mosaic concealment back into the original image - I don't have it myself, and I'll let you look for it yourself now that you have a clue it's out there. - If you're referring to distateful scenes involving strange equipment or non-humans, live with it! The Japanese are disgracefully open-minded about sex compared to some other societies. That still doesn't explain the fascination with tentacles, but it's the best I can do. - Now, if you're referring to places in the game where the screen goes crazy and comes back, or the graphics appear to suddenly jump sideways as if you shoved the screen, that's probably an intentional part of the game. Probably trying to simulate the main character being slapped or hit. Note the following though: - I used to have a Tseng ET-4000/W32 video card, and then upgraded to a Matrox Mystique. The Tseng had some compatibility problems with some video effects used in some games, e.g. "shaking screen" used in Aishim, Metal & Lace, and Koi-Hime among others. That problem didn't occur with the Matrox Mystique. - These games don't usually heavily stress your graphics card in terms of animation or movement. Often they are several years old, and are written for "artistic appeal" rather than action gameplay. - Most anime games use 640*480 dimensions for graphics, and either 16 or 256 colors. No problem for a graphics card that's less than a few years old with at least 1 MB of memory. - Some Windows games complain when starting up if you have more than 256 colors available (HiColor, 16K or more colors, more than 8 bits). Many times it doesn't matter, but sometimes it does (e.g. Chick's Tale). Try 256 colors if graphics aren't 100%. e. "How do I capture images from this anime game?" - Because most game images are in strange formats, they can't be viewed outside of the game unless you run a capture program while playing, or have a really good image decoding program. I don't happen to have that kind of decoding program - wish I did. So far, the "few" (only several tens of megabytes) of images I've got were mostly downloaded from people's web pages (and I didn't have much choice over sitting through the wait to get them), or in a few cases I've captured what I thought was a better replacement (no annoying logo or text) from a game if I could figure out exactly where it came from. - I may mention in the cheat/hint/walkthrough file for a game that I was or wasn't able to capture images. In full-screen DOS sessions, some games block all the keys that you would normally use to tell a capture TSR to go capture an image, and you therefore can't use them. A Windows capture utility might get you past that, and will definitely be useful for Windows games. You should be able to find a shareware or freeware capture utility out there on your own. - The best format for distributing images from almost all anime games is still GIF. For 16 or 256 colors, unless the image looks like a real live photograph, use GIF. Otherwise, JPG at a high quality setting will be best to do the image justice. There are other formats (like MAG, PNG) that may be better, but are little known or supported, so I avoid them. - Don't ask me for images from any particular game. Don't send me images and ask me to identify them. - Somebody has probably done it for you already. The "Black Squadron" web site (and some others) had a large collection of ECC files and an ECC viewer called ECCVIEW. ECC is short for ecchi, because most of them are. "Mok", or whoever did the work, has usually converted every image and animation in a game into ECC files, which are compressed in some strange way which I haven't bothered to analyze. I'll let you find the files yourself. Read the ECCVIEW documentation. UPDATE: The Black Squadron site has been gone for a while, and I have not been able to find a comprehensive ECC site since. f. "How do I know if this game will work on my PC?" Not all the Japanese games out there will run on your American PC, even with DOS/V or DOSJ. PC-9801 might work. PC-9821 maybe not. FM-TOWNS or TOWNS/M, forget it. Of course Windows (MS-Windows) is good if you have Windows 3.1x or Windows 9x, maybe NJWIN is needed for text display. Forget Macintosh unless you already have one. And IBM-PC (with or without DOS/V) is a no-brainer. X68/30 or X68000 is another way of saying Macintosh. DOS/V is IBM-PC again, just use DOS/V (DOSJ). But sometimes you don't even know the machine it was intended for! I've got one game called ZAN3 from a CD full of PC games that plays music with a blank screen - nothing I do ever gets any graphics. I've recently received two games which have PC98 emulators. So far, I've only tried one of them. If the second one works, I might be able to resolve ZAN3, and I'll finally see what's so good about Inju besides the pictures. A lot of older Japanese games were released only for the PC98 series, never for DOS/V or Windows. Rarely, a "classic" may be converted to Windows, but I wouldn't hold my breath... There have even been a few "hacker" conversions, of varying stability, for games particularly in demand by hentai. In general, unless you know what you're doing, stick with what other people tell you is DOS/V or Windows, or make them give you whatever software you need to make it work. g. non-ANSI characters in filenames I've seen this a few times, and I'm surprised it doesn't happen even more often in Japanese games: non-ANSI characters in filename. Windows 95 doesn't like that, neither do some W95 utilities. The files may even be inaccessible to games running under Windows 9x. I'm not sure if there is a workaround that doesn't involve patching an executable to use a different name for the offending file. Yes, I said "ANSI," not ASCII. Looks like the programmers used double-byte characters in the filenames. I've run into this before, but only in documentation filenames which I was able to change. In my first encounter with the problem, for Vidoro Drops, they were MIDI files. Because of the strange filenames, the game played very little music. I guess I could go patch the code where the filenames appear, but I'm too busy with other things. VI. DOS games in Windows 9x [9x means 95, 98, OSR 2, etc. - anything after 3.11] [The following pertains only to Windows 9x. Anything with "shortcut" is for Windows 9x, NOT Windows 3.x or your MS-DOS all by itself.] a. "What's all this about shortcut properties?" - Know where your copy of DOSJ is. The correct syntax for placing it in a MS-DOS shortcut (Windows 9x) is to put it in the "Batch file" line under the "Program" tab. If your copy of DOSJ is in directory "H:\DOSJ", then enter the line "H:\DOSJ\DOSJ H:\DOSJ -". This assumes that your level 1 font files (say what? RTF"dosj"M) are in the DOSJ directory, and you don't need level 2 fonts. Consult the DOSJ documentation. Just remember that your MS-DOS shortcut has to be told exactly where everything is! - Be sure that the "Cmd line" and "Working" lines in the "Program" tab of the shortcut agree, or you know why not. The shortcut could be invoked from anywhere, so you MUST include a working directory if the game has multiple files, or a save/load capability! I'd do it even if the game doesn't appear to fulfill those requirements. - In order of desirability, under "Advanced" in the "Program" tab: leave them all unchecked, check "Prevent...", check "Prevent..." and "Suggest...", and finally as a last resort "MS-DOS mode". You will need to edit your CONFIG and AUTOEXEC entries here as necessary to load real mode drivers for MS-DOS mode. If the shortcut consistently crashes or hangs, change the settings and try again. In some cases, un-checking the "Suggest" box will avoid the annoying "MS-DOS mode Yes/No" dialog box every time you run the game, but the game will run much slower, e.g. opening animation in SEX takes 20 seconds instead of 3 to complete. Oh well... Be warned that some games just refuse to work properly - they may require MS-DOS mode (see below), or aren't even for a PC in the first place, or your copy is damaged. There are other shortcut settings I haven't mentioned, which you can try to experiment with. Often, when I write a file about a particular game, I mention what kind of shortcut settings were required to make it work. Then again, I may not. You get what you paid for. - If you try the game in a DOS session and it works, but you can't get a Windows 9x shortcut to work, try changing the Properties/ Screen/ Performance/Dynamic memory allocation checkbox. Uncheck it, and some problems that I had with batch files to run games hanging right after PMDIBM loads went away. This applies especially to Queen-Soft games. - If Windows 9x hangs (even the mouse and clock stop) when you try to start your game, then you need to do some more work on the settings! And they said you couldn't crash Windows 95! I've done it a lot! The problem in this case was insufficient free conventional memory. With a little work, I got over 600K free, and those problems should go away. Hint: remove all unecessary real-mode drivers from CONFIG.SYS. - If Windows 9x hangs only on the second time you run the game in a session, then you're getting closer to a working shortcut! Keep fiddling with the settings. Messed up graphics on the second run may be a problem with the game itself though. - Most DOS/V games will work with 1024K expanded and 1024K extended. Many require 512K expanded memory, and 1024K is the smallest available in the Windows 9x properties. The extended memory is needed by DOSJ. Some games need expanded memory to work at all, others just need it to be able to play sounds or music. Experiment! The worst that "should" happen is that the game doesn't run, or your computer reboots. - In hint/walkthrough files that I've written, you'll see references to memory used by the game, and other memory used by DOS/V or DOSJ. DOSJ will need some extended memory. I don't recommend using DOS/V as a first try, because you have to reboot, and it practically takes over your computer. So, always assume that a game needs to display Japanese text using DOSJ, and then try once and see how it works if you don't run DOSJ. If there's no change, then leave DOSJ out! You can then see if extended memory is still needed. Many Chinese games, even "ports" of Japanese games, provide their own text display routines, and so don't need DOSJ or DOS/V at all. b. "Do I really need to use DOS mode?" - MS-DOS mode requires that you close (or allow to close) all your other Windows 9x programs, and your computer is restarted in DOS 7 instead of the Windows 9x GUI. When the game crashes or you exit it, the computer is again restarted, and should go back to the Windows 9x GUI. If the game crashed horribly, you may get trapped in a vicious cycle - press "Ctrl-C" or "Ctrl-Break" a lot, and when you get to a command prompt, either type "win" or press the computer's restart. "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" may or may not get you out of it too. Because of the hassle, I strongly prefer using full-screen DOS sessions in Windows 9x to MS-DOS mode. - If you go to MS-DOS mode instead of a full-screen window (looks the same, but you could always hit Alt-Enter to shrink the window in full-screen window mode), you have to add a DOSJ line to CONFIG.SYS, and probably some real-mode drivers too. This gets REALLY complicated, and while there are ways to semi-automate the process, they involve playing with the Registry and I don't want to even get started with that here. Search for the very helpful file "SDAM.ZIP" which contains a big document explaining how to do it. There is also a KernelToy package for free from Microsoft with a DOS Configuration Wizard (doswzcfg) that does a great job, among other useful things. c. "How do you increase EMS? My game won't run, or complains there is not enough EMS or expanded memory!" - If you're running Windows 9x, just right-click on the offending DOS program, Create Shortcut, then right-click on the shortcut, Properties, then the Memory tab, then for Expanded (EMS) memory either leave it at Auto or select a number. 1024 is usually enough. Only in rare cases (MS-DOS mode) will you have to tinker with CONFIG.SYS; in those cases you should read the DOS section below. - If you're running DOS, or there is no Expanded (EMS) entry, then you have to play with EMM386.EXE or whatever expanded/extended memory program you have, and that means modifying CONFIG.SYS. Assuming you have EMM386.EXE, then you want to change the line where it is invoked in CONFIG.SYS, usually right after the HIMEM.SYS line. The simplest thing you can have is something like: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM which just loads EMM386.EXE and tells it to make space in "upper memory" (between 640K and 1 Mb) for drivers and other things. This does nothing for Expanded memory though. To get expanded memory support, you have to give EMM386 an amount of expanded memory that you want, and a place to put the 64K window that DOS needs to be able to see it (the window copies a 64K part of expanded memory so it appears below 1 MB, so DOS doesn't barf) - this "window" is also called the "page frame." This means something like: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE 2048 FRAME=E000 which would give you 2 MB (2048K) of EMS, and use from E000 to EFFF as the page frame. One sneaky thing you may need to do, especially for older games and DOS/V, is put something extra on the HIMEM.SYS line: DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /INT15=2048 to tell HIMEM that 1984K* of EMS is supposed to be accessible by the old INT15 memory management mechanism - this has to be put in for those old programs, or the INT15 way will report no EMS at all! But /INT15 actually allocates 64K less than you specify, so /INT15=64 is rather useless! So, to get 1024K of INT15 memory, do /INT15=1088. If a game requires INT15 support, it may also have problems if DOS was loaded into upper memory. Remove DOS=HIGH from the CONFIG.SYS file and try again, but don't be surprised if now there isn't enough conventional memory... - There is another strange quirk which may affect some older games when you have over 32 Mb of RAM in your computer. If the code counting how much memory is available uses a signed integer, then it may incorrectly think that your 64 Mb of RAM means that the computer has something like -8190K free, and will therefore refuse to run the game program! I don't have an easy workaround for this one, except for the ridiculous expedient of removing memory from your machine, or possibly running enough programs in other Windows sessions to use up enough memory to bring the free amount below 32 MB. I've only seen this on one old American game, but I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up elsewhere. - If you get error messages about the version of DOS, you may have to use SETVER.EXE. It's a 2 step process: first tell SETVER what program is causing the problem, and what version of DOS it should be told instead of 4.10.1998 or 7. Second, install the SETVER.EXE program in CONFIG.SYS and hope it works when you reboot. I haven't had to do this yet, but it's a possibility. VII. Japanese Windows games in Windows 9x [9x means 95, 98, OSR 2, etc. - anything after 3.11] a. "I don't have Japanese Windows!" - Neither do I. A copy of NJWIN and the file WINNLS.DLL have gotten me this far though. - Windows games may be referred to by various people and companies as one of the following: Windows, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Win95, W95 (my personal favorite), Windows 9x, Win95/3.1, JWin, Win/J, Win/V. The last three are talking about the Japanese version of Windows (otherwise unspecified that it is 3.x or 95). I've seen descriptions where they insist you must have a full installation of Japanese Windows, but I haven't gotten any of these games to see if you can get by with just NJWIN or WINNLS.DLL. If you can't read the language, you won't really notice if it comes out looking ugly or drops symbols. What I have noticed already is several games where menu items from the game window's drop-down menus have long underlines followed by a letter in parentheses, e.g. "______(H)". This often occurs for buttons in dialogue boxes too. There are also some games where the text ends inside a box, but what looks like blank spaces continues on outside the box. Those seem to be the only problems that not having real Japanese Windows causes. b. "This anime game doesn't work!" - See the items under the same heading for DOS games. - You may need a copy of WINNLS.DLL installed in your /Windows/System directory. - You may need to tinker with an .INI file for the game. - It may be missing files, or needs to have a setup/install program run to work correctly. c. "This anime game doesn't display text!" - Windows 3.x games from Japan will work under Windows 3.x US (don't know about other international versions), except that any Japanese text will come out yucky. Same as what you get with browsing through Japanese Web pages when you don't have the proper settings and/or fonts; you don't have the fonts or the display driver to do the Japanese characters. Same thing probably goes for Chinese as well. NJWIN will fix all that, although it is shareware. Go look for it the same way as "dosj". Since I don't run Windows 3.x anymore, this outdated information is all I can do for you. - Windows 9x users may need NJWIN or Mview. VIII. Patching and Binary File Editors a. "Why do I need to patch?" Well, if you don't, you may need to play the game all the way through. Several times. Avoiding all the bad endings. Or even finding ALL 14 endings. And 14 isn't a phony number either, I'm talking about one of the first H games I got: Isle (Ushinawareta Rakuen). b. "What means 'patch'?" It's because of those situations above that I look for ways to patch, or modify, game files to make the photoshop appear, or otherwise bring joy to the heart of the ravenous hentai. To make the necessary modifications, I use a "binary file editor". c. "OK, now what means 'binary file editor'?" In cheat files that I've written, I (should) always tell you to use a "binary file editor." That means an editor that will allow you to load any readable DOS file, and alter the values within it to any of the 256 possible ASCII values (0 through 255). This is also often called a "hex editor", because the hexadecimal numbering system (base 16) lets you go from zero to 255 with only 2 places (00 through FF). The prefix "$" is often used to signify hexadecimal. A text editor or word processor (even if its a really good one!) is NOT!!! a good substitute for a binary/hex editor. If its able to tell you exactly which byte of a file the cursor is on, and lets you change it to any of the 256 possible values, then it isn't a text editor or word processor anymore. d. "Where do I get one of these marvelous editors?" I currently use two of the many freeware or shareware products available that do what is required. Try going to: http://www.shareware.com and do a Simple Search on "edit" AND "hex" for MS-Windows(all), and pick one of the many hex editors that are displayed. I used to use "Disk Editor" from Norton Utilities, but it forces you to reboot to DOS even when all you want to do is view a file. You decide what you like; I use two because I sometimes have to do things that only one editor of the two can handle, like block fill or block delete. I won't say which two they are, because they're probably old versions by now, and you should be able to make up your own mind. e. "What do I do with an editor?" When a "binary file editor" or "hex editor" is needed, I often use words like "In file FLAG5 change bytes $52 through $E8 to the value $11 to turn on all the Photoshop pictures." Here's how to interpret such cryptic instructions: Load the file FLAG5 into your editor; Move to location (offset/address) $52 in the file; Start changing values from whatever they were (although you might not bother if it was already $11) to $11; Stop after you change the contents of location $E8 to $11; Write out the revised file to disk; Start up the game again and check that the desired change occurred. Note that some of these changes may require multiple things to be done before the full effect can be seen. As always, its probably a good idea to make a copy of the file before you change it, so you can retrace your steps if something goes horribly wrong (like I tell you to change byte $02 and the file is only 1 byte long!). One editor I use has a "backup" function that has saved me a few times... Don't ask me questions about your specific editor unless you are willing to pay airfare to your location and consulting fees for my time. :) f. "Is there a patch to make into English?" In almost all cases the answer is "no." As I mentioned earlier, English takes about twice the space of Japanese or Chinese, so converting isn't just a matter of translation. In many cases, there's just not enough room unless you essentially rewrite and recompile the game. The people at Peach Princess are very familiar with this process, and Kumiko will be very happy to bury you on that topic if you ask. There are only 2 cases that I know of where the answer might be "yes." These are: Ace of Spades, and V.G. Fighter. These are the only two games in Japanese or Chinese that I know of that actually had a "patch" to English. Both were done by individuals or small groups, and released for free. And both had only a small effect on the game. In AoS, the messages about winning or losing at cards were patched. In VGF, the messages about winning or losing a fight were patched. And not much else. People have announced that they were interested in patching other games, such as Dragon Knight 4, or Mirage 2, but little or nothing has ever appeared. It's an incredible amount of work to change the language in one of these games, and the people that can do it don't need the patch themselves (because they can read both languages already!). So don't expect to see this done for free, and as soon as you have to charge money for it, you might as well get the legal permission from the original authors to do it. So, sorry to disappoint you, but there's usually no way to get the game in English if it's only in Japanese or Chinese, unless you convince one of few companies in the business that they'll make money converting it. If you're sure it can be done easily or quickly or for free, go help the team that wants to do Dragon Knight 4, and let me know when you're done. g. "What about translation software?" Well, I've actually tried using 2 different free web translators to try to read a Japanese website. One translator was the AltaVista Babelfish. Both translators had a hard time with proper names, sometimes gave completely different results for the same input phrase, and it took a lot of head-scratching to figure out what a good translation of the intent (rather than just the words) should be in English. This was for a fan site about the game Brave Soul, so I had a very good idea what the Japanese content was discussing, but the process was at least 50 times slower than reading English. Using a translation program on your own computer is an alternative, but the results may not be any better. I've heard of people slogging through Windows games that allow you to copy Japanese text into a translator, but I value my time too much to bother. While I do appreciate the efforts of people who develop the translators, or even those who attempt to use them to create language translation patches, its often rather obvious that at least one more editing pass by someone fluent in both languages would do some good. And that's from someone who can only tell that the English is terrible. IX. Pete's or Pete's Site-specific questions a. "Where are the games on your site?" What part of "There are no games on this site" do you not understand? Even though Geocities has given us more disk space lately, it's still not enough (by about 2 gigabytes) to hold all my games. Not to mention they wouldn't want me to put them there. And I'd be a pirate violating my own trading policy. So, rather than knock myself out with updating the games on the site on some kind of schedule, or paying a bazillion dollars for all the disk space needed, everybody goes hungry. If you have all the disk space needed, and your admin is OK with hentai, then email me. Otherwise, go ask every blonde you see if they'll sleep with you. I think you'll get lucky eventually... b. "Where are the hentai pictures on your site?" Same thing as above. Well, the relevant quote is "There are no games on this site, or pictures from them." With basically the same followup too. c. "Send me !" It doesn't matter which game it is, or how old it is. As long as a company made the effort to translate the game into English, I believe they should be supported, so maybe they'll keep doing it. If you think your single copy won't make a difference, you're probably right. But how many other people out there think the exact same thing? Add them all up... Gee, I sound like I support the SPA and their stormtroopers. ugh. Anyway, I don't like threats either. And adding "please" at the end won't help. And sending me pictures won't get on my good side either (hint: I said I didn't need any more pictures!). Just give it up, and go find some other way to get an English-language hentai game, like paying for it. And if you want to trade for it, see the next entry. d. "I'll trade you for !" Nice try, but still against my rules. If you're that set on getting that particular English-language game, and you have some non-English game that I don't have, then I suggest you try to trade me the non-English game, and now you'll have two to offer somebody ELSE for that English game. I just don't encourage you to trade for English games, because you're ruining the business for future releases. e. "Why is there no file for ?" There are several possible answers to this one: 1. I don't have the game at all. You can figure that one out from my list of games, I hope. 2. I do have the game, but I haven't "finished" it yet. Until a game is "finished," meaning that I found a photoshop patch or other way to show the pictures, it is instead listed as "in progress." 3. I goofed up and listed the game as finished in my list, but didn't upload a file for the game to my site yet. I will now writhe in agony from your scorn at my not being perfect when uploading files. 4. I goofed up and mixed up the HTML referring to the file, but it's really there under a different name. I will now writhe in agony from your scorn at my not being a perfect HTML coder in WordPad. Yes, there's a bit of sarcasm in several of the above. f. "When will you provide a file for ?" If I've got the game, the answer is "depends." Not only do I have a large backlog of games, but I have a lot of other things I SHOULD be doing. Just ask my wife. When somebody else offers to take over this self-appointed job, they can have it, with all the benefits (which are...?). g. "What's your trading policy?" I thought I was pretty clear in section III, paragraph e. h. "I'm having trouble downloading from your site..." If it's a game you're trying to download, then it's NOT my site! There's at least one website out there that has a copy of this FAQ posted right next to game files for downloading. But that's not MY site, and it's not even a current version of this FAQ! Since I can't prevent people from copying my files, all I can do is put in language like this here, and hope people learn to read all the information available instead of just blindly firing off emails to other people who have no idea what they're talking about. X. OTHER QUESTIONS ------------------ a. "I have another question or want to know more!" Another possible source of information is the FAQ for the alt.binaries.anime.games newsgroup. When I last checked, it was at http://capnsupermarket.virtualave.net/ in both text and HTML form. XI. LEGAL --------- This document Copyright 2002-2004 Peter Karsanow. This document may be freely distributed as long as attribution to the author (Peter Karsanow) is always included, and all modifications are communicated to the author. Any trademark or copyright infringement in this document is unintentional, and must be communicated to the author for rectification. No endorsement of any particular product is intended or implied through the mention or omission of that product in the document. The author makes no warranty as to the suitability of the information in this document for your purposes, although reasonable efforts have been made to ensure correctness. If this document is hosted on any website that does not permit unrestricted upload and download access by the author, then the author is not responsible for any other contents on that website, and will not answer questions or be obligated to resolve any problems encountered by users of said website. Pete the Bishoujo Helper bishoujo.helper[AT}sbcglobal{DOT)net http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/