How is text encoded in Shizuku [PC-98]?

[denpaarchivist]

Hello. I'm not very educated on programming but I'm a translator that is interested in translating and patching Shizuku for PC-98 from Japanese to English. I'm able to play it via NekoProject II.

I opened up one of my save files in wxmEdit, but I was only able to find Shift-JIS codes for individual characters. For example, I'm assuming the word 「ペンシル」would translate into Shift-JIS as 83 79 83 93 83 56 83 8C, but that specific hex string is nowhere to be found in the file, which makes me think that the script/text isn't encoded in order.

I've watched slowbeef's video (https://youtu.be/YzM5ycLJMpg) text encoding Dead of the Brain's text encoding but I haven't had any luck with Shizuku. What am I doing wrong?

[KingMike]

Did you name your character Pencil?
Otherwise, I don't think it would be in the save file.

[denpaarchivist]

Did you name your character Pencil?
Otherwise, I don't think it would be in the save file.

No, "pencil" was just the only katakana used in a line of text so I figured it would be easier to track down. I looked through the save file to see if any text would be there because I was following slowbeef's progress on a text encoding video...

Anyways I got some help and the .DAT files don't have any recognizable Shift-JIS. There's a knj_all.kcd file that doesn't follow Shift-JIS either, so I'm assuming the game is using non-shiftJIS encoding. What other kinds of encoding are used on PC98 games? And if Shizuku is using custom encoding, what could I do to decipher the text?

[343]

"pencil" was just the only katakana used in a line of text

Probably you are searching the first dialogue text line.



細いシャープペンシルの芯をかちかちと伸ばし、意 味もなくノートのうえを走らせる。

I can't give you any advice right now, but I can tell you that one person is already working on this game and even has their own custom tools.




You should join PC 98 discord server and  offer your help as translator.

https://discord.gg/KzbckBpTwS

[denpaarchivist]

Probably you are searching the first dialogue text line.



細いシャープペンシルの芯をかちかちと伸ばし、意 味もなくノートのうえを走らせる。

I can't give you any advice right now, but I can tell you that one person is already working on this game and even has their own custom tools.




You should join PC 98 discord server and  offer your help as translator.

https://discord.gg/KzbckBpTwS

Is there a link for more info on this specific Shizuku project? I don't use Discord but I'd love to see more on this topic.