Extracting data from NScripter games?

Hello all:

I use Mac OS X. I hear that using ONScripter, you can extract the data from a Wintel-based NScripter game and play with ONScripter.

How do you do this? Thanks.

[Asceai]

You don't need to extract anything. Just have the mac onscripter binary in the game directory and run it.

In addition to the ONScripter executable, you'll also need a font (Sazanami Gothic works well) called default.ttf in the same directory as the executable and data files.

[Asceai]

That one should already be in the directory, though, I think.

Yes, but most games come packed as an exe installer -- how do I extract the data files from there?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Asceai

That one should already be in the directory, though, I think.

It won't necessarily be there if the game comes with the Nscripter binary instead of ONscripter. If I recall correctly, Nscripter supports using a system font, whereas ONscripter does not. Of course, if the game is already using ONscripter, then all that's needed is the Mac binary.

Yes, but most games come packed as an exe installer -- how do I extract the data files from there?

Hmm, that can be a challenge. The easiest way is to run the installer on Windows, then copy the resulting game directory over to your Mac. That, of course, only works if you also have a Windows machine or a friend with one that you could use.

If the installer is just a zip self-extractor, you may sometimes be able to change the file extension to .zip and it will work. (Stuffit Expander used to be pretty good about extracting self-extracting zip archives, but I don't know if that's true anymore.)

The easiest way is to run the installer on Windows, then copy the resulting game directory over to your Mac. That, of course, only works if you also have a Windows machine or a friend with one that you could use.

Why not to use an Virtual Machine software then? :) I know, it could be a huge waste of time (finding it, installing WinXP, unpacking, transferring to host OS) and complicated too (it was a pain for myself to unpack the .SIT (StuffIt) files under Windows :P).

Well, the NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) EXEcutables could be extracted with 7-Zip (portable Open Source archiver. http://www.7-zip.org/).

Yeah, I have a Windows machine -- I was just hoping that there was some way around having to use it.

Thanks!

I've got a problem -- it's not working. D:

I unzipped the file on my brother's PC, took it over to my Mac, and now I get some kind of error in the console window about missing cursor images or something. Here it is:



Thanks again.

The cursor error messages shouldn't be fatal, the game will just display without cursors. You can try copying them over from a game that has them, if you want.