極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 (Zero Escape: 999) 🗝 (Visual Novel Book Club) // Currently Reading!

Sure, no worries! :slight_smile: I’ll be out for most of the day but will answer when I’m around again.

I forgot to mention that for the hook to save once it’s all configured as you want it, you need to click on “Save Hook(s)” in the left menu at the end of the process, otherwise I think you’d need to do the process again next time.

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Thanks again! I just tried what you suggested with textractor and one of the manual hooks seems to work. Except for the character name…which is not that necessary.

ShareX’s OCR tool does also work (with a few mistakes in recognition, but as a fallback, if textractor does not work anywhere, it will be useful!).

And since I was trying stuff, I also tried game2text again. And what should I say, suddenly it does work :see_no_evil: I am so confused. The only difference compared to yesterday is that I added the extension of yomichan and “clipboard inserter” to my chrome browser on this pc (after textractor started to work).
So if someone has the same problem as me yesterday (no text will be displayed in the lower half of the program even after marking the text), maybe adding and activating those extensions would solve it. :woman_shrugging:

So I guess since everything is working now, I will be joining the book club. I am really looking forward to reading this visual novel with all of you!! :smiley:

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Using x86 textractor I was also able to get it to work–for the VN scenes. I let it auto until the puzzle room and it stopped picking up anything, and I couldn’t get a manual search to work. When I have a bit more time tomorrow I can try playing thru the puzzle to make sure it picks back up after, but for those using textractor may need to consider Game2Text, ShareX OCR, Capture2Text or similar for the puzzle areas.

Not sure if text hook numbers are the same for everyone but this was the one that worked for me:

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I was wondering the same thing :eyes:

I tried yours and it works great for me as well.
Interestingly, it’s not the same one I was using though :smile: Mine does actually start with an H (though I also had to search for it manually).

This is it - once I had it added it kind of automatically generated a bunch of different versions(?) that contain different types of text:

One has the VN scene text including the narrative sentences, one the VN scene text without the narration, one the puzzle section text, etc. Some are just duplicates or nothing.
Caveat: the text always lacks one line behind (so you have to advance before textractor picks it up), with that R code it’s instant. So I’d say for the novel scenes the one with the R in front is much better, it’s just that there’s just no text at all for the puzzle parts. The H code I was using does pick up text for those, just in, uh, weird:

textractor4

(all the regular hiragana are now half-width katakana, don’t ask me why :see_no_evil:)

I used a modified texthooker page to deal with that/turn it into normal text, happy to share it if anyone wants to go that route instead of the OCR one.

In any case - anyone who hasn’t set this up yet and wants to can probably(?) just add the Code(s) via the ‘add hook’ button directly, without having to go through that entire search process. So that’s nice :smile:
Or maybe someone will find yet another code. :eyes: Maybe even one that finds normal text for the puzzle scenes :see_no_evil:

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Schedule polls have been open about a week; I’ll leave them open for another day or so for any last-minute opinions, but as of now looks like we’re going for March 31st starting with 3 scenes a week and increasing as people feel comfortable, with lots of room for adjustment depending on scene length and how pacing feels and all that. I’m gonna try to play through what would be the first assignment over the next couple of days and see how it looks, get a feel for the structure again and see what sort of guidance we may or may not need yet.

So yeah I think things are coming together nicely so far! As we actually get into it I think some of the specifics will be easier to figure out, but in the meantime if anyone has particular thoughts about anything we’re doing I’m all ears :grin:

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Adding on to that, I wanted to try writing out a very tentative schedule to get a better idea of what it would actually look like. I’m basing it on my count of approximately 62 “scenes” total. Obviously this will vary wildly depending on how pacing feels and how long scenes end up being, but just to give an idea of what we’re working with:

Week Start Date Reading
Week 1 Mar 31st 3 scenes (3)
Week 2 Apr 7th 3 scenes (6)
Week 3 Apr 14th 3 scenes (9)
Week 4 Apr 21st 4 scenes (13)
Week 5 Apr 28th 4 scenes (17)
Week 6 May 5th 4 scenes (21)
Week 7 May 12th 4 scenes (25)
Week 8 May 19th 4 scenes (29)
Week 9 May 26th 4 scenes (33)
Week 10 June 2nd 4 scenes (37)
Week 11 June 9th 5 scenes (42)
Week 12 June 16th 5 scenes (47)
Week 13 June 23rd 5 scenes (52)
Week 14 June 30th 5 scenes (57)
Week 15 July 7th 5 scenes (62)
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Schedule polls are now closed; looks like we’re starting March 31st and working from 3 scenes per week up to 5! Very exciting :grin:

I also played through what would be the first week’s assignment. If you’re looking for any kind of time indication, it took me about 1h 30m to get through. Your mileage may vary of course, we’re covering a whole range of reading levels and I already generally knew what I was doing, but comparing times could be a helpful way to see how long different assignments end up being since I’m sure the scenes themselves will vary a lot. So I’ll try to keep track of how long I spend on each reading and share it under a spoiler tag for anyone interested!

I know other clubs have used textractor character counts in the past, but honestly I still don’t really understand textractor :joy: I also get the feeling it’s a bit hit or miss on this game, so I’m not sure how accurate the character counts would end up being. Still, if anyone happens to acquire an approximate character count as they play, feel free to share!

The main point of difficulty I’ve encountered so far (which is very minor really) is that it’s not always clear when a new “scene” is starting, so if you don’t happen to check the flowchart at the right moment I think it’d be really easy to go right past it. As such I’m gonna include a screenshot of where we should be ending in each week’s post so everyone can confirm where they’re at.

I think that about covers everything for now; I’ll update the title and such and get the first post together over the next week!

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I can’t believe we start tomorrow already, I better get to setting up textractor!

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Yes, for me it is the same hook number.

I tried around a little bit more last weekend and actually started to read a little bit early (because I think I will take waaaay longer for the parts xD). And yes, there seems to be no text for the puzzle sections with textractor (at least I couldnt’t find a hook).
But I tried Game2Text-Lightning for this part. And it worked pretty well. I am even thinking of using only this tool (maybe. I am still not sure. Have to try it out a little bit more).
For anyone else who is interested, here is the link to download it:

After you started the program you can hover over the text directly in the game and it will display the text as selectable text where you then can see the translations like with yomichan (if I understood correctly it does not use yomichan but something similar).

Just thought this could be interesting, because I haven’t seen this tool mentioned yet.

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I went ahead and posted the first thread, it’s tomorrow somewhere :joy: Hopefully it’ll give everyone time to take a look at it and get a feel for how it all looks. Let me know what you think; I’ll see you guys there!

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I just finished playing the next three sections and it took me about 2h 10min, so I’d estimate it’s around a third longer overall than the last three were, fair warning!

We’re getting to where choices exist, I have ideas about how to do it but I’m open to opinions! Discussions for those of you who know the structure: As you know if you’ve played before, not all of the choices matter for progression things necessarily, but I’m somewhat hesitant to say that in the list of choices for the week because I feel like that gives away what does and doesn’t matter you know? Maybe I’m overthinking it, but for now I’m leaning toward just having a designated choice for those for the club, and maybe once we’re going back on other routes and it’s less of a mystery what does and doesn’t affect things I can put like “pick whatever you want!” on the more conversational ones.

More discussion on choices: As far as choices for week 2, that involves picking the first door path, which we’d briefly discussed doing door 4 first before. That’s what I went with for my test run; it seems like the “neutral” choice of sorts. Unless anyone has any particular reasons for doing otherwise, I think we’ll start with door 4. As we get into more crucial choices I’ll keep taking a look ahead to see what all we need to work out.

Let me know what you guys think; thanks for working with me on this! :grin:

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Starting with door 4 would be best for me at least as I’ve already chosen it and have started exploring behind it. That was all in my first test run, I got a little carried away I think :sweat_smile: If the club goes for door 5 I’ll have to go back a little and replay, but that’s fine too. I guess we should coordinate on non important choices too, so that we can discuss the same content, even if it doesn’t affect the future. At least I guess so, I’ve only played until a little past the door, so I know nothing more about the game. By the way, I think I remember that there were also some questions about remembering one of the rules, or adding up some numbers, trivial things like that. Does how you answer those affect anything at all?

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Those don’t change anything, other than some alternate dialogue - there are a few non-door choices that will eventually matter, but we won’t need to worry about those for quite some time.

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Kind of like the idea of everyone picking whatever they like if it doesn’t affect progress, but that also means there’s a possibility everyone will miss the ふにゃりんぱ option :frowning: (I don’t actually have strong feelings either way tho)

But I think you should say what matters for progress because otherwise people will have to redo all the puzzles in that room just to select the correct choice for progression. But you might want to ask outside of spoiler tags whether you should do this, since it’ll mostly affect the people who haven’t played the game (and likely aren’t looking in these spoiler tags). That way you can get better input on whether correct/incorrect choices are okay to be spoiled

Starting with Door 4 sounds good! From what I remember it’s the choice the game kinda leads you towards at first anyway, and based on future events it’ll be best to get to know the characters in that door now imo. Trying to keep as vague as possible even with spoiler tagging but hopefully you know what I mean

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Fair point, here goes:

To all of you who are new to the game, how do you feel about me listing what choices to make for things that don’t affect our general progression? For context, not every choice affects the game in a way beyond what dialogue you immediately get, but I’m not sure if I should specify which choices actually matter or not. Saying which choices are and aren’t important could possibly qualify as mild spoilers, but if I don’t then that would keep you guys from making your own choices in places where it doesn’t matter so I wanted to see what you all think.

Should I indicate which choices are required for following along with the club?
  • Yes, only list choices that are necessary for the club’s progression
  • No, list all choices without indicating which affect the game’s progression (this would necessitate me making some choices for the club somewhat arbitrarily)
  • Compromise; list potential choices for all situations and indicate in a spoiler tag whether it matters for progression or not
  • Other (comment below)
0 voters
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I was checking in here to check the schedule (so I could figure out when the next VN pick poll needs to be made, because maybe for once we can get it done ahead of time!?!?!?!), and I noticed that the week 2 thread was neither announced in this thread, nor has been linked in the OP. It is easy to forget. (I’ve done it from time to time too!)

This is my workflow so I remember it all: I open the home thread in one tab, last week’s post in another, and then a third tab for making the new topic. That way I can copy paste the content of last week’s post to create the new weekly thread, and I’ll remember to add the links to the new week in both last week’s post and in the main thread. And also post the link in the main thread. (After I adopted this, I don’t think I’ve forgotten to do any of the updates, but I surely will in the future again. xD)

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Ahhh oops, I totally forgot about the home post :sweat_smile: sorry everyone, thanks for the reminder! Hopefully now that I’ve done it more than once ever it’ll stick in my head better :laughing:

Week 2 is underway!

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Week 3 is posted!

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I’m currently working through week 4’s scenes to see how things look, and I have some choice things I’m not sure on that I’d like to hear others’ opinions on.

Spoilers ahead: So we’re at the point of picking another door. @AAABatteries had mentioned going through 3 before, which I wanted to see how you guys feel about. I might be biased from my own experiences, but I did that one last and so I feel like the build up to what you discover behind that door is important. What are your opinions? Looking at the structure I think if we want to do the sub ending first 3 would indeed make sense, so I guess the question is what everyone feels is more important. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Re: spoilers:

We did already put it to a vote and decided sub knife axe (and so on), but… you’re totally right, the buildup to what’s behind Door 3 is so important. I can’t believe I forgot about that. And it’s definitely not the “neutral” option (like how we decided to go Door 4 partially because it was the neutral option). The game really doesn’t want you to do that choice first lol

I’ve only done sub last too (out of axe, knife, sub). So I was curious to see how it would be with sub first, so that’s why I originally agreed to go with sub first. I think sub ending itself would be a really good first ending too. But Door 3 itself is much better to experience later in the game. And the other two endings are still good first endings imo :slight_smile:

So I’ve changed my mind, I think we should go with either axe or knife first. Doesn’t really matter to me which. Since we went through door 4 we could also do coffin first but I don’t recommend that since coffin gives a lot away. If we go axe first, iirc we need to pick door 8 next. With knife it doesn’t matter if we go 8 or 7.

If we really want to see sub first, we should go through Door 3, I know there’s other ways to get sub but that’s the best option. So I guess it’s a question of what’s more important: the suspense of waiting to see what’s behind that door, or seeing that ending first.

That got really long, sorry about that, but I wanted to lay out all my reasonings

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