Game Text Format

Documentation of the UTF-8 text format embedded in the DOKAPON! Sword of Fury game executable.

Table of contents

1. Overview
2. Encoding
3. String Boundaries
   1. Start Marker
   2. End Conditions
4. Control Codes
5. Format Specifiers
   1. Variable Substitution
   2. Color Codes
   3. Positioning
   4. Button Icons
6. Special Characters
   1. Full-Width Hash — Heart Symbol
7. Text Categories
8. Extraction
9. Import / Reimport
   1. Safety Rules
   2. Offsets File Format
10. Pattern Analysis
11. C# Data Model
12. See Also

Overview

Game text strings are stored directly inside the game executable (.exe) as UTF-8 byte sequences. Each string begins with a \p start marker and ends with one of several termination conditions. The engine interprets inline control codes and format specifiers at render time.

The C# implementation is DokaponSoFTools.Core.Formats.GameText.

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Encoding

All text strings use UTF-8 encoding. This means:

• ASCII characters are stored as single bytes (0x20–0x7E)
• Japanese characters (hiragana, katakana, kanji) use 3-byte UTF-8 sequences
• Full-width ASCII characters use 3-byte sequences (e.g., U+FF03 = 0xEF BC 83)
• The game natively supports Japanese and English in the same executable

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String Boundaries

Start Marker

Every text string begins with \p:

0x5C 0x70   →   \p   (backslash + lowercase 'p')

The extractor scans the executable byte-by-byte looking for this two-byte sequence.

End Conditions

A string ends at the first of these conditions (checked in order):

Condition	Bytes	Notes
\k — wait for input	0x5C 0x6B	End marker included in extracted text
\z — string end	0x5C 0x7A	End marker included in extracted text
Next \p — new string	0x5C 0x70	End marker NOT included; belongs to next string
Null byte	0x00	String terminated by null

The FindTextEnd implementation:

while (pos < content.Length) {
    byte b = content[pos];
    if (b == 0x5C && pos + 1 < content.Length) {
        byte next = content[pos + 1];
        if (next == 0x6B) return pos + 2; // \k — include
        if (next == 0x7A) return pos + 2; // \z — include
        if (next == 0x70) return pos;      // next \p — exclude
    }
    if (b == 0x00) return pos;             // null — exclude
    pos++;
}

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Control Codes

All control codes use a backslash prefix (0x5C).

Code	Bytes	Meaning
\p	5C 70	Start of text block (also acts as separator between consecutive strings)
\k	5C 6B	Wait for player input (page break); ends the current text buffer
\z	5C 7A	End of string; hides the text box
\n	5C 6E	Newline — advance to next line within the current box
\r	5C 72	Carriage return / line break variant
\h	5C 68	Hard break / forced flush
\m	5C 6D	Message icon or special marker
\,	5C 2C	Pause / brief delay
\C	5C 43	Color reset or color control

Research is ongoing for \m, \,, and \C. Their exact runtime behaviour has been partially observed but not fully confirmed across all contexts.

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Format Specifiers

Format specifiers follow printf-style syntax and are processed by the engine at render time.

Variable Substitution

Specifier	Meaning
%s	Insert string variable (e.g., player name, item name)
%d	Insert decimal integer variable (e.g., gold amount, stat value)

Color Codes

Syntax: %Nc where N is a decimal color index.

Specifier	Index	Color
%0c	0	Reset to default text color
%1c	1	Gold / yellow
%2c	2	Green
%3c	3	Orange
%4c–%14c	4–14	Additional palette colors
%15c	15	HUD / status display color

Positioning

Specifier	Meaning
%Nx	Set horizontal draw cursor to position N (pixels or character units)
%Ny	Set vertical draw cursor to position N

Positioning specifiers allow text to be placed at arbitrary screen coordinates within the text box, used for aligned columns in status screens and tables.

Button Icons

Specifier	Meaning
%NM	Render button/icon graphic N inline with the text

Used in tutorial and help text to display controller button icons (A, B, X, Y, D-pad, etc.) inline with the surrounding text.

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Special Characters

Full-Width Hash — Heart Symbol

The full-width number sign character ＃ (Unicode U+FF03, UTF-8 0xEF BC 83) is rendered as a heart symbol by the game’s custom font. It appears in item names, spell names, and flavor text where a heart glyph is needed.

U+FF03  →  ＃  →  rendered as ♥ in-game font

This character passes through the UTF-8 extractor unchanged and must be preserved in translations.

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Text Categories

Observed categories of text in the executable:

Category	Examples	Control codes used
Dialog	NPC speech, story text	\p, \n, \k, \z, %s, %d
Item/Spell labels	Item names, descriptions	\p, \z
HUD / Stats	Status screen labels, table headers	\p, %Nx, %Ny, %Nc, %d
System messages	Save/load prompts, error text	\p, \k, \z
Tutorial	Button-icon help text	\p, \n, %NM, \z

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Extraction

GameText.ExtractToFiles scans the executable and writes two parallel files:

• texts file — one string per line, UTF-8 encoded
• offsets file — one offset:maxlength pair per line (matching line numbers)

int count = GameText.ExtractToFiles(
    exePath:     "DokaponSoF.exe",
    textsPath:   "output/texts.txt",
    offsetsPath: "output/offsets.txt"
);

A string is only included if at least 50% of its decoded characters are printable (filters false-positive matches in binary data regions).

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Import / Reimport

GameText.ImportTexts writes modified text back into a copy of the executable.

Safety Rules

1. MaxLength is a hard cap — if the UTF-8 byte length of the modified string exceeds MaxLength, the string is truncated to fit. It is never allowed to grow.
2. Null padding — if the new string is shorter than MaxLength, the remaining bytes are filled with 0x00.
3. No relocation — strings are written back to their original offsets. The executable binary layout does not change.

var (replaced, skipped) = GameText.ImportTexts(
    originalExePath:    "DokaponSoF.exe",
    modifiedTextsPath:  "modified/texts.txt",
    offsetsPath:        "output/offsets.txt",
    outputExePath:      "DokaponSoF_patched.exe"
);
// skipped > 0 means some strings were truncated to fit MaxLength

Offsets File Format

<decimal_offset>:<decimal_maxlength>

Example:

1048576:32
1048610:64
1048676:128

Each line corresponds to the same-numbered line in the texts file. maxlength is the original byte length of the text region (from \p start to end marker, inclusive).

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Pattern Analysis

GameText.AnalyzePatterns returns statistics about control code usage across all extracted strings:

var stats = GameText.AnalyzePatterns("DokaponSoF.exe");
// stats["total_texts"]    — total string count
// stats["with_k"]         — strings using \k
// stats["with_colors"]    — strings using %Nc color codes
// stats["with_positions"] — strings using %Nx / %Ny positioning
// stats["with_variables"] — strings using %s or %d
// stats["avg_length"]     — average string byte length

---

C# Data Model

// Represents one extracted text entry
public sealed record TextEntry(
    string Text,      // UTF-8 decoded string including start marker and end marker
    int Offset,       // Byte offset in the executable where the string starts
    int MaxLength     // Original byte length available for this string
);

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See Also

• HEX Patch Format — alternative approach to binary patching without text extraction
• Tools: Text Tools feature in DokaponSoFTools uses GameText for extraction and import