About
Umineko When They Cry is a Japanese dōjin visual novel series by 07th Expansion, first released for Windows in August 2007, about eighteen people trapped on an island facing a series of unexplained murders. shin is an unofficial, Rust-based reimplementation of the game engine Entergram used for several Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS Vita visual novels, currently focused on running the Switch version of Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku ~Nekobako to Musou no Koukyoukyoku~. Core features (character sprites, backgrounds, BGM/SFX, text) already work, but advanced features are still missing, so it isn't fully playable yet. The repo also includes a companion library (shin-core) and CLI tool for extracting and converting the game's asset formats.
How it differs from the original
The project ships with none of the original game's copyrighted assets or script data — you must dump your own legally purchased Switch cartridge's romfs to supply them, and the disclaimer notes the project isn't affiliated with Entergram or 07th Expansion.
Getting started
Download a pre-built binary from the releases page, dump the romfs of your own legally purchased copy of the Switch game using nxdumptool and hactoolnet, and place the resulting assets folder next to the executable. Controls include mouse click/space/enter to advance text, Ctrl to fast-forward, and F-key shortcuts for the overlay menu, resizing, and fullscreen.
Known limitations
- gameplay: Not fully playable yet; many advanced features are still missing.