ResourceManager Version 1

4 October 2024

ResourceManager is a mod for ZeroRanger that adds a custom ‘music pack’ system to replace all the music in the game with user-provided songs! These can be distributed as music packs along with a json file describing the titles of each song and some other metadata. It also loads palettes too!

The system is designed so that anyone can create a music pack and share it with people, without requiring a separate patch / data.win for each set of songs. It also leaves the original soundtrack files intact, in case you want that for some reason.

Palettes

• ZeroArrange Palette Collection compiled by JuliaScythe containing ~50 palettes from 15 authors, from palettes submitted to the System Erasure discord server.
• Many more in the palettes channel!

Music Packs

• Green Arrange by gooeyPhantasm — music from the ZeroRanger Arranged Album of the same name.

• Lightning Strike Force EX-R by +TEK — A soundtrack without a game meets another game.

• gp_bgm by gooeyPhantasm — “A musicpack of tracks I like.”

• RBLXRANGER by AllergicToSanity — “tracks from the soundtrack of the Roblox game Combat Initiation and other associated games”

• If you’ve made a pack or palette and would like it linked here or added to the palette collection, message me on discord! You can guess the username.

Downloads

• v1.3: RESOURCE_MANAGER_V1.3.xdelta or upgrade from v1.2
• v1.2: RESOURCE_MANAGER_V1.2.xdelta or upgrade from v1.1
• v1.1: RESOURCE_MANAGER_V1.1.xdelta or upgrade from v1.0
• v1.0: RESOURCE_MANAGER_V1.xdelta

Installation

IMPORTANT: BEFORE USING MODS FOR ZERORANGER, BACK UP YOUR SAVE FILES. THIS SHOULDN’T CAUSE ANY ISSUES BUT UMT IS A FORCE OF CHAOS AND IT’S BETTER TO BE SAFE.

If you just want Green Arrange, gooeyPhantasm has made a guide for installing both the mod and pack at once!

• Download latest version of the patch above.
• Use a xdelta tool of your choice to apply the patch. I like this one.
  • Use the data.win file from an unmodified 2022 Steam copy of ZeroRanger as the Source file.
  • Use the downloaded patch as the Patch file.
  • (Optional) Create a copy of your original data.win file in case you want to remove the mod (Verifying game files on Steam also works!)
  • Replace the original data.win with your patched result. The new file may need to be renamed to be data.win!
• Create empty folders named musicpacks and palettes in your data.win folder (which is probably in steamapps/common/ZeroRanger/).

Usage

• Place music packs in <data.win folder>/musicpacks/<pack_name>/.
• In the game, go to Options -> Sound -> Music Pack and select the new pack.
• Place palettes in <data.win folder>/palettes and select using the usual method. Note: the .zrpal files must be directly in the palettes directory, not in a subdirectory.
• Enjoy!

Known Issues

• If you have a broken pack.json file and the game tries to load it on boot and crashes, change the contents of MUSICLOADER.zr in your ZR save folder to base (or just delete it). This will tell the game to load the base set of music rather than any specifc pack on boot.
• Occasionally the music may repeat during a certain section of stage 4.

Pack Creation

From a pack creator’s perspective, a music pack is a collection of music files along with a pack.json file defining the pack’s properties. It’s probably easiest to look at an example to get the idea.

• pack_name: the name of the pack, to be shown in the game’s menu. Keep this short, since there’s not much room!
• hacks(optional): a selection of switches that toggle on and off modifications to how the music works in the game. If you’re writing a music pack that needs a new hack, let me know and I’ll add it as an option.
  • no_orangardimus: set to true to let the stage 1 music continue throughout the Artypo fight.
  • no_2-1_bossay: set to true to let the stage 2-1 music continue throughout the bossfight.
  • despair_pinch_custom: if true, once Despair reaches her desperation phase, play the music with key _hack_bgm_despair2_pinch with no pitch bending.
  • custom_zeroranger_male_shout: replace the male announcer MAXIMUM shout with the music with key _hack_custom_zeroranger_male_shout.
• replacements: an object with keys as internal music asset names, and values as objects. The values can either have a key file and name representing a single song, or an array under choices containing a list of such file/name pairs to randomly select from.
  • choices_sync: if you have multiple choice-selected songs that you want to guarantee will always play together, give them the same choices_sync value. Otherwise, give each choice it’s own, low, choices_sync value. (Internally the random choices seed is divided by this value when determining which choice to use.)

Any palettes (.zrpal files) in the musicpack directory will be loaded as if they were in the palettes/ directory, to make it easier to distribute a music pack with palettes.

Palette Creation

Use skirlez’s ZeroRanger palette tool to create your palette, then place the output in a .zrpal file in <data.win folder>/palettes/. That’s it! Alternatively, use renexmachina & moonie’s ZRPal editor!

Changelog

Future Releases / Planned Features

• Add a musicpack hack to set the stage entry flavour text.
• Add visibility of the palette //AUTHOR = field in game somewhere.

1.3

• Add palette loading!
• Palettes will be loaded from <data.win folder>/palettes/ or a musicpack, and should contain the output from skirlez’s tool in a .zrpal file.

1.2

• Fixed music texts over a certain length scrolling to the side in weird behavior
• Fixed full-clear crisis music not having a music popup
• Added significantly better error handling to the pack loader (it should now tell you precisely what is wrong with your pack, rather than just crashing)

1.1

• Fixed bossay restarting in a certain section if replaced
• Added music popup to the final boss final phase, if a custom track is used for that
• Added mod version and currently loaded pack text in the settings

1.0

• Initial release
• Supporting music packs only

Credits

• Developed by JuliaScythe.
• Code help from Malkraz, gooeyPhantasm and skirlez.
• With thanks to System Erasure, Resonant Union, and the UndertaleModTool developers.

Umineko Thoughts: Episode 3, Chapters 1-8

9 September 2024

(but also more generally, i’ve spent some time thinking back over what’s been seen so far)

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• So after some deliberation and discussion with my girlfriend, our leading theory, at least for episode 1, is that Eva and Hideyoshi were the culprits. I’ve mentioned here before how I think at least Eva’s body might be fake, or at least suspicious, since it still had shoes on despite that being contextually unlikely, and it seems like their bodies were never properly investigated (unlike most others in ep 1)
  • Eva and Hideyoshi’s alibi for leaving the dining room is weak at best, and if we accept that either a) their bodies were fake and the real Eva/Hideyoshi are hiding in the room where they were ‘killed’ or b) they took some drug or something to appear dead, then they could just leave the room from their window and run through the courtyard to the boiler room to confront Kanon. (They would be able to hear that people were heading to the boiler room through the door)
  • After that, all of the other closed rooms fall to ‘one of them made it to the servant room and took a spare room key’.
  • Anyone other than Eva being involved poses the annoying question of ‘how was Eva able to be overwhelmed, given her obvious martial arts skill’. Having Eva on the other side both resolves that question and makes it easier to imagine the simultaneous murder of six people.
  • The reason I include Hideyoshi in this is the conversation just before the two of them are ‘murdered’ - it seems like it is a very strange thing to say when six murders have just occurred, and the whole ‘having no regrets about life’ discussion feels like it could be interpreted to support this theory
  • I can think of a few motives, but it’s possible that the years of malice have twisted Eva’s goal of becoming the head into this. It’s also possible that this was a backup plan after her plan to extort Krauss failed. I think she wanted to avoid killing children, but she (as well as most of the adult Ushiromiyas) sees the servants as less than human.
  • I’m unsure how to fit this into the wider structure of the episodes, since in ep 2 I am relatively convinced that there must be a 19th person. I’m still processing the confirmation of the whole ‘multiple collapses of the waveform’ theory presented in chapter seven, but if it’s wide ranging enough to change events that must have been set in stone before Oct 4th (like the number of master keys held by the servants) then it’s possible that the actual identity of the culprit could change.
• More generally - I’m really interested in the context given to the gameboards by the fabled Multi-layered Worlds Reduction Technique. (that name is incredible. please never change, Ronove). The idea that we’re some onlooker looking at a gameboard that’s refined by redtext and the narration is very interesting, and Virgilia’s seeming assertion that we should take Battler’s [or our own?] theories as on equal level with the witch’s narration is … fun.
  • Some day Ronove is going to explain transfinite induction as the ‘Infinite-to-finite Case Splitting Technique’ or something and I will lose my mind.
• Unsure what to make of the look into Beatrice’s past, and Rosa’s supposed killing of her. I feel like she should have brought this up before! There are a few different ways Beato’s discussion can be… rationalized, but all of them seem to end in Kinzo doing something deeply fucked one way or another. Oh dear.
  • I think this is something I need to think more about, since if this is true in all timelines (or if I can just choose it to be so) then suddenly the existence of a 19th human person doesn’t become unreasonable… especially given that the red text There are no more than 18 humans on this Rokkenjima was careful to state the word this which I choose to believe is referring to this episode’s Rokkenjima.

• Now that I think about it do we have any knowledge that the events of an episode correspond to a single ‘game-board’? This would be a cruel trick (but not the first time it’s been pulled on me), and would make Beato’s interpretation of what’s going on also wrong, but I think it’s clear that Beato does not have full control over what’s happening, so I’m unsure.

• That fight was so cool.

Umineko Thoughts: Episode 2, Complete

6 September 2024

Episode 2 complete! Some of the… for want of a better word, cinematography of that episode was excellent, particularly the final scene with Rosa and Maria, cutting to the logo and then the text. I hope this will continue!

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• I adore the red text as a narrative device, assuming it can be trusted (and given how the story has presented it, I think it must be trusted for any of this to work.) It feels like a great way to show Beatrice’s overconfidence, giving away extra definite information and opening her up to Battler’s requests to repeat things.
  • I’ve been told by several different people to take notes of all the red text I read, and I’ve been doing that. I think the precise wording of them will probably be important - already there’s Battler’s ploy of the hiding place not constituting a secret door, and seeing what gets left out from each is interesting.
  • One redText of particular note is That leaves only the five master keys, and ‘Rosa’ was holding all of them. Why put Rosa in inverted commas here? It certainly looks like Rosa, and we’ve already established some form of shapeshifting/disguise (although I’m reluctant to accept this, see below)
  • None of the red texts have any punctuation. This makes formatting my notes annoying. :(
• So in this episode, there were a significant number of events that, if they occurred exactly as was physically shown, would be almost impossible to explain without accepting magic. Kanon and these goat men have hand-light-blades now? Shannon has always been able to just do a shield thing and just never told anyone???? I can’t accept that these are really happening in the real world.
  • Given how the characters shown to exhibit magic have their magic described on the ‘witch side’ of the final character screen, I think these scenes must be taking place in the meta world (where I’m happy to accept the existence of magic).
  • This would explain the time difference between the on-screen deaths and the deaths in the character menu, and make me significantly more comfortable with the events of the magic scenes.
  • Failing that there’s always good old ‘Beatrice is just lying to our faces’.

• I’m once again not sure what to make of the tea party / ???? scenes. This time around the tea party felt much more like a continuation of the events of the final chapter…? My girlfriend suggested that the ‘food’ Rosa was being served during that scene was not, in fact, various parts of her family members and Beatrice is just fucking with people for her own delight? Perhaps the food is part of Beelzebub?

• I’d like to find out more about the rules of this meta world. Can Beatrice just create meta versions of people at will? Is there even any sense of ‘real’ timeline any more, with Beato just creating worlds as she wishes under her rules? What does it mean to reject the witch’s magic when she literally sets the terms of engagement?

• Is there perhaps some relationship between Lambdadelta and Maria? They look relatively similar and Lambdadelta has that pumpkin on her(?) clothing…
  • I don’t know what that could possibly mean though.
• Beatrice still hasn’t ruled out the existence of automatic devices carrying out the murders. This is the 1980s so they couldn’t be that sophisticated (from a computer standpoint) but perhaps that could explain some things…
  • Or maybe I’m just tempting fate and that will be redtext’d out at the start of episode three.
• Episode three awaits…

Umineko Thoughts: Episode 2, Chapters 6-10

4 September 2024

I’m struggling to come up with something to write here that isn’t just WAAAAA WHAT IS HAPPENING. Chapter 10 was a wild ride, that made… sticking to my convictions somewhat difficult. Aside from that, with 8 more deaths it looks like we’re following the epitaph script again, which is probably bad news for the rest of the people on the island.

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• Well then. At this point I’m either forced to either accept an unreliable narrator or that magic is real and present in the story. I think I’ll go with the former for now, but I’m unsure what that means for the rest of the game. If I can’t rely on what I’m being told to be factual, where can I go from there?

• The stakes the 7 non-initial sacrifices are killed with are also… personified women? sure Beatrice, whatever you say. I do find it interesting that the two sins, Lust and Wrath, make sense for Jessica and Kanon respectively. At some point I’ll go back and check if the Ep1 stakes matched similarly…

  • also, it looks as though at least the two sins we’ve seen have the Ushiromiya crest on their clothing. So far I’ve been taking that to mean ‘blood relative of Kinzo or a close servant’ but if it turns out that there are seven of them I might have to rethink that… hmm. It would make sense for them to be close to Beatrice, I suppose.

• Was the chapel always on the island? So far most of the differences between the events of the two chapters have just spiraled from a few changes in the initial conditions, but this seems dramatically more than that. The background art that was shown makes it look huge.

  • The first chapter talked about how every door could be opened by a servant’s master key, except Kinzo’s office. But the chapel door has a separate key, which would contradict that? Unless they mean just in the mansion itself.
• What was going on with that scene before midnight? Rosa was there, in the chapel, but seemingly has no memory of that after the night? It’s unlikely that that was some shared dream by one of the characters. They were all accepting Beatrice’s existence, which feels like something they would remember and bring up.
  • Is it possible that that scene occurred in the meta tea party world, with the meta versions of those characters? It feels… unlikely but it’s the only way I can make it make sense for now. But it’s always been clear so far when we’ve been in the meta world… hmm
• The more I read, the less I understand… By now I feel like the events of episode 1 are, if not explainable with my current understanding, at least plausible, whereas this feels utterly unknowable… but wow am I enjoying it :)

Umineko Thoughts: Episode 2, Chapters 1-5

2 September 2024

Uh woahh aaaa chapter 2 is scary and I understand even less this time

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• So this is a… different… timeline? game board? to before? I’m sure everyone will end up dead all over again but the events so far appear to be subtly different. Maria still ends up meeting Beatrice but this time Rosa sees her too, and Maria gets given a completely different letter…. the contents of which are unknown. I suppose it could be possible that this is one of the later letters that we see, which doesn’t exactly look good for Maria.
  • Also Beatrice’s new look is great.
• There’s a bit more discussion of if Kinzo had any other children… My current working theory is that today’s Beatrice is the secret daughter of Kinzo and Old Beatrice, and at some point it’s going to be shown that she has the hereditary six toes that Kinzo has…
  • They also made it clear that Kinzo’s office had enough room for her to live pretty independently…
  • Seemingly all the servants on Rokkenjima seem to have met Beatrice, which would also suggest that she’s been here before.
  • This doesn’t explain….. a lot…. but in particular things such as the doorknob burning her or most of the ‘miracles’ are still unexplained by this line of reasoning.
  • The more major one is… why does Kinzo speak of reviving Beatrice when under this theory she’s already here… unless he has deluded himself into seeing Young Beatrice as Old Beatrice’s ghost, but that seems… unlikely.
• I think it’s safe to rule out Krauss as the ultimate culprit, regardless of the above. Under the information I currently know, he really has nothing to gain from this. His hotel on Rokkenjima appears to be his best hope of getting money, but nobody is going to want to come to the mysterious unsolved murders island.
  • And in fact I’m not sure how money could be a motive for this at all… (except potentially in a mysterious secret child scenario) because everyone is presumed dead… It’s not like you could just pop up and start spending your vast fortunes when you’re supposed to be dead. And even if you faked your death I still don’t see what you have to gain.

• I love what they’re doing with this. It’s so interesting seeing the events from a slightly different starting point. I wonder if Kinzo’s beloved roulette will land on something different this time and he’ll last longer…

• I’m treating the purple swirl game board land characters as a kind of one way information barrier, for my own sanity. Under my current model, the characters in metaland are aware of what’s happening and happened to their ‘real’ counterparts but not vice versa. I think that’s the only way to make this make some tiny amount of sense.

• I’m still a little uncomfortable about George and Shannon’s relationship… there’s such a clear power dynamic, both by the age difference and servant role, and George seems… only very mildly aware of this.

• Maria’s constant abuse by Rosa is … horrible. Rosa is rapidly becoming one of my least favorite characters.