Kamishibai FAQ

A Kamishibai story is made up of a gamefile.txt file, images, sounds, and music. All of these must be bundled up and sent to Otaku World. I would suggest using WinZip to bundle up the story. Winzip is very easy to use and does a good job of preserving file directories and the like. It is also very reasonably priced and they even offer a free evaluation copy you can download. Just go to http://www.winzip.com/ for details.

After you have created your story, fire up WinZip. Cancel out of the Wizard if you have it running by selecting Winzip Classic button. Create a new archive in the Stories directory of Kamishibai by clicking on the New button, changing to the Kamishibai Stories directory, and typing in a descriptive name and pressing return. If the Add files dialog did not come up, click the Add button.

Now that the Add Files dialog is up, make sure the display is showing the contents of the Stories directory. You should be able to see the name of your story directory. In the File name box, replace what is there with the name of your story directory followed by a backslash followed by "*.*". For example, if your story directory is called MyStory, enter "MyStory\*.*" in the File name box (don't enter the quotes). Make sure the Save File Info check box is checked. Now, click on the Add with WildCards button to add your story to the zip file. When the Add Files dialog box goes away, your archive has been created! Exit Winzip and use the File Explorer to look into the Stories directory. You should see a .zip file there which bears the name you entered when creating the zip archive. This is the file you send to Otaku World.

By using WinZip and preserving the directory names, you will be saving me some time so I don't have to create the directories and move the files where they belong. Also, it makes sure you have sent me everything needed. Use the "Validate File On Load" option and List Unused Resources in the Game menu in Kamishibai to make sure everything is present in the story before archiving it.

Please remember that there is a size limit of 7 megabytes for the final archive. If your archive is larger than that, you need to make some changes. Read about this Size Limit for ideas on what to do.

Some mail servers don't allow mail to attach files over a certain length. When this occurs, you may need to break down the zip file into smaller files. The trick I use is this: I take the total size of the zip file and divide it by the maximum size I can send. This will tell me the number of zip files I need to create. I then copy the current zip file that many times, each to a new name. For example, if I have a zip file called thadius.zip and I need to break this down into three zip files, I would copy thadius.zip to thadius1.zip, thadius2.zip, and thadius3.zip. Next, I would load up into Winzip the first of the new zip files, in this case thadius1.zip, and I would delete from the end of the list enough files to make the size of the zip file roughly one third of the original. You can use the File Explorer to watch the actual size of the zip file. If I remove too much, I simply copy over the archive from the original and start over. Once I have removed enough files, I write down the name of the last file in the first archive and then close that archive.

I next load the second archive and I highlight from the first name in the list to the name I wrote down, inclusive. I then delete those entries from the second archive. Then I start removing files from the end again, to reduce the size of this second archive to the proper size. When I get it just right, I right down the name of the last filename in the second archive and then load the third archive.

In the third (last) archive, I highlight from the first name in the list to the name I wrote down for the second archive and delete them. I am now done.

I now have three archives that each should fit as an attachment.

Or you could just bundle everything up in a zip file and upload to your web page or a friend's web page, send me the URL and I will download it. I'll send you an e-mail that I got the file so you can remove it from your web page if you desire.

Send the zip file or files to owmaster@otakuworld.com. You must include the following information in your message:

If you have to send more than one zip file, make sure the above information is included in every single e-mail! This is important: we sometimes get attachments with names such as 1.zip and 2.zip but no story name to go with it. Since we receive a large number of e-mail messages a day, it is easy to lose one or more parts of a story unless they are clearly identified. It would help a great deal if you name the zip archives after your story title.

We do validate the stories before posting them just to make sure all of the resources are actually included. If something is missing, we will contact you at the e-mail address you supplied when you sent the story to us. If we cannot contact you, we cannot fix the story and it will never get posted (this is a good reason for validating the story yourself since that option is built into Kamishibai). Also, we review every story as they are submitted and will reject a story if it doesn't meet the necessary minimum guidelines (spelled out in the Kamishibai Story Guidelines). This includes spelling and grammar errors. Remember, the world is reading your masterpiece so make sure the words are spelled correctly!

Finally, it may take a little time for us to post the story on the Kamishibai Area so please be patient. It is our intention to post all the stories that are sent and that are complete (validated and with description) but due to occasional backlogs, some delays are inevitable.