Your First Game

This walks through the whole path from “I have a game archive” to “I’m playing it” — importing, customizing, and launching your first game in Sakura.

NScripter and ONScripter games are usually distributed as a single archive — a .zip, .7z, .rar, or similar file containing the game’s scripts and art, or sometimes a Windows installer .exe. You’ll need a copy of a game archive before you can import it. See File Formats for the full list of what Sakura can open, including password-protected archives.

You can bring a game into Sakura two ways:

• In-app picker — pick a file already on your device or in iCloud Drive, right from the Library.
• Web Transfer — drag and drop the archive from a browser on your computer, over Wi-Fi. Handy for large files or when the archive lives on a computer rather than your device. See Web Transfer for the full walkthrough.

This guide covers the in-app picker; both roads lead to the same import pipeline once the file reaches the device.

1. From the Library, tap the Import Games card, or the Import button on the No Games Found empty state if your library is still empty.

2. The ONScripter Game Import popup opens, explaining that Sakura will automatically detect the game’s root folder. Tap Select Archive and choose your file in the system picker.

3. If the archive is password-protected, you’ll be asked for the Archive Password before extraction continues.

4. Sakura extracts the archive, checking along the way for recognizable NScripter/ONScripter files (like 0.txt, nscript.dat, or a script.file) so it can find the actual game root — even if it’s nested inside extra wrapper folders.

5. Once extraction finishes, the Customize step lets you set the Game Name and pick an Icon from anything Sakura found bundled in the game (or your own icon library). Tap Save to keep your choices, or Skip to use the defaults — you can always change these later. See Game Icons for details.

6. A finished screen confirms the import and offers Jump to Game? to open it immediately, or Close to return to your library.

For the full breakdown of every step, error message, and format quirk, see the Importing Games guide.

Tap the game in your library to open its detail page, then tap Launch Game.

The very first time you launch a given game, Sakura shows a short Setup Saves screen before the game starts. Choose whether this game’s saves live locally on this device or sync via iCloud, and optionally link an existing save folder. If Sakura finds legacy save files already sitting in the game’s own folder, it offers to migrate them into the new save folder automatically. You only see this once per game — after that, launching just opens the game.

Every game also gets its own settings — engine selection, render scale, rollback, translation, and more — independent of your global defaults. Open them from the game’s detail page; see Game Settings for the full reference.

• Import didn’t work? — See Import Problems.
• Game crashes on launch? — See Game Crashes.
• Text looks garbled or missing? — See Text Issues.