1. Preface
2. What is HF Patch?
3. What is included in the patch?
4. How to download the patch?
5. How to install the patch?
6. How to buy and install DLCs / paid expansions?
7. How to uninstall / reinstall the patch?
8. Discussions and getting help
9. Solutions to common issues with the patch
10. General FAQ / Notes
11. FAQ / Notes for Steam releases

This is a universal readme/guide/FAQ for HF Patches made by ManlyMarco (aka Marco, MarC0 on Hongfire). It applies to patches that were released after the Hongfire era (Koikatsu and newer, basically whatever is released on GitHub and Patreon). You can see a list of supported patches here.

All HF Patches and most plugins/mods are made for a specific game only, and can't be used with other games (e.g. a patch for HoneySelect2 is not going to work for AI-Shoujo). The game is usually specified in the title or in the file names, and it's often shortened to these abbreviations:

• HS = HoneySelect
• PH = PlayHome
• VRK = VR Kanojo
• KK = Koikatu / Koikatsu Party (usually interchangeable, KKP is sometimes used for Party-specific things)
• KKS = Koikatsu Sunshine (NOT interchangeable with KK/KKP, this is a completely new game)
• EC = EmotionCreators
• AI / AIS = AI-Syoujyo / AI-Shoujo (usually interchangeable)
• HS2 = HoneySelect2
• RG = RoomGirl
• KKLB = KoiKoi Love Blossoms (not related to Koikatsu, it's made by a different company)
• AGH = Houkago Rinkan Chuudoku / After Service Gangbang Addicts
• IO = Insult Order
• DatsuiJanken = Undressing Rock-Paper-Scissors with Girl Next Door
• HC = HoneyCome (HoneyCome come come Party is HCCCP but is usually referred with HC as well)
• DC = DigitalCraft (can be either as part of the HoneyCome Dolce expansion, or as a stand-alone)
• SVS = Summer Vacation! Scramble / SamabakeScramble

This means that a HF Patch for KK is meant for Koikatu and Koikatsu Party only.

HF Patch is an unofficial patch for 3D eroges (mostly made by Illusion/Illgames) that includes game patches, fan-made English translations and essential mods. It is made to be as simple as possible to install and use, so that you can just Have Fun with the game instead of hunting for updates and mods by yourself :)

HF Patch does not contain the full game, expansions or any other paid content. You have to buy the game and expansions separately. You can buy most of the games either on Steam (ILLUSION and ILLGAMES), or on DLsite and DMM if they were not localized. Check the GitHub page of the patch for your game to get specific purchase links. Note that after the change to Illgames most old Illusion games can no longer be purchased.

Installing the patch will allow you to load most character cards and scenes and give you countless content creation and gameplay improvements while still keeping the original, uncluttered feel of the game. All content is tested and fixed (or removed) as needed before each update, providing a stable platform for further modding. HF Patch can also repair many common issues, try it if you have issues.

The games, and by extension HF Patches, are not suitable for minors. If you are under 18 years old you can not use HF Patches. The base games and these patches contain only characters of age 18 or higher. The creator of this patch is not responsible for creations of its users and prohibits any unlawful use of this software.

You can support development of HF Patch and many of the included plugins through my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ManlyMarco

HF Patch includes and installs by default:

• All free updates (no need to install any updates or unlocks manually)
• Fan-made translations, and automatic machine translations to fill in any gaps (official translations are not modified, only supplemented)
• Most commonly used plugins and mods, which allows you to load most character cards and scenes available online
• Fixes for common issues with the game and mods like botched mod installs
• Full uncensor
• Automatic fixes to common issues
• Full saves / trainers / other cheats

You can see a full list of what HF Patch contains by checking the Plugin Readme.md file on GitHub pages of the patches. Note that HF Patch does not contain the full game, paid expansions or any other pirated content. The full game needs to be already installed for the patch to work. If you want to use the VR module, also install it before patching!

Check the releases page on the GitHub page of your patch (releases are on the right side of the page, below the "About" section).

• You should get a single .exe file and in most cases 2 or more .bin files. Place these files in a single folder outside of the game directory.
• DO NOT download any .zip files from GitHub - they contain source code for the patch, not the patch itself.
• The magnet links need to be downloaded with a torrent client like qBittorrent (try it if you have issues when downloading with other clients).
• To get mail updates for each new release you can watch the repositiory (top right), or watch the linked Patreon page if any.

This is a general overview of the installation process. For more detailed info check the GitHub page of your patch.

Here's a video guide that might be useful. The guide is mostly universal between different games, but there might be some differences.

• How to get the game from DMM, install it and install HF Patch (Use the chapter selection to easily find what you are looking for)

1. Install the game (if you already have it installed, you don't have to reinstall it in most cases)
2. (Optional) Install any DLCs you have. You don't have to install all of them, you can pick only some DLCs or not install any DLCs at all. Freely available R18 patches are included, you don't have to install them manually (but doing so won't hurt anything).
3. (Optional) Backup any important files in your game directory like private mods. The patch can and will remove and overwrite some files and directories (except for UserData, that folder is always safe).
4. (Optional) If you have the game on Steam, verify game files just to be safe (Find the game in library > Properties > Local files > Verify).
5. Download the latest HF Patch release for your game. Check above for details.
6. Install the latest HF Patch by running the .exe and following the wizard. The default settings should work well for most users.
   • During the installation the patch may appear stuck, unless you get an error wait for it to finish.
   • If you use the light version of the patch its a good idea to update your Sideloader Modpack separately, you can do this by selecting update in the launcher or using the look for mods option in KKManager.
7. Done! You can now start the game launcher as usual and you will notice some new options straight away. You can remove the downloaded patcher files now if you want to save some space, but it's recommended to keep them in case you need to fix your game in the future.
   • Keep in mind that the first launch of the game after patching could take a couple minutes on slower systems and the game window might not appear immediately.

DLCs are all fully optional and can be skipped. So far none of the DLCs other than the VR modules were officially localized. Because of this they usually don't have proper English translations and have to be machine translated, so the text quality is noticeably worse than the base game. In case you have the Steam version of the game you will have to use DLCs for the Japanese version (not all DLCs are compatible with the Steam versions of the games, check the specific patch readmes to learn which DLCs are supported by the Steam versions of the games).

Here's an simple way to install any downloaded DLCs:

1. Extract the DLC/expansion with 7zip (or similar) until you find a "setup" folder that contains an "abdata" folder and some other files.
2. You need to copy all of these folders and files into your game's install directory (you should see our own abdata folder and other files similar to what's in the DLC). If you have the Japanese release, replace files when asked. If you have the Steam release, click No to all (skip existing files).
3. Install HF Patch, even if you already have it installed. This is expecially important for the Steam versions of the games.

• Installing the patch automatically cleans up any old installs, so you don't have to uninstall it first (make sure that removing all old plugins/mods/settings is turned on when installing the patch).
• You can uninstall mods installed by the patch by removing the BepInEx and mods folders, as well as the winhttp.dll file from game directory (if you want to temporarily disable mods, moving winhttp.dll out of game directory will be enough). Game updates can't be uninstalled.

If you have issues or questions, first of all check the FAQs below. If those don't help, there are extensive troubleshooting FAQs and gameplay guides on the wiki and in the Discord servers dedicated to these games.

If you need further help, feel free to ask in the #help channel dedicated to your game on Discord. Try to search for your issue first by using the Discord's search box at top right, it might have been already answered before. Please don't ask for help under this guide because I rarely check the comments here.

• List of Wikis for Illusion games (Gameplay and technical help)
• Koikatsu! discord server (KK, KKP, EC)
• Illusion Soft discord server (HS, PH, AI, HS2, RG)

• If you get errors in the middle of installing the patch, or you have issues running the game, restart your PC and try to install the patch again with default settings.
• If you get a "This patch is inside of the game directory" or "Path too long" error, move the patch files to a folder like "D:\HFP" and try again.
• If you get an "Insert next disk" popup make sure all parts of the patch are in the same directory.
• If you get an error during verification, make sure the mentioned part is in the same directory as the patch. If it is, redownload it and try again.
• If you get a "Different game is detected" error, make sure this is the correct patch for your game. KK in the title means that this patch is for Koikatu and Koikatsu Party.
• If the patch seems to get stuck on the verification step but there are no error messages, it's most likely working fine. If the patch files are on a slow drive the verification might take a few minutes to complete.
• If after installing the patch Studio hangs when loading, start KKManager (it's in a folder in game directory) and click "Look for updates" at the top, then tell it to update the Studio modpack.
• If you have trouble downloading by using the magnet link, try updating your torrent client or use the latest qBittorrent (it's known to work well).
• Make sure you downloaded ALL parts to the same folder and that the parts all have the same name. You need ALL parts for the patch to work. If the installer asks you for another disc it means that your download was not extracted correctly and is missing files, or you renamed or removed some of the extracted files.
• If you see any messages about corrupted files you'll have to re-download the offending part (or all of the parts). If you downloaded the torrent, most torrent clients can "force recheck" the downloaded files so you don't have to re-download the whole thing.
• If your antivirus is flagging the .exe file make sure that you've downloaded the patch by following links in this post. If you are sure the download came from the right place, it's most likely a false positive (it's a common issue with non-signed application installers).
• On slower drives it can take a few minutes to finish verifying the files since it has to read and hash a lot of data. If you can see it's doing something in task manager then just let it run.

This is 99.9% a false positive. If it's outside of the interop folder then it's much more likely to be an actual problem.

Because of how they function, files in the interop folder are routinely false-flagged by AVs as all sorts of random things. This has been an ongoing issue in pretty much all modded games that use IL2CPP (RoomGirl, HoneyCome, SamabakeScramble).

You can easily open the dll with dnspy and check for suspicious code yourself, or upload it to virustotal and see what the consensus is.

Always report these detections to microsoft or whatever AV vendor you use so they can hopefully whitelist them or fix their algorithms.

• Only Japanese and English localizations are fully supported in most games at the moment, if you play the game in other languages then you will notice markedly worse translations after installing HF Patch.
• You can configure many plugins by Pressing F1 and then "Plugin settings". You can also see most of the plugin hotkeys in this menu (and change them).
• You only need to install the latest version of the patch. If you installed a previous version you don't have to do anything, just install the latest version as normal.
• Installing HF Patch will add free updates, which usually contain Studio (separate exe file). For many people this is the only mode they use (apart from character maker to make characters for use in studio), so it is highly recommended that you check it out. All of Koikatu HF Patch preview images were made in studio. You can see other people's creations and download their studio scenes from the Discord server and various card sharing boorus.
• During installation the patch can remove or replace files and directories inside the game directory. Only UserData folder is safe to store your files in. Before installing the patch make sure to backup any important files.
• Recent versions of the patches will automatically create a backup of your BepInEx and scripts folders inside your game directory. Look for a zip file named Plugin_Backup_*.zip.
• HF Patch does not contain the full game, paid expansions or any other pirated content. The full game needs to be already installed for the patch to work. If you want to use the VR module, also install it before patching! All paid DLC are optional and not required, you can skip them and the patch will still work fine (some features might be disabled/unavailable).
• You can install HF Patch over almost any game install and have it work perfectly, and you can run it again to enable/disable some plugins. This patch will automatically fix many broken game/mod installs and common issues. Just make sure to let it remove all old mods when asked.
• It's recommended to install all content mods if you plan to download character cards - they are required by many cards and scenes. If you find a card that is showing mod missing warnings try updating Sideloader Modpacks. This can be done with KK Manager.
• You can see other people's creations and download their studio scenes from the Discord server, bepisdb and the booru. You might need to run Update from game launcher to load some cards and scenes if they use mods not included in the patch.
• The mods included in the patch don't modify any game files and can be easily disabled by removing the "winhttp.dll" file from your game directory. Official patches and some fixes are applied permanently.
• Please leave the modders some positive feedback or help them in some other way!
• There is no warranty on this patch or on any of the included mods. You are installing this patch at your own risk. That being said, we try our best to help in case of issues. If you find any bugs, do let us know on Discord or GitHub so they can be fixed (most plugins are on GitHub, search for them and post your report in the "Issues" page).

• You can find where your game is installed by finding it in your Steam library and going > Properties > Local files > View. You have to point HF Patch to this folder.
• While the Steam versions of the games often have incompatibilities with plugins and mods made for the Japanese versions of the games, installing HF Patch solves most of these issues. You might still have issues if you want to manually mod your game later - some plugins might not be properly tested in the Steam version of the game.
• Consider pausing your updates on Steam. New updates might install automatically and break mods (which can break the game in return) with no user input. This is only applicable to newly released games.
• You can prevent Steam from showing you play the game by starting the .exe manually (not from the Steam library). Make your games private to be extra sure. The game can also run with Steam turned off. Just know that we won't judge you for your hours played :)
• If you verify game files in your Steam client, you might lose many features and have to re-run HF Patch to get them back. You can do this if you have issues as it will restore game files but not remove any of your data.
• Included fan translations are only used to fill in the gaps in official translation (DLC, studio, mods). The official English/Chinese translations are not modified.