Jump to content

Development of a dammaku game that can rival Touhou


Ctrekoz

Recommended Posts

Things like   ̀  in names and japanese words is an emphasis for the right reading;
There is a lot of text, so don't rush and read everything carefully and attentively - it is worth it, and here is everything I want you to know. Please, this is my lifework.

Sorry for the clickbait. Of course, even if you make a dammaku game with better visuals, gameplay, lore and etc. than in Touhou, you can't really believe to rival such a colossal media franchise with more than 22 years of history by making just one game, right? But everything begins with something...

Anyway, to the point:
Greetings. I'm writer working on concepts of a dammaku game which is named "Maiden Deity: The Dragonfly's Dreams", and productive worktime is more than year so far, doing 95% of things solo. This game set in completely different universe with different characters, but, mostly in terms of game design, inspired greatly by Touhou (but not only by it), so this is the best place for me to make such a post. Also, this is not Len'en-like parody, but completely serious and different project. While game universe is also greatly inspired by Touhou, it has significant differences in details, as well as some completely unique ideas compared to it. Further, all characters are original completely, not a bit inspired by the universe of ZUN, even whatever similarities you may find, being very interesting and unique in all of their aspects, be it bio, design and etc., which I will show you below.

To remain interested, look at this (you can zoom art to see every detail, just wait for its full loading):
- Sketch of the 1st boss, kijimùna Shaggygа̀icho (wings will be removed);
- Almost final art of the 2nd boss, mermaid Lady Yvѐtta Mizushì (will be number of changes, most importantly more lush tail) and her planned musical theme which will be renamed to "Surpassing Elegance ~ Splatter Dance". Currently I do not have rights on this song, but I plan to discuss it with the composer.

Current state of the team:
1. Me - team lead; producing and publishing; writing; gameplay\level\character\music design; community management; advertising; russian and english translation;
2. Characters' portraits artist and designer, who done, for now, only 2 arts that you saw, and will continue to work only when I will form the rest of the team. His style and methods of work are perfect for me, so I don't need another man on this position;
3. I have composer and sound designer in mind (maybe you know Sylvysprit). Last time we spoke, she was interested to work with me, but we discussed only schedule and prices. I want to make a "big talk" only after forming the rest of the team.
I'm looking for: 1) programmers of everything; 2) artists of backgrounds, sprites, interface, and the like; 3) gameplay and level designers. Also, even if you can't directly help in development, I welcome opinions, critique, proposals and etc. about my concepts and\or my way of work. Even if you will just say that "I like your character X a lot", it will already help me - however, I much more prefer elaborate opinions.

To gain more of your interest, I will show you below: 1) A Short overview of game's characters, levels and music; 2) Short overview of the game universe in comparison with Touhou; 3) Features of the project; 4) Concepts of the game's universe, main heroine and first 3 levels (including midbosses, bosses, attacks and etc.); 5) Notes to programmers, artists, composer\sound designer, payment standing and thoughts on the success of the project.

Important!
- Everything is spoiler-free;
- Please, pay high attention to the notes (to the right of the documents - just click on brown text to see a proper note), hyperlinks, and also, you can use Table of contents to the left;
- Main Heroine and 3rd boss currently don't have a sketch or art, but you may read about their visual design and look at design references;
- Even if you will not be impressed by, let's say, Main Heroine, and will think "nah, priestess bla-bla-bla", please read about other characters - currently, I am most proud of 3rd boss. Everyone has different tastes, but I also offer a variety of character types;
- Main Heroine's and Levels' concepts have Shorten and Full versions. Choose Shorten first (highly recommended) if you want to read less text and not interested in very specific game design details and text description of visual design of first 2 bosses;
- There is too much of inspirational music to listen at once and some compositions are looped, so you may left most of the compositions for later;
- Remember that english is not my main language, so maybe some wordings in these files are not perfectly beautiful, mostly regarding character's bio. It can be worked out, of course.

General
1. A Short overview of game characters, levels and music (1.5 p.)
2. To break your bias about "Touhou clone", let me give you a Short overview of the game universe in comparison with Touhou (1.5 p.)
3. Features of the project (3 p.)

Game universe
1. "Prehistory" (1 p.)
2. "Deities and other mystical creatures" (1 p.)
3. "Spirit" (1 p.)
4. "Arts and Battles of the Spirit" (1.5 p.)

Main Heroine
1. Shorten (5 p.)
2. Full (5.5 p.)
3. Design references (21)

Level 1
1. Shorten (5 p.)
2. Full (6 p.)
3. Sketch of the boss (wings will be removed)
4. Design references (12)

Level 2
1. Shorten (7.5 p.)
2. Full (11 p.)
3. Almost final art of the boss (will be number of changes, most importantly more lush tail)
4. Her planned musical theme
5. Design references (54)

Level 3
Here I decided to provide only the full version of the Concept, since I think that this will be better for the perception of the character
1. Full (13 p.)
2. Design references (68)

Development notes
1. Notes to programmers (3.5 p.)
2. Notes to artists (1 p.)
3. Notes to composer\sound designer (2 p.)
4. Payment (2 p.)
5. Thoughts on the success of the project (1.5 p.)

A lot of writing is done beyond the first Main Hero and 3 levels, but there is no sense to place it here (around 48 more pages currently, compared to 68.5 pages of content that I provided right here). Approximately 85% of full game writing is done.
If you are interested, here is the overview of current writing progress (1 p.), i'm not hiding anything.
In any case, the closest goal right now is to make a demo with first 1-3 levels to allow crowdfunding, and for this writing is done fully - while making demo, I will, obviously, continue my work.

Contacts
Maiden Deity's Discord
My Twitter
Discord - Ctrekoz#5174
Or write a message here

Thank you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ctrekoz said:

1) programmers of everything; 2) artists of backgrounds, sprites, interface, and the like; 3) gameplay and level designers.

1) Well, I know a bit of programming, but I'm a novice and certainly not prepared to do something under the pressure of having to work hard enough and regularly enough to live up to a boss's expectations.

2) I make pixel art sprites for my own projects but they're trash lol.

3) Actually, I can maybe offer a few pointers on this (although bullet hell is not the genre of game I'm normally interested in making).

I can't say I'm really interested by your project, but I will at least post some of my thoughts on your project as feedback in the spoiler tab below.

*protip - you can use the spoiler tab to hide massive text walls*

Spoiler

-First off, I'd just like to point out that your main character concept has uncanny similarities with Reimu. Even if you claim that your characters take 0 inspiration from Touhou, first impressions matter and a lot of people are going to join the dots and think 'Oh, it's just trying to be Touhou'. That's certainly my impression from this. Just a word of warning, nothing wrong with having a priestess main character but really I suggest trying to pull away from the whole shrine-maiden design if the game is going to be a bullet hell shooter that already has enough similarities with Touhou.

-In your 'notes to programmers' document you mentioned having a deathbomb window of 0.5 seconds. I'm not sure you realise how big that window is. As a comparison, iirc the deathbomb window in Touhou is 6 frames (with the exception of Imperishable Night, which has  a weird variable deathbomb system). Of course you can make your deathbomb window more forgiving if you want it that way, but it needs to be tight otherwise players won't be afraid of the bullets at all as long as they still have bombs in stock, which ruins the tension of trying to dodge the bullets and ruins the tension of pulling off a deathbomb in a clutch moment and having a second chance at life.

-You should think about how your players will try to deal with your bullet patterns, i.e. where the bullets are more/less dense, where the player will try to move to avoid them, and how much time the player has to react to slower/faster bullets, etc. One of the reasons EoSD is my favourite Touhou game is because its patterns make you use all of the space the screen has to offer, not just camping at the bottom in front of the boss for the entire game.

-Using another example from EoSD here, try to give all of your weapons their own identity/different strengths. In EoSD, Persuasion needle is a mix of power and wide range that also has the highest DPS when used at point-blank range, Magic missile can do a lot of damage even at long distance, Illusion laser has instant travel-time, piercing properties, and the most powerful bomb, and the Homing amulet has the lowest DPS but can reach enemies from anywhere on the screen and is great at taking out weak enemies.

-Classic era Touhou games also have a thing where when you reach full power mode it plays a satisfying noise and clears all the bullets on the screen and sucks them in as points. I can't really explain why but it feels really good. I think you should put that in your game, it's the thing I miss most from classic Touhou games in the newer ones.

-Remember that Danmaku shooters are effectively autoscrollers, but for the entire game; there are few places where the player can change how soon a level ends, they always have to follow the pace the game is going at. Because of this it is incredibly important to make sure your levels aren't boring, even if your boss fights are really good.

-Even if you have lots of fancy lore, the gameplay itself actually needs to have some kind of mechanic that makes it its own thing, and not just alternate universe Touhou. Seriously, it's the main thing disinteresting me from your project right now. And not just some small gimmick like the UFOs in Touhou 12, or the trance mode in Touhou 13. It needs to be something pivotal that the game focuses on, like how Doom 2016 added a glory kill system that ridiculously upped the pace of the game, or how Sonic took Mario's platforming base and added an emphasis on speed and branching paths. You can't just do Touhou again with some some new patterns and call it your own.

-And finally, some praise: good on you for using the classic bomb system. I find that the bomb system in Touhou 10/11 is straight up counter intuitive for a bullet hell game (not to mention really uninteresting in MoF).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder how this game will turn out. Try to make sure no one becomes a Mary Sue

ヽ(*・ω・)ノ I also drew a picture of what I think Yuriko looks like based on your design notes for fun. The outfit should probably be shorter and I didn't give her legs but oh well. ╮(─▽─)╭ I guess it's your first fanart

Spoiler

Yuriko.thumb.jpg.374297e9e9a6dcdc4bbfcd09c58a7ef8.jpg

She has an ahoge not a ponytail and the white thing below her sleeves is some kind of cape robe thing. The line should be connected ╮(─▽─)╭

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

good to see you're still going at this. I personally still find the copyrighting of work a bit of a flag, however the main thing I wanted to point out is that with the kickstarting/crowdfunding it's going to be important that you don't estimate for what you think you can get, but to estimate the amount it'll take to support yourself and your teammates in their endeavors. While you might not pass the initial crowdfund barrier, I'd think it's preferable to fail to start than to reach 30% completion and total dedication only to run out of funds.

W2HhOfH.pngThe ケロ happened here?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've made some updates to pitch in overall and to formatting of documents, but most importantly, design references now have separate hyperlinks, and now each text document is hyperlinked to Google Docs instead of Drive, so you can see Table of contents to the left, proper formatting, and in overall documents are much easier to read, you don't need to manually open them for this in Docs anymore.

Under spoiler I had answered on your feedback, thank you very much for it!

Spoiler

 

Quote

not prepared to do something under the pressure of having to work hard enough and regularly enough to live up to a boss's expectations

Quality control is the thing indeed, but there is no time pressure.

Quote

your main character concept has uncanny similarities with Reimu

As was said, with Reimu Yuriko shares only gender, partly activities, the status of the main character and relation to the deity and temples. The writing of the full game is 85% done currently (almost 100 A4 pages, or even more than 100 if counting Author's materials and documents like "Features of the project" and etc.), so i'm not going to change anything. I think that more important first impressions of the first time player will be part of lore unlocked from the start, a different from Touhou and very qualitative art style of the game, its music, that first boss is male, interesting and funny dialogue with him, and that his special attacks use projectiles looking like real apples, huh, which will be enough for them to have interest for further playing and learning of the lore. Believe me, Yuriko is very unique and greatly differs from Reimu. Well, let's wait for her full art, ha-ha.
By the way, the rest of the cast has very little of "first impression similarities" to Touhou characters, even next to none I guess, except Lady Yvetta, who can be compared to Wakasagihime since they are both mermaids, but you can already see how much Yvie is different thanks to her existing art.

Quote

I'm not sure you realise how big that window is.

This can be adjusted, no problems.

Quote

Using another example from EoSD here, try to give all of your weapons their own identity/different strengths.

Of course. For example, first type of attack of the second Main Character will be very powerful and wide, but its maximum traversing distance is only about a bit higher than middle of the screen, if he will shoot from the lowest point.

Quote

Classic era Touhou games also have a thing where when you reach full power mode it plays a satisfying noise and clears all the bullets on the screen and sucks them in as points.

Interesting note to look at, thank you. On the other hand, it can lead to abuse by making some parts of the levels way easier, when player intentionnaly doesn't reach the full power, delaying this moment. It reminds me about constant "I NEED TO GRAZE" in DDC however too - I mean, player may worry too much about "I need to not get full power, I need to dodge this power items".

Quote

You can't just do Touhou again with some some new patterns and call it your own.

Sometimes you don't need to invent a wheel just for the sake of it, and even if you do, your wheel can turn out to be square-shape. Art style, music, lore, approach to special attacks are different, 5 levels instead of 6, when 4th and 5th levels are really different depending on the Main Character, double boss fight with two unique characters fighting together, most of the bosses tell something midfight, etc. . The most interesting thing, however, is special attacks: I emphasize their realism and clarity, where name of the attack, most of the time, is directly related to its visual part, where there is no dissonance and explicit contrast, when the visual part is just some kind of conditional abstract patterns, like most of them in Touhou. At different levels of difficulty, Special Attacks becomes more difficult not just due to the greater number of projectiles, but they can also significantly change their properties, there can be new types of projectiles, new sound effects, new visuals, new boss’s animations, as in general each Special Attack have a certain theme, which progresses depending on the difficulty, both in the flavor sense (name of the attack and the comment to it), and gameplay wise. For example, one of the bosses has a Special Attack tied to the types of arrows: whistling (Easy-Normal), flaming (Hard), explosive (Insane) - whistling are quite standard, but with an interesting sound effect, flaming will leave a fiery trail behind them, as well as scatter sparks behind, in front and on the sides, and about explosive everything is obvious. I'm planning to actively use projectiles that look like real items: apples, arrows, feathers, and so on.

Thank you for the feedback!

Quote

I also drew a picture of what I think Yuriko looks like based on your design notes for fun.

Hahaha, this is veeery cute, thank you! Seems like something that Shaggygaicho could drew!

 

Also, here is some interesting answers on some questions about the lore and characters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good answers. This project actually kinda interests me now my worries about it have (mostly) been brushed aside. The link you provided at the bottom was very helpful to read.

Now maybe you already said this in onw of your lore documents, I didn't really read all the lore stuff so sorry if you are repeating yourself, but could you answer some questions about the setting? Firstly, I'd like to know about the religion of your setting - what it's called, what the places of worship are, whether it's widespread or not, etc etc, since that seems to be a main theme in your game considering your main protag is a priestess. (I'd also be interested to know if she is the only priestess around or if she is part of a network of priests and priestesses.) Secondly, I'd like to know what the significance of your version of the 'outside world' is in the plot - because if it doesn't have any relevance, then you might as well not even mention it.

Below is a spoiler tab with more conversation about the actual gameplay design.

Spoiler

 

19 hours ago, Ctrekoz said:

As was said, with Reimu Yuriko shares only gender, partly activities, the status of the main character and relation to the deity and temples. The writing of the full game is 85% done currently (almost 100 A4 pages, or even more than 100 if counting Author's materials and documents like "Features of the project" and etc.), so i'm not going to change anything. I think that more important first impressions of the first time player will be part of lore unlocked from the start, a different and very qualitative art style of the game, its music, that first boss is a male, interesting and funny dialogue with him, and that his special attack use projectiles looking like real apples, which will be enough for them to have interest for further playing and learning of the lore. Believe me, Yuriko is very unique and greatly differs from Reimu. Well, let's wait for her full art, ha-ha.

It isn't her background that concerns me, since the player will learn about that through the game. It's more about her aesthetic. I mean, since the art for her isn't done yet there's plenty of time to change it. I'm not talking a full rework, just some tweaking to make it stand out as its own thing. I'm just saying to be careful that your character doesn't suggest 'clone' when people look at her. I'd say that her throwing Shinto talismans like Reimu does is currently the biggest offender of the 'clone' mentality. Personally here's what I would do: what if, instead of throwing her talismans, she wore them around her neck and instead used their power to materialise weapons or magic or whatever using the power of dreams that she has?

Btw, does Yuriko have a tool or weapon of some kind that she carries, like Reimu's gohei? Giving her a long staff with, just as a random example, a crescent moon on the end, already does A LOT to define her character from a visual standpoint, as she now has a characteristic item that suggests things about her (spiritual, magic user, etc). Obviously it doesn't need to be a staff with a crescent moon on the end, that's just what I thought of seeing as her religion is associated with dreams.

19 hours ago, Ctrekoz said:

Interesting note to look at, thank you. On the other hand, it can lead to abuse by making some parts of the levels way easier, when player intentionnaly doesn't reach the full power, delaying this moment. It reminds me about constant "I NEED TO GRAZE" in DDC however too - I mean, player may worry too much about "I need to not get full power, I need to dodge this power items".

I totally understand your point. That would be exactly why ZUN removed that mechanic from future Touhou games. The mechanic is a really nice complement to gathering power though, but I get your point about the player worrying too much. However when I play I don't really think about saving it, I just go for it when I'm nearly at full power, which feels amazing because you can dive into really risky situations to try and get that last P and if you manage then everything gets cleared and you come out alive, and at full power. It can also give the player a small sense of reassurance when they are hit and lose power, knowing they can get a free screen clear soon by picking power up again. If you don't want to add it for fear of players being able to 'cheese' some of your sections as well then I understand that as well. However, you don't have to copy/paste mechanics in one for one, you can always tweak them to fit your game design. My personal solution would be:

- Make 'clear at full power' a toggleable option so players who don't want it can opt to not use it. During extra stage the option is always turned off.

Some other solutions could be:

- Make full power mode give you a small period of invincibility and clear bullets very close to you, but that's it. (A solution that's functional, but not very satisfying.)

- Make full power mode clear the screen, but only after you lose a life at full power, and only if you regain full power before the stage ends. (helps you feel better after you get hit, but probably a difficult concept to explain to your player.)

But if you don't want to use it at all that's fine. I just really like it. But I do think something that's worth noting is that a lot of ZUN's games actually want you to cheat against the bullets. As examples, HSiFS gives you a power to clear bullets and increases your score multiplier each time you clear bullets, in turn giving you more 1-ups, which encourages you to use this power often to delete the massive waves of pretty bullets ZUN had lovingly prepared for you. In TD, you can keep attacking even after you get hit, and you even become more powerful in this state. And in the spinoff game GFW, the only way to increase your power is by actively removing bullets using your freeze ability.

Of course, the Touhou series has also had its fair share of games like LoLK, which just want to straight up murder you.

 

By the way, how do plan to handle the earning of extra lives and bombs? It's changed so many times throughout the Touhou series. Do you plan to copy one of the systems used in the games, or create your own system? Out of the systems used in the games, my favourites are systems that give you a life or bomb in one whole go, rather than collecting pieces. Collecting pieces just never felt very good to me.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm kinda interested in this, have wanted to work in public for some time. I can help in programming, i have used C# a lot with Unity, and i have been using Rust a lot lately. I'm actually developing a danmakufu alternative in Rust, so helping a game come true will probably help me in my own project. I can also help in Turkish translation, if that matters. I don't do art or music, so can't help with that.

My concern is, will the game be closed source or open source (with paid version on platforms like Steam?). The software (the code) could be licensed with something like Apache 2.0. Artistic works can be licensed separately. I believe code being open would accelerate development.

Other than that, the game sounds quite great. I haven't read all of those long long pages, but i got the base idea (i guess).

EDIT: I have *just* read some of the notes (i haven't seen programmer's notes for some reason). The part about copyright probably means that code will not be open source. Which is okay for me. As i only want to help, payment is not really important for me, i'm just trying to get my hands dirty in something like this, mainly to make a portfolio for the future. As you probably noticed, i'm all in for open source stuff, so that's why i recommended it :D.

All hail Linux, praise FLOSS!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wall of text incoming.

Spoiler

 

I highly suggest you to read first 3 documents of Game universe section and bio of Yuriko, Main Heroine (since the latter covers her life in Human World, how she become priestess, and how Yumehana, youkai world, was created), it's not a big amount of text really, but I will describe some details in this answer anyway.

First of all, my universe has Human World, which is analogue of Outside World of Touhou, and Yumehа̀na ("Dream Flower"), which is analogue of Gensokyo, but about latter there is two really big differences. Firstly, for centuries, and until events of the game, there was no humans in it at all, and even following "The Dragonfly's Dreams" events, only 2 humans had appeared here - Yuriko and the second Main Character. Secondly, deities of my universe and most of the youkai doesn't need "faith" to exist and thus, there is no need for them to gather it - instead, they simply draw energy from phenomena and objects connected to their origin and controlled by them. For example, Goddess of Dreams and Wishes was born from spiritual enegry provided by dreams and wishes of humanity and youkai beings, so she passively draws energy from this phenomena, without seeking anyone for actively worshipping her. For mor clarity, I must explain that humans appeared in my universe before youkai, and the latter are born either from: 1) "passive" spiritual energy that surrounds all kinds of phenomena like faith, emotions, thoughts, human culture concepts, even historical events, and such; 2) active development of a certain mystical figure, for example, creating image of deity and woshipping it, which then may come to life; 3) or they can be created directly by using Spirit.

Religion is not the main theme of my game. Yuriko has title of a priestess not because she follows certain religion and spreads it, but because she follows a deity. On the other hand, most of the gods in my universe has title of deities not because they are connected to religion, but because they have immense power over the phenomena they are related with - for example, Goddess of Dreams and Wishes, as was said above, was born not thankfully to religion, and she is one of the most powerful beings in my universe, having complete control over the dreams and wishes of humanity, youkai and her own self. What kind of followers she had in the Human World then? Well, it was not a religion, but more of a teaching, philosophy: she wanted to gather goodhearted humans with strong Spirit, teach them how to protect themselves and others around them against evil youkai and yami, show them that most of the youkai are kind beings, she wanted peace and mutual understanding, and, of course, she needed help in responding to dark events that were coming. Granted all of this, I don't think that there is much of a religion in Yumehana, but what about Human World then? Well, my idea is that Human World very resembles ours, with its different nations and religions, but why then my setting is japanese you will ask, why all gods are japanese? Well, I didn't said that Yumehana is strictly japanese world and that, for example, Goddess of Dreams and Wishes is inspired only by japanese myths, haha. Mystical creatures doesn't have a nationality, and the most powerful deities and youkai can take any shape they like - I guess, some of them like japanese culture more. Yes, this game is very japanese, but it doesn't mean that the whole game universe is like that. On the other hand, events of the Human World are not exactly the same as in real life history, so it's a quite a field for speculations too. In overall, I believe that, of course, the joint existence of deities, other mystical creatures and humans, before the creation of Yumehana, could not pass without a trace. Nowadays, in the Human World, the influence of religion (which one - depends, just like in reality) is quite significant, just like humans worship really existing, or those that existed before, deities and other mystical creatures, but the latter try to "respond" and intervene in the doings of humanity minimally - in the end, the world of Yumehana was created to separate humans and mystical creatures, limiting the influence of the latter on the former.

You know, Yuriko can easily go along with the title of "Maiden of Dreams and Wishes", which is perfectly connects with the game's "Maiden Deity" title, and it will be something additional to set her apart from Reimu too, but i don't know, it sounds kinda... pretentious, maybe. Or maybe it is better to not have such a connection to the title, leaving it to be more "subtle". Of course, if there will be more games and other works in this universe, I plan to use many diverse titles even regarding the same character.

I really want to develope this universe throught series of games and even printed materials, like Touhou, so since "The Dragonfly's Dreams" is only the first game, I can't say that there is some big revelations in terms of "main theme", which is, I think, "differences and similarities of youkai and humans, are the humans worthy of living freely, and etc.". This game sets universe, footing, and as was mentioned in the Reddit-link in the reply above, there is actually a lot of intersting topics raised in the game anyway, mostly, subtly. Both character's stories are mostly about learning the new astonishing world that they found themselves in, being guided to Temple of Dreams by the dream that they saw before, and Yuriko's plot culminates with the reunion with her mistress, while the second Main Character receives some interesting conversation about meaning of life, and, I think, I will even answer this question - keep in mind that his final boss is completely different, however. Ending of the Extra stage will happily depict the whole cast together :).

As for significance of the Human World, I think you already understand it, but to note a couple more: 1) humans and youkai once lived together in the same world, but couldn't do it anymore because of the events described in "1. Prehistory" and Yuriko's bio; 2) Yuriko and the second Main Character are both humans wich come from the Human World, and... hmm, Lady Yvetta is too appeared from somewhere... Anyway, the best way is to read first 3 Game universe documents and Yuriko's bio.

Quote

It's more about her aesthetic

I understand your concern. Yuriko has 3 most important things that define her visual design and which are used in her attacks: 1) waxwings; 2) lilies; 3) shinto amulets. While first 2 easily set her apart from Reimu and unique by themselves in overall, situation with amulets is more interesting than you think. Reimu uses "ofuda" type of amulets, while Yuriko uses "omamori" type, when the main difference between them that the first type serves for the protection of entire household, while omamori is portable and helps the person who wields it (there is a lot of types of omamori, like, for example, some can protect against evil spirits, some can bring luck in personal affairs like education, business, and so on). Yuriko wields two omamori - one is intended to protect against evil, and another brings the luck in education (the latter is a memo from the times when she trained to receive the title of a priestess). Another difference is that Reimu uses her amulets very much offensively, and her barrier techniques is more of a "wall" that she places somewhere that can explode, push someone, teleport attacks and etc., while Yuriko prefers to use her amulets defensively, and her only currently planned to be shown barrier technique forms a "shield" from countless omamori, which will quickly circle around her once she perfoms her Special Attack (Spirit Art). I mean, in the first type of attack, Yuriko uses her amulets actively only in her "Bomb", while "common" attacks mostly include lilies and waxwings, where amulets only passively circles around her, doing damage to those who gets too close.

And yes, she can do a lot of things thanks to the power of dreams and wishes, but I guess you need to wait for s boss fight with her in another game to see that :D.

Quote

Btw, does Yuriko have a tool or weapon of some kind that she carries, like Reimu's gohei?

No, she doesn't. I think that 3 traits described above are enough to define her, and, in fact, I believe that with carried weapon she will resemble Reimu even more. Also, I like to think that her completely free arms supplement her kind-hearted, amicable and harmonius, spiritual image. Funny how Sanae resembles Reimu a lot more that Yuriko does, but Sanae still feels unique and she is very popular in Touhou fandom.

You know, i'm aiming at thoughtful people. Of course, there will be a lot of haters and those who will instantly drop the game since "nah, Touhou-clone", but others, more reasonable players, even while may being sceptical at first, will try to play, to read things, and with each new character that they will meet, with each more document they will read, they will understand more and more, they will drop their scepticism, they will truly love this universe. Fan art, telling to their friends, writing of positive reviews, explaining that this is not a Touhou-clone and you really must try it yourself, it is worth your time and it's really good, and so on - all of this will help enough. Well, even easier - screenshots and gameplay videos will depict not only Yuriko, of course :).

You know, it's funny how if the second Main Character would've be shown first, then there would've be pretty different situation. He is male, he does not resembles any Touhou character, he is not a priest, but warrior, represents pretty known class in feudal Japan, but not something banal like samurai, ronin or ninja. His weapon of choice is not banal too. Or look at Saiko Sokudo - she perfectly fits into position of the main character, and I will gladly put her in this position in the second game (if it will came out someday). But, ah, plot reasons, I cannot do anything about it.

Quote

The mechanic is a really nice complement to gathering power though

Haha, I've played in Touhou a lot and understand that feeling. I'm not sure about it still, but I will keep this in mind - different options can be tried.

Quote

By the way, how do plan to handle the earning of extra lives and bombs?

Just the whole Lives and Bombs without any pieces.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, yusdacra said:

I'm kinda interested in this, have wanted to work in public for some time. I can help in programming, i have used C# a lot with Unity, and i have been using Rust a lot lately. I'm actually developing a danmakufu alternative in Rust, so helping a game come true will probably help me in my own project. I can also help in Turkish translation, if that matters. I don't do art or music, so can't help with that.

My concern is, will the game be closed source or open source (with paid version on platforms like Steam?). The software (the code) could be licensed with something like Apache 2.0. Artistic works can be licensed separately. I believe code being open would accelerate development.

Other than that, the game sounds quite great. I haven't read all of those long long pages, but i got the base idea (i guess).

EDIT: I have *just* read some of the notes (i haven't seen programmer's notes for some reason). The part about copyright probably means that code will not be open source. Which is okay for me. As i only want to help, payment is not really important for me, i'm just trying to get my hands dirty in something like this, mainly to make a portfolio for the future. As you probably noticed, i'm all in for open source stuff, so that's why i recommended it :D.

This is good to hear! You can join project's Discord for being in touch in #development channel. The most important info is currenly in this topic, but Discord offers life chat and I have one programmer in team already with who you can try to cooperate, but I don't know about any progress he made, if any.

About closed or open source there is 3 options: 1) closed source with paid release; 2) open source with paid release; 3) open source with free release. I tend the most to 1st, then to 2nd, then to 3rd. 2nd option is complicated since most of the participant will want to share a profit from paid release, but idk in what exact amounts, and how many participants I will need to award then - can be too many. I think better to stick with 1st option, and then move to the 2nd or 3rd if necessary.

And, ah, I don't think you will have enough dedication to translate so many of text on turkish while also doing programming :D. Well, will see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/14/2019 at 8:50 AM, Ctrekoz said:

This is good to hear! You can join project's Discord for being in touch in #development channel. The most important info is currenly in this topic, but Discord offers life chat and I have one programmer in team already with who you can try to cooperate, but I don't know about any progress he made, if any.

About closed or open source there is 3 options: 1) closed source with paid release; 2) open source with paid release; 3) open source with free release. I tend the most to 1st, then to 2nd, then to 3rd. 2nd option is complicated since most of the participant will want to share a profit from paid release, but idk in what exact amounts, and how many participants I will need to award then - can be too many. I think better to stick with 1st option, and then move to the 2nd or 3rd if necessary.

And, ah, I don't think you will have enough dedication to translate so many of text on turkish while also doing programming :D. Well, will see.

I will need to get a new Discord account as my only account was suspended. The reason is not very important (it's both unfair and a bit my fault), but if you want to know why just message me. Hope that is not a problem ????

I'm fine with closed source, the reason i recommended open source code was for getting faster bug reports and more easy debugging for players. But that can be solved by implementing debugging mode into the game, i believe.

Yeah, it will probably be hard for me to translate while also doing programming. Was just thinking about it, setting up something like Weblate would be a better idea for this.

All hail Linux, praise FLOSS!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.