Abyss Soul Lotus

Abyss Lotus Lotus was made using the Unity engine funnily enough, an oddity considering that the developer also made "Shining Shooting Star" which was made using the LuaSTG engine.

NB: A Practice Mode archive is going to be included in this page. Due to how it's implemented you won't be able to both use this mod and the pre-included English Patch, you gotta choose one or the other.

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Description:​

First things first; What the hell happens in this game? Well, today's incident is a snowstorm that stripped every single resident of Gensokyo of their magic, as a result the Hakurei Barrier is disintegrating, and if left unchecked will cause the end of all your favorite characters.
Because someone needs to be your shot type, the Sages made a device called an "Aether Generator" from the remaining magical energy left in Gensokyo, which will be used for solving this incident as a last resort magic supply.
...Or you can be Miko and shrug it off because you technically weren't there, convenient.

Basic Overview (Survival):​

This game features the Tag System seen in Imperishable Night, with 3 different teams this time, each one with their own quirks and abilities.
After you choose your team, you'll notice a few things;

• There are no bombs. Instead, a timer starts at 24 minutes in a normal run and 12 inside the extra stage and continues to tick down throughout your run. Why? Story reasons, that's the time left before the Hakurei Barrier completely disintegrates. Also because of gameplay which will be explained further down the line.
• In the gameplay screen, there are two seperate gauges: The left one is called "Barrier Protection", the one on the right is called the "Barrier Fragment Multiplier Gauge" (That's what the BF Multiplier is used for.)
  • "Barrier Protection" (BP) can be filled up to 3 charges at one time, allowing you to take a "hit" at the cost of 1 charge. Once you run out of them, you lose a life.
    It's also used for a "Barrier Release". Very similar to HSiFS, pressing the bomb button when all 3 charges are avaliable allows you to summon a circle around the player which cancels bullets. However, there's more to it:
    • "Border Release" (Release) consists of an activation period, where pressing the bomb button summons the Release. After that a "timer" will appear on top of the character's head. That's your Sustain period. After this timer ticks down fully you enter the Reflux state, giving you a screen clear. During Sustain you can chain releases, but that's for the scoring section.
  • "Barrier Fragment Multiplier Gauge" (BFM Gauge) is an indicator on how much barrier fragments will fill up your Barrier Protection. It acts as a multiplier, from 1x to 3x.
    Now, how would you keep up the maximum amount of barrier fragments at all times? By switching characters using the C button. Since the multiplier only triggers when you switch, it'll deplete down to 1x, which then can be repeated again and again.
• Going back to the timer, creating a tense atmosphere using gameplay is cool and but what happens when it hits 0? Your "Barrier Protection" gauge is null and void, which means you'll get one hit per life. More info in the scoring section.

So the best way to get your clear is this: Don't let the timer hit zero use your "Border Protection" like a shield, and switch characters to get their BFM bonuses.

Extended Overview (Scoring)​

Each team has two abilities depending on who you pick as the leader, Global Passives and Barrier Types are homogenous between team alts:

• (Reimu and Yukari):
  • Leader Bonus:
    • Reimu: When switching to Yukari, Ran will join you as a familiar just like in IN depending on your Border Fragment Multiplier, for an upwards of 5.5 seconds.
    • Yukari: When switching, shot damage increases depending on your Border Fragment Multiplier, to a maximum of 2.5x.
  • Global Passive: Larger deathbomb window, smaller hitbox.
  • Border Type: Scarlet, Release time and i-frames are longer, but the radius is smaller, your standard Release.
• (Marisa and Okina):
  • Leader Bonus:
    • Marisa: Switching shots will power it up, increasing both its rate of fire and its damage. The duration is dictated by your BF Multiplier.
    • Okina: Switching shots while your BF Multiplier is at its maximum will shoot out extra, high damaging lasers. During it, you're invulnerable to damage.
  • Global Passive: Lower PoC, bigger hitbox.
  • Border Type: Amber, Full screen radius and faster Border Release/Reflux, but it's a screen clear.
• (Byakuren and Miko):
  • Leader Bonus:
    • Byakuren: When switching shots, your charge attack (which is triggered by timing the focus button. Think of it as DDC Reimu A) will increase its damage and radius, up to a maximum of 2x depending on your BF multiplier.
    • Miko: When switching shots, charge time will decrease down to half at most, depending on your BF multiplier.
  • Global Passive: Keeping up a charge attack will slowly refill your border gauge.
  • Border Type: Violet, Larger than the Reimu Release, but is around your character instead of a fixed trajectory.

The PIV in this game is interesting; the only way you can raise it is by...Releasing! Raising up your PIV optimally requires you to route and chain Releases, in fact the game encourages you to do so because of the Sustain period. When the timer appears on top of your character, max out your BP gauge again and retrigger a release. This will screen clear and turn your bullets into Golden Fragments, increasing the value of blue point items by 0.1 for each chain.

Another thing is how the timer works; You can't add more time...but you can delay it.
Let's take 3 variables for our example; S, P and Z
For every S Frames, the timer ticks down by P ticks (A tick here is around 5ms in terms of the timer), however if Z>0, then P ticks will only tick down every S x 15 Frames. In that case, Z will decrement by 1 every frame until it drops back to 0.
What are S and P? They're two variables used in this equation, their values depend on your difficulty select:
Let's say you're playing Lunatic, for every frame the timer ticks down by 1 tick, but if Z>0, then for every 15 frames, the timer only ticks down by 1 tick.
Now, how can i increase Z to slow down the timer? There are two ways:

1. Grazing; Increases Z by 1 for every graze.
2. Collecting Border Fragments; Increases Z by 1 for every item.
   Golden Fragments are even better with an increase of 2! See where this is going?

Losing a life however decreases the timer by a fixed amount, depending on your difficulty select:

Last Spells exist on Stage 4, 5 and 6. To trigger them, have 18 minutes or more in your timer at the final spell of the Stage 3 Boss, also you need to have cleared the game at least once on both the same difficulty and the same shot type.

Extra Notes (Numbers):​

This section details the precise values of each collectible items.

Table for relevant Difficulty-dependent variables:

Blue Point Items: Dropped by various enemies.

• Increases score by PIV * ChainMultiplier

Life Fragments: If filled to the maximum when the life gauge is already full, increases score by 10000000.

Small Snowflake Items: Generated by cancelling bullets from Border activations.

• Increases PIV by 16.

Gray Border Fragments: Generated by cancelling bullets from Border Reflux (unchained).

• Increases the Timer's Z by 1.
• Increases the Border gauge by:
  • Code:

    If BorderGauge is in range [0%..99%]: FragmentValue * 0.5
    If BorderGauge is in range [100%..199%]: FragmentValue * 0.5 * 0.75
    If BorderGauge is in range [200%..299%]: FragmentValue * 0.5 * 0.5

White Border Fragments: Generated by cancelling bullets from killing small stage enemies.

• Increases the Timer's Z by 1.
• Increases the Border gauge by:
  • Code:

    If BorderGauge is in range [0%..99%]: 1%
    If BorderGauge is in range [100%..199%]: 0.75%
    If BorderGauge is in range [200%..299%]: 0.5%

Red/Purple Border Fragments: Functionally the same item, the only difference being that switching your shot type toggles the color to the other. Generated by cancelling bullets from killing stage enemies, large-area bullet cancels from killing large stage enemies, and other screen-wide bullet clears (i.e. before boss encounters or when depleting boss health bars).

• Increases score by 100.
• Increases the Border Fragment Multiplier Gauge by MultiplierAdd.
• Increases the Timer's Z by 1.
• Increases the Border gauge by:
  • If BorderGauge is in range [0%..99%]:   FragmentValue * FragmentMultiplier
If BorderGauge is in range [100%..199%]:   FragmentValue * FragmentMultiplier * 0.75
If BorderGauge is in range [200%..299%]:   FragmentValue * FragmentMultiplier * 0.5

Golden Border Fragments: Generated by cancelling bullets from Border chaining.

• Increases score by PIV / 12 * ChainMultiplier
• Increases the Timer's Z by 2.
• Increases the Border gauge by:
  • baseValue = FragmentValue
If in a spell card: baseValue = baseValue * 0
If BorderGauge is in range [0%..99%]: baseValue
If BorderGauge is in range [100%..199%]: baseValue * 0.75
If BorderGauge is in range [200%..299%]: baseValue * 0.5