Resource Management---Touhou Fuujinroku

All the resources are intangible; unless they come in the form of power-ups (Extra Life or Extra option power-ups are tangible to the players). Character’s life stocks are always player’s resource to continue the game until the end. We don’t have to worry about the ammo when shooting for it would be ridiculous to have limited number of ammo. The designer of Touhou 10 states that he has render the concept down to the very basic of the Touhou shooting, the result is us players don’t have to consider about the cherry point or any additional scoring mechanics. Hold down “z” key, look for the timing to bomb, and don’t get hit is everything considering the resource management.


Source and drain---
For a shoot-them-up game, the fundamental resource of Touhou 10 is some what similar to FF12--- the mob. After destroying each of the mobs that are coming at players, the point items and the power items are what all players aiming at. Reasons are:

Enough point = extra life
Enough power = enough options = more bomb

As already explained in previous blog, players literally have infinite amount of bomb if controlled well. So in a skilled player, using bomb is essentially not drain, but gain at some point.
Converter and trader---
Basically, the game converts two things--- from score to extra life and from power to extra bomb. Touhou series never really had a trader (hey, we are shooting, we don’t have time to trade).

Production mechanism---
There isn’t one in Touhou 10 because the attacking patterns are already set within it.

Feedback Loop, Deadlocks---
When the character is hit, some power item will fly out of where player was hit. It is the only chance for quick recover in power. One thing to mention again, if players continued, they don’t continue from where the character died, they have to replay the entire level.

Resource Management---Final Fantasy 12

Source ---intangible and tangible
Hp and mp are presented in both numbers and bars as the indication of the intangible source. By the way, I really wish I can see much hp and mp I have above my head.
As an RPG, the most important and the only sources of money in this game are treasure chests and monsters (tangible because we can visually count them in numbers). In the early part of this game, the easiest loots are wolf pelt, teeth, iron ore, any cheap stuff, you name it. Players, don’t hesitate, those things are meant to be sold. After players sell them, making about 4000 gil (currency unit in FF12) in ten minutes is not that hard. Further more, we still have treasure chest that could also contain gils and some valuable items.









Drain---
However, look on the other side, 4000 gil is not much if we compare the income with the money players could be spending (very little in fact). Items, such as the potions, players might not need them at the beginning of the game. But as the story goes on, players might get to a point where they start spending money on not just armors or weapons, also on skills and magic, too. Yes, to learn a skill or a magic, players must get it both on licence board AND from shops. So let’s do some math------

Skills: average about 7000 gil each.
Magic: average 6000 gil each.
Weapons and armors: whatever the price is times 2~6 if some players want to buy more than 1 for the team members.

The more powerful these abilities are the more expensive they get. The good thing is abilities are permanent once players buy it.

Traders---
In FF12, there are traders all over the world. They are the converters makes items into money. Some sell common battle items; some sell special skills, maps, and items. When players sell items, there is a special mechanic that transforms some certain items into something more valuable and resells at the “Bazaar”. It is similar to the “forging” or “combine” shops in previous FF. For instance:










Sell 2 “Cactus Fruit”, players can buy a “potion pack” that contains 2 potions at Bazaar for 70 gil.
Sell Earth Stone x3, Foul Flesh x2, Iron Scraps x3, Bazaar sells “Iron sword” for 1080 gil.

Traders in this game is so important because the Bazaar. Players have put recipes on the website---items and powerful equipments all come from here. They cost some money, by the way.






600000 gil for "the Sunflower"


Production mechanism and the infinite loop of money earning and leveling---
Here, this is the trap I had run into:
Items are expensive-->Players need to make money-->Money come from the loots-->loots come from monsters-->Players need to kill monsters-->players level up-->need more items/powerful equipments to fight hard monsters-->things are expensive-->……….

So yeah….
Remember that I have mentioned about 2 maps refresh in previous blogs? That is one of the production mechanisms that give players unlimited quick supplies of monsters---as long as players have the patient to walk back and forth. Trust me, I had felt asleep while doing it.

Static and dynamic Equilibrium---
In some area that have easy monsters and if character level are good enough, earning resource can be presented as simple as player’s patient and time graph in 45° straight line---the more patient and time players have, the more money they earn in constant ratio.

If players decided to challenge some area with decent numbers of mob that have special abilities, the player’s patient and time graph would still be there. The factor that players might use remedy, ethers, or phoenix down can cause the result line has many up and down spikes.