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.

Similarities In Abstract Models Between Thief III and Touhou Fuujinroku

Ok, let’s see…… (thinking about 2 minutes), first of all, in general, Touhou 10 and Thief III are total different games. The color and story theme of Thief III is dark with a serial killer on the run in the story line. On the other hand, Touhou 10 is a game with orange, warm, and happy-autumn color that allows players watch fireworks while going with a simple story. So, in terms of the story and drama element relationship, I would say the 2 game are in direct opposite to each other. The reason being for the difference in the drama element is drama in Thief III can occur in both action, where zombies sometimes sneak up behind players with Silent Hill noises, and story line; but the drama in Touhou 10 could only happen when players get hit or pass the spell.

Perceivable consequence in Thief III is false item/skill usage, meaning items or skills won’t activate or simply just fail if the players are not doing it right. For example, if players want to make some noise, they are smart enough to know not to shoot noise arrow into something that won’t make noise. Perceivable consequence in Touhou 10 is easier and also similar. The only usable item players hold is the bomb. They will always work as long as the character has at least 1.0 unit of power and 1 option. Players also know that they don’t want to spend the bomb when there aren’t too many enemies to wipe out.

Now, considering about the intension, I think both games have one common: solve the puzzle. The puzzle of Touhou 10 is to pass the spell/stage; and in Thief III, players have objectives to complete. The only difference is, in my opinion, that players solve the Thief III objectives in the stealth way like the character doesn’t exist, while players solve the spells with fire power and precise calculation.

The lighting systems of Touhou Fuujinroku

Touhou 10, as a shoot-them-up game, bullets and bombs are doubtlessly the major light sources in the game. I have covered the lighting issue a little in the level design blog. It is just all about the fanciness how the bullets forming up to become a "powerful" firework. The background is also hard to talk about for its role is not to be more visible than the bullet. The great thing is while the background is outlining the bullets and making them visible, it still able to let players feel the direction and momentum of character's movement with color and texture.

Man, if this is "Imperishable Night (Touhou 8)", there is actually a boss that can screw up the lighting by making the entire screen but a small circle around the player pitch black, limiting the visibility. In "Shoot the bullet (Touhou 9.5)", even better,the characters in the game are probably the best at spamming the light.
Below: a boss spamming darkness

Below 2: bosses spamming light

Level Design of Touhou Fuujinroku

Lighting
In previous Touhou series, whenever boss use spell, player use bomb or any other special things happen, the background turns black, the character portrait shows up then something flashy explodes and takes out bullet and enemy on the screen. In Touhou 10, bomb is now an aura circle that still has the wipe-out function, but it just not as colorful and flashy as it was. What also light up the screen is the bullets that come from enemies. I personally believe that they are the major light source of the game since they are usually white and can be generated more than 30 of them in one second on the screen.

Structure/Architecture/
Fuujinroku is a linear shooting game, which means the game is a straight line until the end. Well, Zun (the game developer) have some building pictures in the background
presented in the boss fight, but they are merely a silhouette. In either the normal scene or the boss fight, when player is concentrating on dodging the bullet, I think the only structure that player can see in the game is the veil of bullet, aka, the spell card. Man, if the normal difficulty of the danmaku is called structure; Lunatic or even extra should be called the masterpiece.



Color and Contrast / Scale
Like other Touhou series and most other shooting games, bullet must be beautiful and colorful, otherwise they don't attract people. In Touhou, bullet color sometimes has different meaning. In general cases, the bullets is either coming at you in pattern, away from you in pattern, or randomly fly around with no pattern. Zun design the color of the bullet in the way that experienced players know when they see 2 or more bullet patterns are coming at them in 2 or more separate colors, there is only few of them is aiming their position. From that point, players can build strategies of how to make room for surviving (even they still look god impossible).

For the matter of the scale, there isn't much. Some bullets are in size of player's hit-box; some are as huge as the character sprite; but all that matter is: squeeze through the gap and live.

Formal Abstract Models, and Drama of MGS:TTS

Touhou Fuujinroku

Formal Abstract Models

Intension
In Touhou 10, or in any bullet curtain shooting game, players require complete focus and endurable stamina on the play screen. The reason is players are introduced in a rectangular shape area and must face huge amount of bullets coming at them in mathematical formations. But the intension is, in fact, very simple: hold the shoot key and dodge whatever you can and for as long as possible. I know those patterns are very fancy and beautiful, but they are meant for dodging, not for being watched like a painting in the museum.

Perceivable Consequence
We believe that the players who are brave enough to play this game is well aware that when the life count on the right-side of the screen reaches 0, the game is over and will be ask whether continue or not. For some hard-core players, "no continue" is the only option they have because they may want to see the good ending. As I have mentioned before this blog, there are unlimited amount of continues in Touhou 10, but for the non-hard-core players, practice is probably the only option they have.

Story
Before the release of every Touhou series, the author will make a special introduction website to explain the interface, game system, and of course, the story But telling the entire story will definitely make no one want to play the game no more. So the "story" here in the intro website is merely a prologue--- the reason why the main characters set off for the adventure.

Drama & Uncertainty
For the people who first time playing Touhou series, the first reaction they have towards the attack formation, from my observation, there are mainly two:
1. WTF
2. OM(F)G
and both are usually followed by "how do you pass this!!!????".
However, the people who have played before is not anywhere better. The real drama happens when you know and played a formation/spell over and over again and still unable to pass, the frustration is the element that has chance to make you another "keyboard crusher" and say the two words above. Why, just study and dodge the math formula then pass, you say? Well, from my experience, it's not the math formula that really kills you. Most spell in Touhou 10 generate random 10px by 10px round-shape bullets that fly out of no where, that is what make you pain the most.

Motivation + Reward Systems + Feedback

Touhou Series is a dynamic-heavy shooting game. When I play this game, it's the bullet formation that attracts me--- beautiful and brutal. I have mentioned that all the bullet formation are generated from mathematical calculation. Challenge Touhou is like solving math problems that you know how to solve it at first, but the problems keep adding variables to preventing you from solving them.


Like typical shooting game, the game rewards you with point based on your performance. When you get enough point or defeat a certain boss, you will get a life-up item. On story-wise, beat the game on normal difficulty without any continue will unlock the extra mode, which is a stage in Lunatic difficulty with no continue available---a brand new challenge for players. The best I can do so far is probably hard mode clear with two continues.

All the player's info is displayed at the right side of the screen: high score, player score, life, power, and title. Player can get more feedback from the game in visual and audio, too. Player get to hear the sound effect when destroying enemies, getting power-up, using bomb, and getting hit. When fighting a boss, theme music of the boss sync with the beginning of the battle, which give out the intensity within the boss. One player friendly feedback feature is the location of the boss is shown at the bottom of the screen. Without it, players need to look up and confirm the location of the boss while trying to dodge all the bullets.