BajaBlood's Scripts (Update 9/11 - First half of second Extra Boss)

[BajaBlood]

Update 9/11: Releasing first half of second extra boss. The attacks aren't particularly Eirin-y, but I think they're a little more visually impressive than anything in the Patchouli script and the difficulty is still hopefully ok.

Videos:
Patchouli Extra

Scripts:
Patchouli Extra Boss V1.0 (H/L) - 8 Noncards + 9 Cards (Jul 2011)
Eirin Extra Boss V0.5 (H/L) - 4 Noncards + 4 Cards (Sep 2011)

Thanks to Ginko for recording and uploading and to everyone for their comments thus far. Hoping to keep adding stuff to the Eirin battle and potentially go back and make stages for the two scripts.

[Drake]

How taboo is ripping sprites / music (I'm certainly not going to try to sell scripts or even distribute them more widely than just posting them in this thread, but still...)

To the japanese communities, 'any' distribution of Touhou game data is pretty much forbidden. Most western Touhou communities are more like "take everything freely and do whatever you want with it". Us? We say rip whatever you want, as long as you aren't selling it or pirating. Me especially.

Anyways, the server you uploaded to is unavailable. You can upload to mediafire or BulletForge, if you want. nevermind

[CK Crash]

The danmaku design is actually pretty nice, and they seem really Patchouli-like (although I noticed that you seem to be making an OC boss). I like the version of Sonic Boom that uses the large bullets better, mostly because they're easier to see and it's a pain to micrododge the smaller bullets. Rolling tide is also nicely designed, if a bit on the random side. 10 spells is more than most bosses I've seen released, but is far from impossible. I'd really like to play it when you finish!

As for resources, Drake pretty much summed it up. If you use ZUN's stuff, you'll be fine so long as you don't sell or claim it as your own, and don't share the script with the Japanese community. CtC stuff can generally be used freely. If you're looking to use 100% original and free to use stuff, I have some spell backgrounds and sound effects made from scratch that might be useful.

[BajaBlood]

Thanks for your comments!

The video quality I was getting with fraps isn't ideal, but I'm throwing them up on Youtube anyway so everyone doesn't have to deal with downloading the scripts. Rolling Tide is up, Sonicboom (B) is still uploading, and Sonicboom (A) will be on it's way shortly.

Ok, I'm glad ripping is tolerated, even if it isn't the ideal situation. It would just be so much more of an overwhelming task if I needed to figure out how to prepare artwork as well as learn scripting.

As far as the individual spell cards go:
Both the min and max speeds of the particles went down on Rolling Tide. The spawn rate was adjusted to compensate, so difficulty should be lower and it will hopefully be easier to see the 'waves'. I'm starting to be really happy with how the movement of the bullets represents water (both the individual particles and the flow of the verticle 'waves' moving from left to right).

For Sonicboom, the waves now shoot bullets strictly in a 180 degree arc (used to be a little more). This should make it a bit less fiddly between waves. My original intent for having the waves in a larger arc was to prevent people from trivializing the card by staying near the top of the screen - to counteract this I now have the first circle of bullets fire quickly after the leading bullet spawns (I liked the look of the leading bullet by itself for about 40 frames in V1.0, but I think it's an acceptable loss). I tried experimenting with the bullet type and have a couple alternatives posted. The best looking was actually the 'glowy' medium bullet from Thaws, but I found that Reimu A's focus shot looked too similar to the waves and made it difficult to navigate. I left the version with the bullet + U-shaped thing in there as micrododging might not be as much of a problem with the arc size decreased, and then there's one with simple circular bullets.

Edit: Rather than spamming posts in this thread, I'll probably just keep updating the OP. Finished a third card tonight; a significantly more complex code than what I've been playing with thus far, and I think it turned out well. I'm actually finding myself to be stuck on a 'Fire Sign' though; can't really picture what a good representation of the element would be (it's funny, for making cards inspired by Patchouli, I dislike or am indifferent to almost all of her spellcards)

[BajaBlood]

See OP for details - just announcing release of first half of Patchouli Extra (Hard and Lunatic modes).

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

...wow.

This script is one of the best-designed and most fun I've ever played on this site. Not-impossible difficulty, very Patchy-like spells... Well, here's the review.

Non-spell 1: It took me a second to realize what this was. Then my jaw hit the floor.
If I had to pick on one thing about these scripts, it's that when Patchy and her familiar-bullets move, it looks hideous. Perhaps the familiars could stay put while Patchy moves around? Even so, it helps to have the familiars move, too, so perhaps they could stop firing while Patchy is moving and pick up again when she stops? I dunno... Eh, it's good enough as it is. Ignore me.
Talking of cosmetics, would it be possible to get the rainclouds to fade out or something? Just disappearing like that looks awkward.
I thought playing this would be as annoying as anything, but as it turns out, it's a lot of fun weaving among the rainclouds, especially with a homing option but also without one.
Water Sign "Rolling Tide": It's so Patchy it hurts. Incidentally, if you want to get that cool disproportionate-life-bar effect like in Touhou, divide the life by five or six and then use SetDamageRate to either (20, x <= 20) or (10, x <= 10). The only problem with it is that it looks boring.
Nonspell 2: Ahahahaha. I love this sort of thing. I pity da foo' who gets hit by those silver bullets, though.
Wood Sign "Sonic Boom": This brings back unpleasant memories of Lunasa's "Stradivarius," but it's more fun than that, thank goodness.
Nonspell 3: It would probably look better if there were some delay on those big bullets. Gameplay is A-OK, though.
Earth Sign "Rock Armor": ...
...
...
My recommendations: a) Have her finish assembling her armour before she moves; b) make the guide bullet more obvious; c) have her wait a little longer before firing the armour. That ought to resolve the EPIC ANNOYANCE encountered on this card.
Nonspell 4: Oh, THAT IS COOL. Not very hard, though. Maybe have it throw up some bullets from below like sparks or something?
Fire Sign "Magma Fountain": Huh. Reminds me of Stage 3 of Deathsmiles. Give us some warning for the magma on the bottom and it's not cheap. I had a lot of fun with this one.

I have to say, though, Hard seems like Normal and Lunatic seems like Hard, from an EoSD perspective. Then again, perhaps I'm misestimating the difficulty because my test players are better than the EoSD ones or because I can see the hitbox or because EoSD just seems harder. :/

[BajaBlood]

Thanks for your constructive feedback (and kind words!); I made most of the changes you suggested

I didn't fully solve the problem with Patchy getting covered up by bullets during the noncards. I wanted to conserve the stray bullets when she moves to add to the difficulty. As a result, turning the familiars off or keeping them still wasn't really an option. What I did do was decrease her movement speed, which should hopefully keep her head out of the bullets xD

Also didn't change Noncard 4 much other than making the flames rise a tiny bit higher. The slower movement speed actually makes this one more challenging just by itself.

Rainclouds should fade, spellcard life bars are now shorter, delay added on noncard3, rock armor isn't as stupid, and....

...3 more spells added (and 2 nonspells)!!! Patchouli Extra V1.2 here

I'm particularly proud of the survival card, imo the best script I've made yet. Hopefully it isn't too frustrating in it's execution, because I love the concept.

[Chronojet ⚙ Dragon]

Testing yeah


Discussed in IRC.
This is way too hard.

Again, I need to be able to no-vert it somehow...
Tone it all down.
Tone it all down.

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

It's funny that Mew is complaining about the difficulty, 'cuz his/her/its/potato's scripts are a million times harder I think they're perfectly manageable. Hard is Extra only easier, Lunatic is Phantasm only easier. Most people make Extra as Lunatic and Phantasm as GODIEINAHOLEPLAYER.
Dealing with the new ones only:

Nonspell 5: SNAAAAKE ITS A SNAAAAKE
Why did it have to be snakes? I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!
...I'm done now.
Anyway, obligatory I HATE STAR MAELSTROM. This is way better than Star Maelstrom, though, since they don't keep curving and there aren't a million of them.
Air and Water Sign "Eye of the Storm": I haven't had fun on a card like this since "Border of Humans and Youkai." That's a nippy eye, though. It's tricky for Reimu players like me to keep up.
Nonspell 6: Huh. You actually did this right. I'm impressed. And jealous.
Earth and Fire Sign "Synthetic Diamond": YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH
This is cool. I must say, though: is it really necessary to have so many fire bullets? Couldn't you fire, like, a third of those and still be safe? My framerates drop at the slightest provocation, so I worry about things like that.
Four Elements Sign "Grand Alchemy": Oh, those snakes were air? I thought they were metal. :/ Then again, four as opposed to five, so...
A reprise of the nonspells? Ilusomuch. It's exactly the right difficulty level, too. One thing, though: The background changing is incredibly distracting. The switch to the fire background got me killed on no less than five separate occasions. If you're gonna do something like that, can you at least fade through backgrounds so as to make the changes less distracting?

[BajaBlood]

Thanks again for your comments - updating the script file:

Now to get back to work on the final two cards - just waiting for inspiration for a Earth+Water and Fire+Air card...

Changelog V1.3:

• Rolling Tide a bit harder, Sonicboom a bit easier
• The 'Eye' of the Storm moves slightly slower (and slower still on Hard)
• Bulletcount on Synthetic Diamond significantly reduced, also forced each wave to spawn some distance away from the previous one
• Patchy has bomb-immunity on final card, but slightly less life during final phase to compensate. Backgrounds changeover in 40 frames, 60 for the water-fire transition.
• Did not make anything No-Vertable that wasn't already

[BajaBlood]

Added another couple of SCs and Nonspells which completes this boss battle aside from various tweaks. I won't bump this thread as often during development of any other projects I start - I can wait until they're finished to show stuff off or just update the OP.

Anyway, hope you enjoy! Patchouli Extra V1

[Ginko]

It would be cool if you made it into a stage script with a real background for the nonspells; as it is, i have a hard time seeing the outer layer of the darkgreen bullets ...

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

Alright, time to comment on this properly. Let me preface this by saying that this is one of the most fun scripts I've ever played for Danmakufu, and that I sincerely hope you plan on making more scripts.

I'll skip the ones I've already commented on, of course.

Nonspell 5: I intended to make a Spell Card like this once, but I decided against it because it didn't fit the character. It's still fun, though. I like the idea and the execution.
Nonspell 6: I've intended to make patterns like this so many times I couldn't count them, but it never worked out. This did. Not bad.
Nonspell 7: I once did make a nonspell like this, but this one winds up being much better coordinated than my old attempt. My only complaint is that because of the delay in starting the curving bullets, it doesn't wind up being nearly as long as it needs to be. I'd say to make the curving bullets start right away, unless you want to give the boss a bunch of invincibility frames.
Earth and Water Sign "Diverted Torrent": My  only complaint s that the name sucks. I like the outlandish angles you have to dodge at sometimes; it feels very EX-ish.
Nonspell 8: Heeeey, it's Nonspell 5 from v1.2! Hi, Nonspell 5! You're lookin' great; congratulations on the promotion! You deserved it, fella. See you 'round; it's been great seeing ya!
Fire and Air Sign "Orbital Re-entry": This is a) probably the best card yet, and b) a great example of what makes this whole script great. It's simple and Patchy-like, but still impressive to watch and fun to play.

[BajaBlood]

Well, I told myself that I wouldn't post in this thread until the second boss was actually done, but then again 4 cards and 4 noncards is a relatively standard length of script that people release - so here goes! Eirin Boss V0.5.

I think I've improved in visuals since the first script; the hope is that I've maintained some degree of creativity and difficulty balancing!

Edit: Hope you like classical music - forgot to swap it out for something else before uploading >.>

[Ginko]

The difficulty is okay by itself but you really need to make the bullets resist to bombs. Most of your patterns have a very long setting so that a bomb makes it trivial.

I'm not a big fan of micrododging nonspells, but that's just me.

[[BajaBlood = patchouli script = oops i was supposed to record it e.e ... well it's done now ]]

[Shockman]

Time to review Eirin:

Nonspell 1: Cool design, but I don't like having to quickly squeeze through small gaps. (8/10)
Spell 1: Basically the same as before. (8/10)
Nonspell 2: Those big clusters of bullets drive me insane. (7/10)
Spell 2: Good, but.....SAFESPOT ALERT!!!!! (7/10)
Nonspell 3: Good. (10/10)
Spell 3: Ehh no, totally random spellcards are shunned upon in this community. (5/10)
Nonspell 4: Good. (10/10)
Spell 4: Very nice. (10/10)


TOTAL SCORE: 65/80 (81%)
I'll do the rest of the review when you upload the rest.

Extra Notes:

First of all, I noticed that you are improving on your scripts, nice job. Second, it kind of bothered me that Eirin is a Lunarian, but the background showed other planets, but it's not really important anyways >.> and third, in case you were wondering, the safespot is above, below, and on the sides of Eirin.