Author Topic: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld  (Read 7961 times)

My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« on: February 04, 2019, 08:25:21 PM »
Hey, everyone!

With joy over my first script being complete, I'd like to announce and share it with this awesome community : the Terror of the Underworld.

The script is quite unlike everything the main Touhou series (and the other fangames, for the most part) are known for, so be warned. It features a fight against an original character of mine, though with it being my first script, there isn't really an overkill on the effects department, and I wasn't able to make original sprites or backgrounds for the fight, thanks to my lack of artistic "abilities".

Overall, it's designed to be pretty difficult to clear, featuring a spellcard amount matching Extra-Phantasm levels, and the fight itself also focuses mainly on spellcards.

I hope you'll enjoy the script, and as always, feedback is greatly appreciated! I'll be doing my best to improve with later scripts. Have fun!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wXSFkGZykxpKSOkp2rp-fjeRByRhhmxS
« Last Edit: February 04, 2019, 08:27:38 PM by Mr.Ownage »
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2019, 09:24:55 PM »
Um, this may be stupid of me, but how do we download this thing? Isn't there a zip file or something like that?
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2019, 09:31:05 PM »
Hey there, you should be able to click on the link, or if it doesn't work, then copy-paste it and open it that way, then click on the Download button in the top-right corner, that way, a .rar download should start unless I did something wrong in Drive settings (it works for me, though).

Let me know if it helped or there's still no option to download it.
Achieve your mission without regrets.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2019, 12:02:40 AM »
Oh, I just recognised your username: you're that person who wrote something really nice about my Warwick script :). You really made my evening then! Anyway, it's late so I only went up to the (first) survival card but my thoughts so far are the following: you should really add an indicator for the boss's position since that first spellcard is plain unfair if he decides to move and you're too busy focusing on the tight streaming. I know EOSD doesn't have a marker, but everything after that does for a reason.

The first non is visually appealing, but since when do butterfly bullets have hitboxes that are so HUGE?? Also, this is not your fault but the player character is, I find, bad for some reason: control doesn't feel off, but the hurtbox size does and everything to do with respawning and bombing does as well. The second non is quite fun in my opinion and also quite pretty. As for the second spellcard.. I think there is a slight streaming strategy here but I'm unsure. It's very thematic which is nice. The next spell is tricky but fair, and I like it overall. The one after that ("Desperate to cause: Death trinities") is, I'm sorry to say, pure bullshit as it is now. You need more delay time and you definitely need to warn the player that stuff is going to appear on them as soon as the spell starts. The survival card is nice, but I'm really not trusting the butterfly hitboxes in this script for some reason, so I think that I'm making it harder than it need to be for myself. But I understand why you would want to use them to simulate "lost souls" :) . OK, I'll give my thoughts on the rest of the script tomorrow.
IF YOU DON'T ASK, YOU WILL NEVER GET.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2019, 05:12:29 AM »
Hey there, thanks for the feedback so far! With the boss being a ruler of an underworld, most of the attacks just simply involve him staying in one place, as if to show his power over the area. And indeed, most spellcards are about overwhelming the player with pressure and forcing quick decisions and precise movements.

On the other hand, I also noticed that something was off with the player hitbox. At first, I shrugged it off as some kind of bug or a kink with the butterflies, but appearently, I am not the only one who finds it weird. It definitely needs to be looked into. Thanks for pointing that out.

I see your point in Desperate Trinities being unbalanced. First timers don't really notice it until it's too late that the triangles' origin points spawn right on them. It's supposed to be a spell that forces the player to move around the stage to avoid it, while using their observation skills to the best to determine where the gaps in the triangles will be. It really could use a better warning, though, or more delay time. Thanks for pointing out this one as well.

While an indicator is nice, I felt like :
-An indicator scrolling at the bottom of the field (not like in the Touhou games) that obscures player hitbox isn't really good, even more so since this fight relies on tight dodges.
-He spends most of the time in one spot, and for the times he does not (1st spell, and something to be seen later), the magic circle (and in the case of the 1st spell, the backshot) should allow tracking him moderately easily.

Staying at the right side during Descent (survival) is the main key to capture it, and aggressively moving up the screen to hold your ground. That way, once the faster wave comes, you have plenty of time to backtrack if need to be, and the side usually doesn't have as many bullets.

Thanks for the positive comment and feedback so far!
« Last Edit: February 05, 2019, 05:16:02 AM by Mr.Ownage »
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JDude :3

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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2019, 09:56:03 PM »
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][Things about the actual script][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

*Played with Reimu A*

N01: First vibe, the bullets don't go with the idea of grim reaper, imo i think darker colors and scales would be more fitting?
S01: The movement of the boss sometimes go too fast to and make really difficult to get back on track

N02: Just a casual double flamethrower, looks cool
S02: 4 corners of "souls" running aimlessly, pretty normal

S03: Spam of trinagles, pretty sure it's easiest spell until now
S04: Kinda unexpected, since I was looking at the boss

S05 - Survival: Maybe it's because I'm unlucky, but when the phases overlap, I just get a giant wall

N06: N1, but quicker?
S06: Nice use of Curved Lasers, looks good

N07: Just a casual fast double flamethrower, looks cool
S07: "Trembling Shivering Star" but a lot easier

S08: 2 "Eternal Meek" one quick and the other is slow
S09: YAY, fountain danmaku ^^ My favorite and looks pretty nice
S10: The fountains are not a direct threat, so pretty easy spell right?
Then the giant walls, plus a yellow ring keeps making me dance around the play field, making it a little hard to survive for the first time

S11: So close to capturing it, but the the spiral caught up to me T_T
S12: Spamming arrowheads, and gets a little laggy when reaching the end of the spell

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][Final Stuff][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

It's a awesome script: looks realy nice, and nice idea for a boss, no problem with sound or music...
Got to say, for a first script it's really good ^^

Wow, Mr.Ownage! Great scripts, keep it up, proud of you! - JDude
« Last Edit: February 06, 2019, 09:32:50 PM by JDude :3 »
"dnh is hard" - said no one
"dnh is bullshit" - everyone making a creative pattern

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2019, 10:15:37 PM »
Hey there, JDude! Seeing your reply made my heart melt, in a good way, so to say! I can't really say much other than a huge thank you, for both playing and the feedback! :)

A few thoughts/tips on certain attacks :
N01-06 and N02-07 were indeed the same nonspell, made a bit faster. It was mainly due to keeping focus on spellcards for the battle, and partly due to not really having had more good nonspell ideas at that time. I'll be doing my best to improve in that regard.

-Some spells are designed to frustrate or overwhelm you via bullet density, quick decision making or a feeling of helplessness (unable to attack the boss directly). Some examples are S02 and S06 (quick decision making), S01 and 12 (feeling of unable to quickly attack and capture the card, the trick to them is to fire homing shots whenever you can, and focus on survival) or S08 (quick decisions and density).

-S07 and 08 were indeed based on Shivering Star and Eternal Meek, respectively. I find it interesting that you mentioned the former as being easy, I capture S09 more often than that one.

-S10 is a combination of prior spells (fountains of S09, lasers of S06, half-circle shots resembling S07, and the walls of S05, only horizontal this time).

-S04 being quite unfair was pointed out, I'll be working on adjusting it to make it more fair. Thanks for noting that one.

-S12 was actually supposed to be faster, but I wanted to give the player that feeling of literally "dancing among raindrops", which didn't work out with fast bullets, so I went for massive density over speed. It would seem like that wasn't a good idea if it causes lag (for me, it didn't, so I didn't notice this, so many thanks for pointing it out)

Once again, thanks for playing, for the feedback and for the heartwarming comment!
« Last Edit: February 05, 2019, 10:25:46 PM by Mr.Ownage »
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2019, 12:23:41 AM »
Hello again, I just wanted to mention that I hadn't forgotten you, but university work and the finalisation of my second maths script (it'll probably be out by this week-end) have kept me somewhat occupied. I will get back to you eventually ;) .
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2019, 05:12:31 AM »
Oh, it's no problem at all! Feel free to take the time you need. Looking forward to see your thoughts on the rest of it :)

On a side note, I'm working on a version 1.1, so to say, which will feature :

-More movement. While the little-to-no movement was done on purpose to show how the opponent is a ruler of the underworld, it kinda made the fight itself a "stay at the bottom and avoid occasional bullets" fest for the most part. I'll be fixing that with some added movement.
-A few aesthetic changes. Text showing the BGMs, stopping the BGM once the fight is over, fading the text out once the fight is over. Not too much, really, but still likely welcome additions for wandering eyes.
-Balancing the infamous Desperate Trinities (4th spellcard) to give the player more time to react to the initial attacks of it. The attack will still feature the on-the-player spawning triangles as it currently does, to keep the high-tension, quick-dodging nature of it, but the initial warnings should help deal with unfair right-away pichuuns. The spellcard health will be raised a tiny bit to compensate for this.
-I might consider toning down bullet density on spell 12 and increase speed a bit instead, if it causes too much lagging on lower end systems.
-Something special. You shall see ;)
« Last Edit: February 07, 2019, 04:28:25 PM by Mr.Ownage »
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2019, 11:16:16 PM »
Terror of the Underworld 1.1 released!

As mentioned, ToTU 1.1 comes with some changes and improvements compared to 1.0. They are :

-More movement! Now instead of the boss never moving with the exception of a couple of attacks, now it's the not-moving attacks which are the exceptions! It does make the script much more difficult, but that more exciting as well! (Hint : determine the boss' position by observing where the shots are coming from, or via his magic circle)
-An entirely new specialty for those who make it to the end. Can you?
-General sound and bug fixes, notably a lack of "spell card end sound" on Soul Bloom.
-Desperate Trinities no longer instantly kills the player as soon as the spell starts ; the player is given a quite generous warning beforehand (Yay!).
-Player hitbox made smaller! There was an issue with the hitbox size, which caused the random laser and butterfly deaths. They should now occur far less often, or not at all!
-BGM text now shows up mid-game so you know what kind of magical melody you're listening to as you're fighting the ruler of the Underworld :)
-Similiarly, boss name text now disappears when the fight ends. Some more pleasing to the eyes!

Protip : It's even more important now with the movement additions to not always go for damage/speedkills, but rather use your homing shots/spreadshots if you don't feel confident in dodging.
Have fun playing!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jYUUVuVjLHyaF6VkgQoAaobsM29BPN5O
« Last Edit: February 08, 2019, 11:19:20 PM by Mr.Ownage »
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Chronojet ⚙ Dragon

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  • 今コソ輝ケ、我ガ未来、ソノ可能性!!
Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2019, 04:24:07 AM »
Hi, played this.

General notes before I get into the danmaku.
  • The reason why the boss moving elsewhere to spice things up works is because there are plenty of chances for the player to spot and follow them. Here, I'm not only trying to just stay alive, but I'm not guaranteed to guess correctly where the boss is since the things that show their location don't quite allow you to pinpoint it exactly among constant fire. So the bulk of the damage from player shots isn't actually being done.
  • Most of the attacks have super high life. For reference in Touhou, I'm not playing any one nonspell for more than 10 seconds-ish, maybe 20 if we're talking exceptions like Kanako's and Remilia's disappearance ones. Here, I'm taking up to 30 just on the first nonspell (38 actually). Most of this was me trying to just catch up to the boss (See previous note.)
    EDIT after getting to the end via illegitimate methods: I concluded that it's not just the constant movement, but the damage rate is just made so that you can't deal much damage to the boss anyway. on the final™ spell (™ because I'll call the true last spell the bonus spell from here on out), I'm not sure how long you gave the player, but I was sitting on infinite invincibility (I might as well give myself that while I edited the script to be able to even pass the first survival) and noticed a really long period of the timer staying at 99 secs and ended 46 secs. Please take note of this.
  • This one isn't on you assuming you didn't make the player, but there's a slight bug with deathbombing where I would lose a life anyway even though it seems like I was able to use a spell. I can't really replicate this reliably, but I'm hoping you could test it out somehow?
  • The first spell's kind of the most dependent on the boss's movement. If you're not using ReimuC it's kind of disheartening to be the opener. With the density of the mesh as it already is, it's the one thing that you probably don't want making even more difficult by adding random movement.
  • Both the triangle shape spells are super oppressive (still? I only tried the most recent version, so I'm not sure how hard it was before). I'm getting the feeling especially on the second one that the shots actually catch you if you try to veer, especially the green/blue ones. Usually I'm a-okay with chasing spells but I wonder what's up this time... It might be because of the speed. If so, having them accelerate from zero velocity may be a nice fix. It could also be because of the delay clouds covering the player up. If so, summon hitbox-less familiars on the player instead, so the player still knows to get out of the way, but you're still free to fire bullets without so much delay. You'd get the best of both worlds.

The beginning of the survival spell is where I can get up to, no matter what I do. If you could make a version for players used to Lunatic and below, that would be great. It's Extra/Phantasm-length, but Phantasm boss fights are on a level of difficulty between Hard and Lunatic. This begins on Hard, jumps up to Lunatic by the first survival and pushes the borders between Lunatic and whatever's beyond by a fair amount all the while afterward.
Anyway, the rest of the commentary is done based on playthroughs starting from the first survival.
  • The first survival seems to clump up between waves in the transition between the first and second waves. You might want to address that. Otherwise it's good™, I think. Maybe instead of speeding it up so much towards the end, something like a second pattern could be layered on instead? I'll leave that up to you to decide.
  • Junkolasers™ are a biiiig no from me. I really can't trust the lasers not always snipe no matter where I happen to stand (really, it happens every wave...) nor can I trust them to not block off paths "conveniently". Curvy lasers can probably be made fun, but if they're moving fast enough to effectively be straight lasers without delay, that's not the way to go.
  • Having three four five spells of pretty much randomness is... well, it does leave something to be desired, methinks. If you really want to keep all of them, you might want to try putting some sort of pattern to them or move them around at the very least.
    The last of which gives the worst time since it's way too dense to even be following the boss anymore (see first point). With the one with just the fountain, it's more or less manageable, though the final™ spell simply encourages sitting in one place and timing out the entire spell.
  • This is me being super nitpicky but I think you might want to guide the player in the intro of the bonus spell so that they don't die to the first wave.
    I was on full invincibility as mentioned before, but if I noticed something, I definitely noticed that I would have died right then and there. Super oof to me, but I'd like to suggest something like a line of butterflies aimed away from the player, expanding out until the player's shepherded into the safe area.

All in all, atmosphere is nice, but the balancing requires urgent attention. Hope to see an update and more content from you.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 04:53:37 AM by Chronojet ⚙ Dragon »

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2019, 10:47:21 AM »
OK, I've finished the script (by illegitimate methods as well, since I couldn't get to the spell after the first suvrival with only 5 lives). Before I say anything else, I wanted to mention that I really appreciated the choice of music and the backgrounds were also fitting and did not impede player view of the bullets. Also, I tried the script with ReimuA (a player which I dislike since her deathbombing is bugged as mentioned above and she becomes damageable after bombing before being able to bomb again, which is nonsense) and ReimuB (I quickly abandoned since whoever designed her shot thought that it was a good idea to block out enemy projectiles with the focused mode) and ReimuC (who has homing attacks, making some of this script's parts easier). I think I should mention that I only started playing bullet-hell 6 months ago and so can only barely survive in Lunatic in some of the easier Touhou games (eg 7 and 8), and so my lack of skill may be the problem for some parts of the script. However, overall it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

For starters, everything that uses butterfly bullets in some relatively dense way should probably be nerfed. Those hitboxes are nonsense and I believe the person who made the shotsheet just went a little crazy on them. It is possible to make them smaller yourself, so I strongly recommend that you do it. Most attacks with butterfly bullets killed me and in general, I felt as though it wasn't my fault: this is NOT a good feeling since it happens all the time. I'll go briefly over the first half of the script since I talked about it before, but I have now played the new version.

The first non is OK, but cheapshots because of the aforementioned problem. Moving on.

The first spell: yes, you've made the bullets slower, but seriously, I dislike it now, since it doesn't make it fairer. The magic circle is impossible to keep track of (unless you lower the bullets's alpha, which I suggest doing) and so the RANDOM movement of the boss feels extremely unfair. The rice bullets are notorious for having huge hitboxes as well, so you really need to do something about this.

The second spell: my views on that one haven't changed, I really like this pattern and it feels fair at all times.

Second spell: has this been nerfed? It feels doable now. It's still a bunch of random dodging with butterfly bullets though ..

Promising death : I like this one! It always feels as though we have time to react, since the delay feels spot on.

Holy trinities : Nope, still strongly dislike this one. Maybe it should be placed at a later space, be given more health, start slow and crank things up progressively. As is right now, it's just frustrating in my opinion.

Survival: Ugh, so many butterfly bullets. Because of cheapshots, I feel as though the last phase is ironically the easiest: you just have to react fast, but you have plenty of room to pass through the lines.

Next nonspell: is this exactly the same as the first non, or is it faster? I can't tell.

Next spell: This is a superb spell visually, but is it possible to predict those lasers's movement? They are super-fast and feel undodgeable. So I just bombed my way through. Also, this may have been fixed but I was actually killed by some (0,0) spawing in the previous version.

Next spell: I personally cannot do it, but I think it's fair. I don't have much to say about it, it's OK.

Melting point of death:  NOW you're talking. This is a really nice spell to look at and dodge: probably my favourite of the whole lot.

Fountain spell: I was suspicious right until the end, since it seemed so much easier than everything else. But there were no nasty surprises, that's just the way it was. There isn't too much going on here.

Death en masse: this is really good as well. I feel as though the lasers could spawn slightly higher up to allow the player more freedom of movement, but otherwise I think that it is a fun spell that gets more complex over time: my favourite type. This is my second favourite spell.

Spiral spell: You know where I'm going with this one. Crossing the butterfly spirals is suicide. I actually recorded a replay of this spell and was flabbergasted by the ease with which you could die because of that eternal hitbox issue.

Last spell: agan, some kind of indication on the boss's position would be useful. The magic circle is again rendered invisible by the end of the attack and the boss doesn't like to stay in the middle of the screen either, which means that playing with a non-homing shot is  not fun. But the arrowheads hit detection seem reasonable and just for that reason, this feels like one of the easiest spells in the script.

So those were my thoughts. I'm very sorry that I couldn't be more praiseful since I know how proud you must feel about completing this (and well you should be) but here my problem is that fundamentally, I just didn't have a lot of fun especially with the first half of the script. I felt quite frustrated all in all. I hope you understand.
I will give this one another shot if you apply some of the changes that I suggested (and practically required for the butterfly bullets) but until then, I don't quite feel like it.
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Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2019, 10:48:11 AM »
Why did the 8 come out as an emoji in my previous answer?
IF YOU DON'T ASK, YOU WILL NEVER GET.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2019, 03:38:15 PM »
Hey there,

First off, it took me quite some time to reply since my day today was (and still is) pretty busy. Apologies for that.

Other than that, I sincerely thank both of you for taking the time to play and provide feedback. Both of these things really mean a lot!

I myself have also had my share of deaths due to weird butterfly hitbox shenangians even post-update. It's a really, really weird issue... I'll definitely try to address it as soon as I can.

It would seem like there's still misconceptions regarding the first and last (non-bonus, but Elysium) spells. Those are (or at least, supposed to be) designed in a way that the first part of the spells are about doing as much damage as possible (Elysium even more so), and then spending the rest of the time on survival and avoidance (attacking using homing/spreadshots, hence why Reimu A is recommended for the script : her unfocused shots are homing. Though even Reimu-B has spreadshots, and Reimu-C's focused shots are also homing). For Constriction Cannon, try to simply focus on being between the lines, and firing unfocused whenever possible. For Elysium, pointblank the boss as much as possible early on, then focus on either dodging between the bullets to damage the boss more or use homing/spreadshots.

Please try both spells with the mentioned tricks, and see if that helps anything.

For King :

-I can understand if the script turned out to be not as fun or enjoyable as you've hoped to be. There's no need to feel bad about honest feedback, I've read it (along with Chronojet's) and acknowledged it. Before I go about making any grand changes, though, I'll share my thoughts, views/intentions (how some spells were supposed to be) below :

-Generally, going for speedkills/ending spells as fast as possible is pretty risky in most attacks, espicially the first nonspell  or the second spell. Lean more towards safety on a "damage-safety" scale.

-The lasers in Bloom always land in the same places. Sometimes, the rate at which they fire can differ, but otherwise they always follow the same route. I do understand your concerns about their speed, though, I'll be looking into that.

-The third nonspell is indeed the first nonspell, but faster, same with the second and fourth nonspells.

-The second spell wasn't actually made slower, but I was considering either doing that, or making the delay between the bullet spawns slightly higher to make it more fair.

-I'm glad you enjoyed and found Melting Point and En Masse fun to do! To me, ironically, they are two of the hardest spells to clear.

-Trinity spells are all about causing the player to panic and make bad moves. Desperate Trinities even more so : if you calmly go around the stage and keep up a constant minimum pace, you should be able to clear it no problem.

For Chronojet :

-I have noticed that the problem of Descent rows piling up seems to be a common one. While I only had deaths where I messed up fitting through the gaps so far (the trick is to backtrack if needed, while staying near the top and right as much as possible), I'll definitely take that point into consideration. Thanks for mentioning it.

-Like previously mentioned, the final spell is designed to encourage homing shot/spreadshot usage. The first part where there are barely any bullets is a damage race : you need to pointblank the boss as much as possible (this should get its HP down to around half with A-type, and somewhat below that with B-type). Afterward, only focus on avoiding things and use your spreadshots/homing shots to do the rest. Alternatively, try to aggressively dodge around the raindrops, sometimes taking a glance up the screen to determine the boss' location. The bullets are slow enough to allow enough time for that.

-If you stay at the bottom for the first triangle spell, it should be an easy clear. Refer to the advice I mentioned above for the Desperate variant.

-The deathbomb thing is an issue I'm aware of. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how player scripts work as of now, so the player script itself isn't mine. My best advice would be to either bomb prematurely, or allow yourself to be hit, then deathbomb. This mainly happens when you try to bomb normally but a bullet hits you exactly in the next couple of frames after that.

-The lasers in Bloom always hit the same spots, no actual aiming at the player is going on. I'm considering decreasing their speed to make them more fair, however.

-I actually intended the prior two ring shots in the bonus spell to act as the warning for the rest of the attack. As in, as a "that thing shot a ring of bullets everywhere but behind it... oh wait, it did it again... surely, that means I should stay behind it from now on" kind of warning. It seems to have failed at that, though. I'll try to make a somewhat better warning for it.
About the path it takes.... it's not really designed to be won in one go, you have much better chances after you play it a few times.
The name is also supposed to be a hint of what is going to happen : the spell "purges (as in, defeats) disobedient (the player not following the "soul") strays (straying away from the path)."

-The extremely long timer on the last (non-bonus) spell is intentional to :
a. So that the player has enough time to deal enough damage to break it even with weaker shots (Reimu-C) before it times out, and
b. So that it discourages timeout tactics somewhat.

-Unless you meant editing in infinite invincibility (since I never encountered it), I didn't change anything regarding the defaults.

I recommend giving the script another go with these hints in mind. I'm not saying that I absolutely disregarded everything that has been mentioned so far (the butterfly hitbox issue even more so. It's definitely big) but I feel like they should be doable with enough practice and with being aware of their respective gimmicks.

Many thanks once again for taking your time playing, providing feedback, and reading this!

About the emote stuff, I'm not sure. I had it happen once as well for seemingly no reason. It's not a problem though, it's quite humorous, actually.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 03:41:13 PM by Mr.Ownage »
Achieve your mission without regrets.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2019, 07:18:27 PM »
As an update, I actually managed to clear the script, even with the updates. Granted, it's not a no-miss-no-bomb run as I'm not that good at dodging (but I certainly do feel it's possible), but it's a clear nonetheless.

Overall, I made it with 0 lives left by the end, with one bomb. At certain times, I lost lives due to stupid mistakes, at other times, espicially near the end, the entirety of it felt too scary with bombs in stock, so I went ahead and used them all.

Here's the replay file of it, a legitimate (5 life 3 bombs) run. Should it desync, I'll record and upload it as necessary. I'm not really proud of how it worked out (losing almost all lives and doing pretty stupid mistakes), but I still felt joy in having been able to make it through. (includes first spell, Desperate Trinities, Descent, and bonus spell "spell card bonus"-ed! [although the bonus spell was buggy and errouneously score wasn't awarded])

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1v_9asYBUcwe3shDFfiXVUhFAMRU4sAdZ
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 07:51:46 PM by Mr.Ownage »
Achieve your mission without regrets.

Chronojet ⚙ Dragon

  • The Oddity
  • 今コソ輝ケ、我ガ未来、ソノ可能性!!
Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2019, 08:32:56 PM »
Hi once again!

@ hitbox:
If you were to ask me, though, learning hitboxes is just a part of the game and you're ready for longer boss fights you probably should have already gotten pretty familiar with most of them. Do see to it that they're realistic though, I suppose...?
Since it's not dependent on the user downloading anything separately, there wouldn't be any problem if you edited the bullet definition file itself.

@Bloom:
I'm not quite sure if it's feasible, but this could be an alternative to slowing down the curvy lasers --
You could try laying out a warning path for where the lasers would travel, similar to what you'd see for a straight laser? That way the player's absolutely sure to know where they should avoid standing. This could be a thin line like straight lasers' warning lines are, or they could be a transparent laser that has no hitbox but has the same width as the real laser. It's up to you whichever one you want to implement, if you want to take a stab at it at least.

@Not-bonus Last Spell:
The whole DPS check I could manage, though I guess the truly annoying part is the end? If you like you could switch up the boss's movement behaviour at the end so that it stays within a couple sprites' worth of horizontal distance from the player, while the chasing factor of the first half stays the same.
I do cry when the boss decides it wants to play hard to get though ;;

@Actual Last Spell:
Oh, I just happened to move out of the safe area by reflex so it was a small oops on my part.
Again it probably could be avoided if the bullet starts higher up on the screen and slowly moves down while the safe area contracts so it's a little larger initially.

That said, I gave it another few goes, though I was wondering if you could also include a separate plural that plays only the bonus spell? It's a routing-type spell and an IN-style one at that, though since it's just a bonus, you could just treat this as a passing thought, really.



And yeah, I did edit the player to toggle infinite invincibility -- it's not on your end, at least by default.

Cheers~

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2019, 09:09:17 PM »
Hey there, Chronojet!

I have studied how shotdata works in a bit more detail, and while I don't want to say anything prematurely, I think I found the issue with them. I'm guessing the butterfly bullets act the way they do because in the shotdata, there is no collision radius defined, and by default, hitboxes are defined by using a part of the bullet graphic's size (from my understanding. Bubbles don't seem to have their collision adjusted but still work as intended... no idea). Since the butterfly graphic involves the butterfly shape graphic around it, it means the image is somewhat bigger than the actual projectile itself, leading to the hitbox dissonance. Again, I'm not exactly sure about it yet, but I'm guessing that's the most likely cause to it. I'll be definitely looking into that.

Bloom :
Delay lasers (the warning paths) would be definitely a godsend for this one! The only problem is that unlike straight lasers, curve lasers don't have delay laser options, and straight laser lines couldn't be manipulated like curve lasers do (as far as my understanding goes). The lasers themselves also don't spawn at the same time all the time, which means it would be easy for the delay laser timing to go off. There would be sensible alternative options, however : either decrease the speed, so dodging them is easier, or decrease soul density, so there's bigger gaps and the player can focus on avoiding both. If there's more space to move around, avoiding them would be easier, after all, and the less density would be simpler to implement!

Final Spell (not the bonus one) :
A nice idea, I like that one! It wouldn't be hard at all to implement, would give the player more opportunities to focus on dodging while still dealing damage, and adding a bit of random factor (like a couple of x coordinates' worth) of movement based on player location would still encourage movement rather than timeout tactics or sitting in one spot. Thanks a lot for that one, I'll definitely implement it!

Bonus last spell :
I'll be honest and admit that it's actually designed to be a "memo" sort of spell, that is, it's more easier to capture once you've tried it a few times, and have a basic understanding with the path. It's also completely static (same every time, even this basic path of it was quite a nightmare to piece together. Imagine branching pats with millions of if statements, heh...) so that could also help somewhat in the capture regard.

That being said, there's an issue of it missing a piece of code to add the score after it's cleared. It will be fixed along with the rest of the stuff in the next update. And by all means, it'll include a plural containing only the last (bonus) spell as requested.

Many thanks for the taken time and feedback!
Achieve your mission without regrets.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #17 on: February 10, 2019, 07:19:25 PM »
Terror of the Underworld 1.5 released!

The so-far biggest update to the script in an attempt to keep the difficulty high, but at the same time trying to make sure this difficulty is a "fair high".

Changelog :

-Butterfly hitbox tweaked! While I'm not exactly sure it's a 100% sure fix, you may go near butterfly bullets now with (mostly) no problem! Among others, this makes the second spell (revamped!) and Spiral much more clearable!

-Soul blast (first and third non) : Bullet density slightly lowered. The hitbox update should make this one much more enjoyable! HP lowered significantly.

-Constriction Cannon : Unchanged.

-Flamethrowers (second and fourth non) : Bug with sound effects during the spells fixed. HP somewhat lowered. Otherwise, unchanged.

-Second spell : Revamped! Now instead of fast souls coming from everywhere, the spell now relies on extreme density, but very slow movement! Name changed! The hitbox update should make this spell really a "lost amoung souls" experience!

-Trinities : Delay between triangles spawning increased. Unholy Trinities' spawning boundary raised higher (farther from the player Y). This should make the spells easier to clear, while still keeping the thrill and fear Desperate Trinities is meant to provide!

-Descent : Delay between waves increased, giving somewhat more time to dodge. Hitbox update should make passing between tighter gaps less fearful.

-Soul Bloom : Lasers spawn less souls, and wait slightly more for souls to pass before new ones come. After the initial wave, dodging everything should be less problematic if you keep an eye on both the lasers and the souls!

-Melting Point : Unchanged.

-Supernova : Delay between waves increased, giving somewhat more space to move around in.

-Fountains : Delay between shots of the fountains slightly increased, HP moderately lowered.

-En Masse : Lasers spawn less souls, making everything somewhat more managable as the spell kicks in full force. (I personally think it's still the hardest spell in the script!)

-Spiral : Unchanged, but the butterfly hitbox update should make this one much less fearful and more fair!

-Elysium : HP lowered significantly, lowering the time that needs to be spent via unfocused shots. After playing around this myself, I decided to keep the boss movement as is, as the whole point of the spell is to damage race at first, then use the unfocused shots (or for Reimu-C, focused ones) afterward.

-Purgatory : Fixed an issue with the spell not awarding the spell score upon clearing it. Included a new plural script which only contains the bonus spell to practice!

I hope the update will make the script a much more enjoyable experience to play through! Please provide feedback on if it has become better, your experience didn't change, or (Reimu forbid) everything became worse! Good luck, and have fun!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11vSXn4gZqY58OhKdmnEH0wUHzh9ZQuRO
« Last Edit: February 10, 2019, 07:34:50 PM by Mr.Ownage »
Achieve your mission without regrets.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #18 on: February 11, 2019, 03:55:16 PM »
Ah, now you're talking! This has been transformed from a frustrating relative slog to a really enjoyable fight. I can tell you've been busy: first off well done for sorting the butterfly hitbox issue out (did you use straight lasers or did you modify the shotsheet?), it really made everything better. However :) , things are still not perfect in my opinion.

OK, so you've clearly abandoned the idea that the boss shouldn't move around very much, since he is now as restless as any character in the DBZ universe. That's fine, but I have my gripes with your new design: you really need to forget combining continuous bullet spam with random movement in a HUGE area. So during some of the nonspells, either you keep the boss immobile (I think that's preferable), or you control its movement by only saying that it can go so far with respect to his current position, or you make him move once he stops shooting, before starting the cycle again. In any case, the first nonspell (and its clone later on) along with the second nonspell are just annoying. What doesn't help is that you are still adamant about not wanting an indicator (note that bosses in EOSD, Mushihesama, Dodonpachi etc practically don't move during fights) when there is no magic circle during nonspells.

Now I still don't like the first spell, but at this point this may just be me. Also you've changed the second spell considerably, maybe for the worse. Indeed the bullets are extremely slow and since the shooting in the four corners is at random angles all the time, it's impossible to know which parts of the screen will eventually get clumped up. I would actually make the bullets faster on this one, since I felt as though me capturing it was only a matter of luck.

The rest of the script is now very good. The trinities one is finally doable and everything else feels fair, which is much more than could be said before. So I liked revisiting it. On another note, I didn't bother with the extra spell since I only tried for a few minutes before my eyes started to hurt. Maybe lower the bullets alpha, since right now I feel as though I will get a migraine if I attempt it.
The script has come a long way, that's for sure. Well done for actually taking note of the feedback, and for not being discouraged even though it was rather negative at first. Keep on going!

A final thing: how do you make your singles invisible in the "singles" directory of danmakufu?
IF YOU DON'T ASK, YOU WILL NEVER GET.

Re: My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
« Reply #19 on: February 11, 2019, 04:12:38 PM »
Hey there! Thanks for giving it another go and re-visiting!

I'll go over by the mentioned points in order to give answers/mention my opinions about them :

-For the butterfly hitbox issue, I edited the shotsheet myself. It wasn't that hard as I imagined it would be, after all, but I'm really glad it helped!

-Boss movement wasn't actually changed for the rest of the script since the previous version. While personally I think the boss location should be easily trackable in the first non by checking where the red laser is coming from (since it is targeted straight from the boss exactly at the player), I do get the concerns that an indicator for nonspells at least would be great, though I'd rather prefer to avoid using text as one, as it feels so... off... but then again, that's just probably me. If I had something like the ones PCB and IN, for example, use, that would be great. I'll see what I could do about it.

-As long as you keep scanning for escape routes, the second spell should be doable fairly easily thanks to the hitbox update. Yeah, I could say it's a sort of "creator bias" in part, but the only times I've died to it in its current form are when I panicked too much or messed up a slip through smaller gaps. Slightly increasing the delay on the bullets would definitely make it more feasible, however.

-Thanks for the notice on the extra spell's visual impact, I'll be changing that! EDIT : Here is an updated version of the Purgatory single file! Replace it with the one you have. This one should have a more managable alpha level! https://drive.google.com/open?id=1f7P8r0ez0Vh3FAGkxwIuybP_dIElBu-W

-I'm rather surprised you're asking me that about the singles when you have been doing much more complicated and beautiful stuff than I have :)
To actually answer the question, though, open the file(s) of the single(s) you want to make invisible, and then add a // to the header line (to #TouhouDanmakufu[Single]) of the single(s) you want to make invisible. This way, Danmakufu will treat that line as a comment, and thus, will ignore it, and a script with an ignored header will not be shown on the script list.

Example :
#TouhouDanmakufu[Single] : visible single
//#TouhouDanmakufu[Single] : invisible script

Thank you once again for the time spent and for the feedback!
« Last Edit: February 11, 2019, 04:26:12 PM by Mr.Ownage »
Achieve your mission without regrets.