Author Topic: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5.9 (updated 11/29/10)  (Read 109559 times)

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #30 on: June 27, 2009, 09:00:47 PM »
I'd say you can drop the normal difficulty a few notches for the overall game, but you can bump up hard and lunatic to compensate. At least the hard and lunatic players aren't wussy enough to bitch about it being too difficult, so nock your socks off there and have normal and easy eye-bleedingly boring a tad more beatable. That seems to be the consensus anyway.... Keep in mind that script making is not as democratic as people seem to believe.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #31 on: June 27, 2009, 09:21:55 PM »
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Keep in mind that script making is not as democratic as people seem to believe.

Actually, I would have to disagree on this point. Playtesting is a very important part of game development and responding to criticism on a general consensus will usually lead to an improved product. You guys are basically my playtesters, and it would be foolish to take a "my game, my way" approach when the point of the game is entertain people other than myself.

I think PoSR has improved a lot from its early stages, due to me heeding people's complaints and thinking of new ways to do certain parts of the game. I think something like half the spellcards in the game have been significantly altered from their initial releases, and I'm happy with the results so far. I'd like to have the game be as good as it can before I release it outside of Shrinemaiden; at some point I'm going to have to post it on pooshlmer or maybe even /jp/ to reach a wider audience, and I'm very antsy about it.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #32 on: June 27, 2009, 09:34:07 PM »
The pattern are nice and chellanging...
Also the idea of painting something when using Slow+Bomb is also a nice idea...
The Slow-down on the 5th Stage was confusing as hell...

Overall this game is interesting...
I kinda like the Game and am waiting for the Full Version...  :V

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #33 on: June 28, 2009, 12:09:07 AM »
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Keep in mind that script making is not as democratic as people seem to believe.

Actually, I would have to disagree on this point. Playtesting is a very important part of game development and responding to criticism on a general consensus will usually lead to an improved product. You guys are basically my playtesters, and it would be foolish to take a "my game, my way" approach when the point of the game is entertain people other than myself.

I don't mean "lol ignore everybody", I meant that just because somebody says something doesn't mean you should do it. If somebody is bitching about Normal being too hard, even though you've already stated that this game is harder than the average touhou game, then you don't have to rework everything just to yield to their whining. Stages take a bit of practice, and one or two playthroughs isn't gonna get you a 1cc of the second last stage. I'm sure most people didn't 1cc Normal Subterranean Animism on their first day, why should they expect different for your game?

All I'm saying is this: take the opinions with a grain of salt. You can't jump to conclusions off of one day's playtesting, especially when most people are expecting lol easy stage 5 normal. Mystic Square and Subterranean Animism's stage five Normal are both more difficult than this, so it's not like your game is abnormally hard to begin with.

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #34 on: July 11, 2009, 09:51:54 PM »
For some reason PoSR won't load for me.  It tries to load the Josette cutins for shot type select, but an error turns up.

Yes, I've deleted the previous beta.

Wild amateurish guess: This resulted from GetCurrentScriptDirectory being replaced with .\

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #35 on: July 11, 2009, 10:28:34 PM »
Missing images don't cause error messages in Danmakufu, they just fail to show up, so that's not it.

What does the error say? Does it give you a filename or a line of code or something?

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #36 on: July 11, 2009, 11:49:36 PM »
What does the error say? Does it give you a filename or a line of code or something?
I wish.
It gives the path to josetteb.txt and then this line:


After closing that error box it does the same for each other shot type's txt file.

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #37 on: July 12, 2009, 12:02:36 AM »
I think it's saying it can't find Josette's player files. Are they under ...   h_dnhplayerJosette?

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #38 on: July 12, 2009, 01:53:42 AM »
I think it's saying it can't find Josette's player files. Are they under ...\th_dnh\player\Josette\?
What kind of person do you take me for?  Of course they are!  ...now...

Okay, my comments.

*I completely approve of the soundtrack to this game.  I'm envious and I have no idea why.  Likewise with the backgrounds.
*Difficulties are, as mentioned previously, NOT what's listed on the tin.  Extremely fun, but misleading.  But there's something to be said for making each boss as strong as they could be in character, so I'm not too upset over it.
*Josette Y's bombs are pretty overpowered compared to everyone else's, so she really is the easiest character to use.  Talking of which, I really like the effects in each bomb.  The level of care taken with the art in this game shows very well.
*When a player continues, you need to reset the border line for gaining extra lives back down to 200 points.  ...Not that I learned this through any means but scientific investigation, of course!
*The nameless fairies seem to have gotten a little more than completely trivial in Stage 1.  This is by all means a good thing.
*The inner ring in Lei Lei's midboss attack is a very nice touch.
*I see Lei Lei's fancy laser tricks are mostly gone.  It's a good change by and large.  The slight curve that the laser rain in Crimson Cloud Splitter is... not quite expected or visible until it's right on you though.
*While the art is pretty and everything, there's a typo in the Stage 2 flavor opener thingy.  "Lost and lead astray"~
*One of these days I'll remember the giant shot in Stella's spell card.  The first time.
*Ginny Brightberry has always been the low point of the game for me.  I think her nonspells still need tweaking, as they sometimes break into EoSD-level random spam with a side of micro-micrododging.
*Consider putting a longer pause in before the second ghost shows up in Stage 3.  PoC-rush fail...
*Edna's wigmaku is... kind of scary.  Maybe cut down on the possible random angles?
*The Last Waltz has too few HP.  It's an easy card, come on
*I'm really not sure how you're going to top the Flower Tank's first attack on Lunatic.  I know how you can top the third attack, but I don't think people would be fond of seeing cheeto lasers *runs*
*Not only do I die to every wave of Perpetual Motion, I die in exactly the same place at the same time.  Evil card.  No changes necessary.
*Your readme description of Kotohime is amazing and should be canon (or is it already?  It's not like there's any contest).  The implied molestation... well, I'm sure it made someone else laugh.
*I'm not a fan of Kotohime's first spell card, particularly for how she rushes you before tossing the bombs.
*White Elephant is a cool attack.
*Black Lotus is also a cool attack.

Overall, I'm really impressed.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #39 on: July 12, 2009, 03:42:06 AM »
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*Josette Y's bombs are pretty overpowered compared to everyone else's, so she really is the easiest character to use.  Talking of which, I really like the effects in each bomb.  The level of care taken with the art in this game shows very well.
Josette Y is getting a beating with the nerf bat in beta 5.5. I was just looking at her raw DPS and not thinking about her ease of use in the last release, so she's pretty overpowered.

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*When a player continues, you need to reset the border line for gaining extra lives back down to 200 points.  ...Not that I learned this through any means but scientific investigation, of course!
I noticed this too but didn't bother to fix it since I figured if you were going to play through the game with continues it was like having infinite lives anyway (I don't intend to limit the number of continues at any point), but since you brought it up I suppose it does look odd.

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The slight curve that the laser rain in Crimson Cloud Splitter is... not quite expected or visible until it's right on you though.
Man, someone complains about every curving shot in the game. Are you guys trying to graze them or something?

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*While the art is pretty and everything, there's a typo in the Stage 2 flavor opener thingy.  "Lost and lead astray"~
Ffff I didn't even know that was wrong!

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*Your readme description of Kotohime is amazing and should be canon (or is it already?  It's not like there's any contest).
Well, all the things she does are canon; she IS a police officer, a princess, a collector, she does use bombs as her primary form of attack, and she is a total weirdo. The problem is as Gensokyo has progressed as a setting, it doesn't make any sense for her to be either of the first two, so I came up with an explanation for her to link all those things together. Though this isn't in the readme, my story for Kotohime is that she has the ability to recover lost memories from the lives of others; as such, she's absorbed the memories of a princess, a policeman, a collector, and a fireworks maker. The catch is that picking up all these skills has made her pretty scatterbrained and nutty. Also, Ellen's bio stated that she often loses her memories, which is how she stays childlike though she never ages, so Kotohime picked up a few of her memories as well - which is why she uses Magic Pendant, Ellen's spell in PoDD. I wonder if anyone noticed that!

Aaaanyway with all the feedback I think beta 5.5 will play a bit smoother, and I think I will go ahead and cut the difficulty a bit at least on Normal, so everyone sit tight for a while.

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #40 on: July 12, 2009, 11:09:06 AM »
Man, someone complains about every curving shot in the game. Are you guys trying to graze them or something?
I HIGLY DISAPPROVE OF KANA FIRING BULLETS IN ANY DIRECTION OTHER THAN STRAIGHT DOWN
I think it's more of a visibility issue there.

I didn't think Magic Pendant as a concept quite fit Kotohime, but I wouldn't have put the connection together.

Also, Josette's reaction after defeating sub-boss Kotohime should have been "Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?"

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #41 on: July 14, 2009, 11:28:34 PM »
I'm liking it so far, though the difficulty is a bit over what I'm used to.

And something about Stage 4 bugs me, I haven't seen any mechanical thing in a Touhou game. Kinda reminded me of those old space STG's. But it's not a big problem.

Josette Y's focused spellcard is brilliant though o_o

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #42 on: July 14, 2009, 11:48:15 PM »
Dude, stage 4 is pure sex.
Specially the Red paint thing. You just killed me there.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #43 on: July 20, 2009, 01:59:21 AM »
Okay guys I'm hopped up on all sorts of crazy ideas for going the extra mile with this game, but I need to set limits for myself and I need some input

I will do ONE of the following three things. Please select the one you would like to see the most.

1) Last Words.
Just like IN, a set of very difficult and elaborate stand-alone spellcards. Every named character in the game would get one.

2) Phantasm stage.
I have two ideas for an extra stage and haven't totally decided which I want to do, and am considering the possibility doing both.

3) Alternate bosses.
Since I bothered to make the media for Stella and Kana I'd considered making full boss fights as a little side project, but then I had the idea of doing it IN Stage 4 style. With this idea, Stella/Ginny and Edna/Kana would swap places as stage bosses, depending on what mode you're playing, as follows:
Impressionist - Ginny, Edna
Surrealist - Stella, Kana
Expressionist - Ginny, Kana
Classicist - Stella, Edna

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #44 on: July 20, 2009, 02:04:11 AM »
Oh god, I'm all up for 1 and 2. You could pick any of those, I'd be happy.

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #45 on: July 20, 2009, 02:11:41 AM »
ITT Stuffman hints at EX Mannosuke, and the world becomes a much more interesting place.

Honestly I like the idea of 3 best because I'm boring.  Phantasm as Extra+ doesn't appeal to me tbh, and Last Words seem like overkill after some of the stage spells.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #46 on: July 20, 2009, 03:51:22 AM »
Phantasm Stage = heads
Last Words = tails

Quote from: IRC
<Naut>   @coin
<Keine>   Naut: heads

My ballot is cast.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #47 on: July 20, 2009, 03:58:23 AM »
Last words are overrated :V Same with phantasm.

I say alt bosses.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #48 on: August 04, 2009, 12:51:35 AM »
Tried it out again, a lot of spellcards are balanced much better now, however I still get clipdeathed like mad for some reason.

One issue is one of Ginnny's non-spells is messed up. She fires out red bullets that do nothing.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2009, 03:28:50 PM by Stuffman »

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #49 on: August 04, 2009, 03:29:49 PM »
Whoa haha I accidentally hit Modify instead of Quote on your post and almost replied inside your post.

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Tried it out again, a lot of spellcards are balanced much better now, however I still get clipdeathed like mad for some reason.
Sadly, Danmakufu just has crappy bullets. Graze isn't a significant part of your score in PoSR for this reason precisely.

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One issue is one of Ginnny's non-spells is messed up. She fires out red bullets that do nothing.
Iryan pointed this out earlier, it's fixed for next release. Not sure how I missed this one.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #50 on: August 09, 2009, 12:52:47 AM »
I think I might know why I get clipdeathed so much now...

I looked at the script for Josette and she has a hitbox radius of 2. On the other hand, the NoKiller Reimu and Marisa used for TalonPain's music scripts have a hitbox size... of 0. :V I guess this means that SetIntersectionCircle does not count the center pixel.

Also I'm guessing the builtin Reimu probably has a hitbox radius of 0 as well, since I die way less with her :V

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #51 on: August 09, 2009, 02:02:18 AM »
Downloading now.

My opinions:
1) I like the idea of Last Words, and I liked IN's execution of them, but what made them feel so special to me was the time quota that you needed to meet in order for them to show up; I felt like I'd earned them, and that was awesome. Unless you're planing to do something similar, I'd give this a thumbs-down.

2) I'll probably never see a Phantasm, as I'm not that good. So, at the risk of being biased, no again.

3) Sounds cool. *votes for Alt!Bosses*


EDIT: Y'know, it occurs to me now that Danmakufu can't possibly enforce the traditional restrictions on Extra and Phantasm access.... *facepalm* Meh. Still way above my skill level.

EDIT2: And more highly opinionated biases biased opinions!
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I have two ideas for an extra stage
I get cookie?

If Phantasm isn't the word of the day, I'd rather know what happened to Rinnosuke's precious thing harpsichord...or whatever it is.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2009, 08:16:19 AM by Blue_Wolf »

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #52 on: August 09, 2009, 02:44:34 PM »
EDIT: Y'know, it occurs to me now that Danmakufu can't possibly enforce the traditional restrictions on Extra and Phantasm access.... *facepalm* Meh. Still way above my skill level.


You so silly. SaveCommonData is your friend.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #53 on: August 09, 2009, 03:51:24 PM »
That would entail making a title screen for PoSR in the same manner as CtC which I am definitely not doing this time around. You would be able to access both Extra and Phantasm from the start. (They'd just be in the stage list)

Anyway for now alternate bosses is in the lead.

Anyone else want to see Josette's hitbox size reduced? I made it 2 because I heard that the standard hitbox size in touhou was 5x5.

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #54 on: August 09, 2009, 04:02:08 PM »
Thats fine for Touhou, but in Danmakufu we're used to the 0 radius hitboxes of the four main characters, so Sakuya and Josette currently feel very clunky compared to Reimu and Marisa. The smaller the hitbox, the more dense you can make the Danmaku, so I'm all for it.

Also, you can have it so Extra and Phantasm are not available from the start... Make us earn it. Use the Select function in an event script to choose between stuff.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #55 on: August 09, 2009, 04:14:09 PM »
Fine fine, I'll trim it for 5.5.

I guess I'll go edit Sakuya too.

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #56 on: August 09, 2009, 04:40:05 PM »
Also, you can have it so Extra and Phantasm are not available from the start... Make us earn it. Use the Select function in an event script to choose between stuff.
It's my understanding that Extra was meant to be... well... an extra post-game stage with a True Last Boss.  It always made sense to me at least for the Extra stage to immediately follow the Final stage, assuming some condition was fulfilled.  (TRY EXTRA STAGE! *siren*)

Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #57 on: August 11, 2009, 12:45:54 AM »
Also, you can have it so Extra and Phantasm are not available from the start... Make us earn it. Use the Select function in an event script to choose between stuff.
It's my understanding that Extra was meant to be... well... an extra post-game stage with a True Last Boss.  It always made sense to me at least for the Extra stage to immediately follow the Final stage, assuming some condition was fulfilled.  (TRY EXTRA STAGE! *siren*)
You mean like in the later DDR Games? (AA?ing the final song, to play through another song)

?q

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #58 on: August 11, 2009, 12:49:02 AM »
Also, you can have it so Extra and Phantasm are not available from the start... Make us earn it. Use the Select function in an event script to choose between stuff.
It's my understanding that Extra was meant to be... well... an extra post-game stage with a True Last Boss.  It always made sense to me at least for the Extra stage to immediately follow the Final stage, assuming some condition was fulfilled.  (TRY EXTRA STAGE! *siren*)
You mean like in the later DDR Games? (AA?ing the final song, to play through another song)
You got the reference! *tosses you a cookie*
Yes, exactly. 
What that condition is would be up to the Man of Stuff, though - capture enough spell cards, gain enough points, bomb few times, time out Rika, whatever.

Stuffman

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Re: Portrait of Strange Relic: Beta 5 (updated 6/26/09)
« Reply #59 on: August 11, 2009, 04:29:02 PM »
Hahaha, no way. It would be terrible if you had to play through the whole game every time you wanted to try Extra.