Author Topic: Gensokyo Tour  (Read 6517 times)

Yoshiquest

  • Some weird programmer
Gensokyo Tour
« on: February 16, 2016, 03:46:43 AM »
Greetings, I have another idea for a project and would like to see if people are interested.

I have noticed how hard it is to get people into Touhou. The best resource right now is the wiki, and while useful and informative, I don't think everyone wants to read through walls of bland text.

That is why I proprose this idea of a "Gensokyo Tour", a web app with an interactive map of Gensokyo. You will be able to click on locations on the map in order to bring up a picture with details of the location, and from there be able to look up info on each character that lives there. For example, you can click on the Hakurei Shrine to read about the Shrine itself, and from there you could read about Reimu, both accompanied by fanmade pictures. I think that providing an interactive, visually appealing map of Gensokyo could help draw more people into Touhou has a whole, and serve as a better method of explaining things rather than browsing through walls of text on the wiki.

Unfortunately, I am NOT an artist, and I've only found some sub-par Gensokyo maps. The best one I could find was this one. This map is decent, but has a few oddities, like how the Forest of Magic seemingly gets split in two by the Human Village, or how Kourindou is on the Shrine side of the forest. That and the fact that it doesn't reflect more recent games.

So, if you think that this is a good idea and want to help out, feel free to give a shot at drawing a map, or feel free to provide other input such as what information should be added (so far I'm thinking of adding 2 tabs, one with canon and another with fanon info about each character, though I might come up with something else later). If this idea gets enough support, then I'll start writing the code for it (I don't want to do a bunch of work and have no one use it after all).

That's all for now!
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Sparen

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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2016, 05:07:55 AM »
A few questions:

How exactly do you plan to do this? Bootstrap and AngularJS? A static website?

Additionally, fan made images may have legal restrictions on them, so it is not feasible to just drag them off of Google. Additionally, are you aiming for complete canon or do you plan to incorporate fanon elements into the project?

Yoshiquest

  • Some weird programmer
Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2016, 03:46:24 PM »
A few questions:

How exactly do you plan to do this? Bootstrap and AngularJS? A static website?

Additionally, fan made images may have legal restrictions on them, so it is not feasible to just drag them off of Google. Additionally, are you aiming for complete canon or do you plan to incorporate fanon elements into the project?

Ok, as for how I plan to do this, I plan on using Clojurescript and a couple of wrappers around React in order to create a single page app (specifically the re-frame library, which wraps around the reagent library, which wraps around React). This is probably going overboard, but usually half the reason do these miscellaneous projects just so I can learn more STUFF about Clojure/Clojurescript anyways, so I'll do that. As for hosting, I'll just use github's website hosting service. If it gets really big I'll see about moving it to a dedicated server, but for now that will work.

For images I plan on having a credits page with links to the sources of each image, which should suffice since I'm not planning on selling this. As for canon/fanon, I plan on having a little of both. The main goal is to give people enough information so that they will be able to read and understand most doujins about that character. I do plan on differentiating the two, either by putting them in separate sections (you click a button and it switches between canon/fanon), or have them on the same page and differentiate them by using a different font/color for each of them.
Sudo make me a sandwich.

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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2016, 11:06:24 PM »
I find this to be an interesting idea.  As I read, I am getting a visual image of something similar to that of Google Maps.  If I may ask, what exactly would you be looking for in those who wish to contribute?
I just know what I know...

Yoshiquest

  • Some weird programmer
Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2016, 08:25:40 AM »
I find this to be an interesting idea.  As I read, I am getting a visual image of something similar to that of Google Maps.  If I may ask, what exactly would you be looking for in those who wish to contribute?

Well, I'll need a couple of things in the image:

- It must have a ratio of 16:9 pixels. Any ratio will do, but bigger is better (images scale down better than they scale up).

- Should be visually appealing (so maybe not like google maps specifically, but more like an artistic view of Gensokyo).

- All of the major locations should be visible from the map.

- Said major locations should also be positioned with some common sense from what we already know. For example, we know Kourindou lies between The Forest of Magic and The Human Village, so make sure it goes around there rather than, say, randomly placing it next to the Hakurei Shrine.

The following are major locations:

- The Hakurei Shrine

- The Human Village

- The Forest of Magic

- Kappa Valley

- Youkai Mountain

- Moriya Shrine

- Kourindou

- Geyser (or some way that will represent the underground)

- Sanzu River

- Muenzuka

- Gate to Netherworld (and by extension, Hakugyokuro)

- Mayohiga

- Shining Needle Castle

- Misty Lake

- Scarlet Devil Mansion

- Three Mischievous Fairies' Tree

- Heaven/Bhava-agra

- Bamboo Forest

- Eientei (might be shared with Bamboo Forest)

- Makai Cavern (near the Hakurei Shrine, will be used to access the PC-98 era characters and their info)

I THINK that's about it. I might have missed some locations, but that should suffice for now.
Sudo make me a sandwich.

Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2016, 03:55:46 AM »
your forgot about all of the places in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense
My old avatars: Old ass turtle, Unzan - Second and Current Avatar by the talented Aoshi-shi

Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2016, 04:58:03 AM »
Quote
I think that providing an interactive, visually appealing map of Gensokyo could help draw more people into Touhou has a whole

I say go for it. You never know if something will work unless you give it a shot. When I did a google search for maps of Gensokyo, I see that there are many people who have made maps of what Gensokyo might look like already. It might be worth taking a look at all of them before you start.

Honestly though, I don't really see how making an interactive map app for a fictional world is going to turn people who don't care about Touhou into loyal followers of the church of ZUN. Am I suppose to bring out my smartphone and say to my friends "hey guys, checkout this map for a fictional world that I really like". I don't think something like that really has something that will hook people into becoming interested in it.

I believe that the thing that really hooks people into liking Touhou is the games, the characters and the music. Using those 3 things I believe would be more effective to bring people into Touhou than just describing the world that it is all contained in.

Still, do you plan to release it onto an app store and charge money for it? I'm not sure how that should work but if it is considered a doujin work then I guess it's okay?

Yoshiquest

  • Some weird programmer
Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2016, 09:41:45 PM »
I say go for it. You never know if something will work unless you give it a shot. When I did a google search for maps of Gensokyo, I see that there are many people who have made maps of what Gensokyo might look like already. It might be worth taking a look at all of them before you start.

Thank you! I've been taking a look at some of them, and I might try and look at more pictures before deciding.

Honestly though, I don't really see how making an interactive map app for a fictional world is going to turn people who don't care about Touhou into loyal followers of the church of ZUN. Am I suppose to bring out my smartphone and say to my friends "hey guys, checkout this map for a fictional world that I really like". I don't think something like that really has something that will hook people into becoming interested in it.

I believe that the thing that really hooks people into liking Touhou is the games, the characters and the music. Using those 3 things I believe would be more effective to bring people into Touhou than just describing the world that it is all contained in.

The main reason for this is because of the main reason I like Touhou, and what I also think Touhou truly is. Sure, it starts with the games, but I honestly don't think that those truly embody what Touhou has become.

I think Touhou is a bit better described as an entire fictional WORLD. The characters, their quirks, and their connections with each other in an interesting setting is what truly sets Touhou apart. The music is pretty good too, and helps form that connection with said world.

Of course, many other games and books have successfully made their own worlds as well. It's just that those things usually focus on the world itself (such as in RPGs). The Touhou games... don't really introduce people to the depth of the world, since there isn't much dialogue or explanation within them (though print works can help expand on this). Most of this information has to be either obtained from the wiki (which can be a pain), or by gathering it from doujin works by various authors. As such, I want to introduce people more to the WORLD of Touhou, rather than the games, if that makes any sense?

The reason for a MAP is that each character has their own little "group" of characters that they interact with, usually originating at a specific location (the SDM characters interact with other SDM characters, the Underground characters interact with other Underground characters, etc). So this will be an easy way for people to get information on each group, one at a time.

The end goal of this is to just give people enough information so that they will be able to read doujins without getting confused as to "who's this? who's that? why are they saying that?"

Still, do you plan to release it onto an app store and charge money for it? I'm not sure how that should work but if it is considered a doujin work then I guess it's okay?

Um, no I won't be charging money for it (in fact I'll be making it open source as with all of my projects), and I think you're mistaking what I'm making. It'll be a WEB SITE app, where you just go to a link and you're there. Mobile support is something I'll keep in mind though, but it'll mainly be developed as a quick website you can easily pull up.

your forgot about all of the places in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Most of the places I mentioned are already in there though, and the main concern here is that each character can have their own place on the map.
Sudo make me a sandwich.

Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2016, 04:07:35 AM »
Please dont charge moneyz for it
thats annoying.
My old avatars: Old ass turtle, Unzan - Second and Current Avatar by the talented Aoshi-shi

Lollipop

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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2016, 05:53:04 AM »
this sounds really ambitious
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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2016, 04:52:30 PM »
The game part make sense though, so you should remember to added at least image about their shot-type and spell card, as well as the list of Touhou game beside it.

Chirumiru-chan

  • Destitute shrine maiden
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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2016, 04:15:13 PM »
Make it for Android, too!
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Re: Gensokyo Tour
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2016, 12:45:31 PM »
360 degree Virutal Tour image technology..... right ?!  i know how it work! hah! very popular method for hotel,resort,museum,library..etc....advertising and promoting,even large scale like city for impressive showcase! :3

yes,it's possible, maybe someday there is a indie team or animation studio talented enough to build whole Gensokyo into 3D format, and rendering a stunning Touhou virutal tour that everybody wish for.....lol!
but the project sure will cost very huge time and resource,even money!

 :]