What's Sanae up to?

[Fujiwara no Mokou]

Hello and welcome!
For all of you I'm first meeting, hello!
For all of you whom I already know, hello!

I'm releasing my first script and stage to the public today! It has taken a lot of effort to complete and it's a bit short, but it is, after all, my first script.
I hope you all enjoy it.

Spoiler:

yes, I tried to replicate IN in several ways.

special thanks to the guy who made the Sanae Player script. (you know who you are)

The data and game engine is within its own as a whole, instead of being something you can already drag and drop to your already existent script folder in th_dnh. Due to bugs and DNH's default format, I recommend NOT moving the data in the script folder over to your previous one. This is a complete package.
Feel free, however, to change the default STG_FRAME to give the game an extra spark.

I apologise for the large space it takes (88mb). It will not load sound files in any format other than .WAV without crashing, so which takes up alot of space.
link here
It's packaged in a RAR file. For those of you who don't know how to extract it, you can use this.

Known Problems
__________________
Q:Sanae Script -snake isn't shooting at the boss for the first several seconds when each it spawns!
A: This is done on purpose to increase difficulty
Q:it crashes as soon as it loads!
A:This is normal the first time the script runs. I load every graphic, sound, and script all at once to prevent in-game lag and loading times as much as possible. It should only go slow the very first few seconds, and proceed to running smoothly when it's done.

Feedback is welcome.

Spoiler:

And yes, I know my scripting is a bit chaotic. And so is the dialogue. I really hated DNH's built-in mechanics, so I had to make my own to replace it.

[Zengeku]

Your script is pretty difficult you know!

But there was some interesting spellcard design. Doesn't look too bad for a first.

[Kylesky]

oh finally!

a lot of people have been expecting this for a long time :V

[Iryan]

Yes, finally! I was anticipating a playable release from you for more than a year now, you know.  :3


So far, I've made only one entire playthrough.
Needless to say, what you made looks very good. The text looks a little strange, but that is only because I am used to the font used in the english patches of the regular games, so whatever.
For the danmaku, it is mostly nice and fitting, although there were a few somewhat cheap moments here and there. Most notably, I was killed instantly at the beginning of the card where bullets extrude from the player because I was next to the bottom of the screen.  :derp:

As minor nitpicks, I'd have to say that
- the player bullets are too visible, which can obscure bullets especially if there are enemies close to you.
- the hit sound the boss makes is quite loud.
- some stage enemies have too much health.

For more in depth feedback, I'd have to play it a couple of times more. For now, let's just say that you did a pretty good job.  :V

[Foremoster]

Hmm the script is so big, I wonder what's going to happen . . .

yay it's finally done loading  :]

Oh wow, this feels just like IN  WHOaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ    

P.S Sanae is a bad girl

[Suikama]

Pretty awesome, although my biggest complaint would be the lack of a boss marker.

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

HAWT DAYUM that file is huge. Nearly as big as Eastern Phantasm Romance. >.>

Downloading and testing anyway.

EDIT: Okie-doke, let's go, hyuu~
First wave of enemies has too much health; they should pretty much be destroyed instantly. Reference: ironically, Imperishable Night's actual Extra Stage, whose early waves could be destroyed backwards.
FFFFFFFFFF -- oh, no, wait, these are pretty easy. Phew. Remilia's last non-spell, I guess.
Okay, cool, shield-type enemies with bullet paths I don't feel like memorizing. ...uh, why aren't they dead yet? ...do these snakes do anything?! I know they do, 'cuz I have the same player script elsewhere, but... Bomb time. "Orochi of Ancient Times," beeyotches.
Apparently I just skipped the next wave so can't tell you how that went. Came back in when the script started copying Subterranean Animism Stage 4 except with a full circle. I recommend adding "if(!Obj_BeDeleted(whatevertheobjidis)) {})" right before bullet creation, or else if the bullets are deleted the extras will still be created at 0, 0 and the framerate will drop hugely.

Bombing again, moar awesome curves... wait, they're not dying again -- FFFFFFFFFFF ONE JUST HIT ME FFFFFFFFFFFFF
That's awful enemy design right there. Divide their life by ten and try again.
Continuing... OKAY, DIVIDE THE LIFE OF EVERY ENEMY IN THE STAGE BY TEN. Except those death fairies with the lasers; cut their life in half, maybe give them bomb resistance if you must, and make the lasers smaller and thinner.

Ooh, pretty dialogue box... but, uh, the control key doesn't work. >.>

...wait, I'm playing as meme-Sanae? RAEG, SANAE-FANS, RAEG! 

Okie-doke, let's get started. Wait, we can't count the health bars. RAEG
So, "Ten Seconds Before New Year" is Stage 4 material. Forgettable. The second, "Phoenix's Throne"... isn't. It's a cool idea, but it has waaaay too much health, especially as you didn't bother with bomb immunity. Oh, and that idea with the snakes is incredibly stupid.
"Curse of Forgiving Shrine" is, oddly enough, easier than the original despite being harder in principle. :/ Not quite sure what's up there.
I think the "The Endless Walk" would have done fine without the ugly solitary RED03s. Then again, it doesn't suffer for 'em, either, so... :/
"Ikahasa's Death..." well, ordinarily it would be harder than normal, but I made "Revelation of Procella" -- specifically, Desdemona Valtiel -- so I'm more than used to Streaming Sieges from All Sides... wait, what are those hideous random bullets doing there? Captured anyhow.
The last few are the problem.
First is "Isolation." The problems with starting the bullets from on the player should be obvious, I think. Starting them a pixel or two away doesn't seem to help either; I still die instantly if I'm on the edge of the screen (predominantly at the start of the attack). Try having a circle with some delay start thirty or so pixels away from the player; the same effect should be achieved.
Secondly is "Three Days of Happiness." The bit with the RED03 bullets is incredibly boring and difficult; fix. The bullets that hit the wall, oddly, aren't so bad.
Last and most egregious is "Immortal."
Never, for any reason, do you forbid bombing. The only good reason to forbid bombing in Touhou-difficulty scripts is a Last Spell/Word. Even Danmaku Bounded Field didn't forbid bombs, and it still did its hardest to make bombing useless. More to the point, that was a Phantasm-tier spell, even further beyond Extra.
DO NOT FORBID BOMBING. EVER.
Also, what happened to the Extra difficulty last spell?

Okie-doke, Suffers Newbies Poorly mode is done. Now for Shepherd mode:
The graphics are gorgeous; it's just like Imperishable Night, as Foremoster mentioned before going all UBOAAAあああああああああああ on us. You managed to get all of the death particles, the cutins, and the familiar graphics (when unfocused, I mean) to work properly, and that definitely deserves praise (I would never be able to animate any of that).
The bad news? Mokou's special background obscures SanaeA's bomb, the lifebar is hideous and not compound, and there's no timer or way of counting lifebars. Still, I imagine those are easy to fix: @BackGround, a not-so-easy lifebar revision that we can probably do without for a bit, and the timer is a matter of effect objects I could probably do if I tried.
Oh, and "Three Days of Happiness" has one of the strangest bugs I've ever seen: one of the bullets will ricochet along the top of the screen, exploding every single frame and causing both epic lag and an impassable wall of bullets. Might wanna look into that. >.>

In the end: Feels more like Seihou than Touhou. Use @BackGround and implement a timer. DO NOT FORBIDBOMB.

I'm done now.

(If it makes you feel better, I'm not much better. :V)

[Fujiwara no Mokou]

RAEG REAG  nice graphics RAAEEGG :flamingv:

Haha, sorry about most of that. Aren't I a little devil?

Please keep in mind, this was in fact my first and only script. Most of those small problems, such as enemy markers, timers, and healthbars were only available in the CreateEnemyBoss; function. But that in itself had problems too, as it Bosses won't run @Finalize no matter what I do, so I had to make the boss a normal child enemy over and over again. Still I could have given the child enemy those same things to make it look more like a boss... but I started getting lazy and rushed through that part, and didn't want to go through the pain of doing it.

Well, I tried making the graphics to the best of my ability obvious lie, but for the most part the main reason I re-did it was because I hated DNH's defaults.
As for the child enemies' lives, well, I don't have a problem with it. Maybe it's easy to me because I made it, but I get through the entire stage with no deaths. Some of them are designed to show up, fire, and run away without dying, so I gave them more health.

"Three Days of Happiness" bug? Hmm, that does sound bad. I didn't have such problem, but I'll look into it and fix it if I can.
Oh, and the RED03 is actually very easy to not die in. You're not supposed to hold shift for focus on that, and just manuever over to the big gaps.
"Immortal" Is designed to be a phantasm-tier spell. I tried to make it a bit like "Imperishable Shooting", hence why I made Mokou completely invincible and forbided bombing. Again, I find it a little too easy, but that may be simply because I made it and know what to specificly look out for.
Hmmm, the only thing I regret is not making it longer and more flashy. I probably should have made more lasers and thought more deeply in the spellcard patterns. But I was just too anxious to try out my first stage. Haha, sorry about that. But I promise I'll make my next stage better.

Spoiler:

I think I'll clash Umineko with Touhou next. Maybe make Marisa or Yukari the playable characters, and make the bosses Beatrice and Battleer? Red truths for spellcards and whatnot... Yeah. Maybe give it some of that mystery-horror feel to it and Beatrice that despicable cocky attitude? I'll see how it works...

Anyhoow :V Thanks for the input. I'll be sure to improve next time around.

[Sejha]

Okay, impressions...?

Hrmm...
Sanae's dialogue is really quite... Meh.

But eh, I'm supposed to be judging danmaku here, not Dialogue.

Enemy health is a bit high, either that or Sanae is just useless.

Not much particularly stands out. I love the Ressurection effect, a very nice concentration effect used.

Timeless "Endless Walk" was very nice.

[Captain Onimaru]

Hello there Mokou~

Oh dear... what a wonderful thing to warm up on after a whole summer of not playing anything on lunatic. Snakes... Why'd it have to be snakes!? No really, I was always terrible with Sanae. Dx
When in doubt, go to the bottom of the screen and move slowly to the left or right!

In any case, a clear is a clear.
Looks nice. I couldn't help but find myself instinctively preparing for Mokou's normal spell cards, only to get incinerated from a completely unexpected direction.

I'm still inexperienced with Danmakufu so I can't say much about how skilled that was.
I'm assuming It was incredible work!
It must have taken a long time, I know that much for sure.
(I think all the constructive criticism has been more than covered by these fine gentlemen who actually know what they're talking about.)

And now... to spend the rest of my free time memorizing that stage.

[Helepolis]

Needs upload to bulletforge as well.

[Sejha]

Oh also, the background for that stage is spot on amazing.

Wonderful I tell you.

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

Please keep in mind, this was in fact my first and only script. Most of those small problems, such as enemy markers, timers, and healthbars were only available in the CreateEnemyBoss; function. But that in itself had problems too, as it Bosses won't run @Finalize no matter what I do, so I had to make the boss a normal child enemy over and over again. Still I could have given the child enemy those same things to make it look more like a boss... but I started getting lazy and rushed through that part, and didn't want to go through the pain of doing it.
Hmm, truth. How about this: create a task at the beginning of the attack so the death particles are created and stop drawing Mokou/her hitboxes for a little while. Then have her reappear at the default respawn place. Could be a tad tricky, but I think it ought to work if you can wield a MainTask properly.
Then again, that sounds very difficult and I don't blame you for not trying. :V

Well, I tried making the graphics to the best of my ability obvious lie, but for the most part the main reason I re-did it was because I hated DNH's defaults.
As for the child enemies' lives, well, I don't have a problem with it. Maybe it's easy to me because I made it, but I get through the entire stage with no deaths. Some of them are designed to show up, fire, and run away without dying, so I gave them more health.
Yeeeaaah... no. We should be able to kill our gosh-darned enemies, gosh darnit! Otherwise, yeah, PCB and MOF would have really freakin' hard EXes. >.> But yeah, please let us kill them. Just for the sake o' balance.

"Three Days of Happiness" bug? Hmm, that does sound bad. I didn't have such problem, but I'll look into it and fix it if I can.
Oh, and the RED03 is actually very easy to not die in. You're not supposed to hold shift for focus on that, and just manuever over to the big gaps.
Mountain o' Faith, hm? I can try, but it's still kinda ugly. :/

"Immortal" Is designed to be a phantasm-tier spell. I tried to make it a bit like "Imperishable Shooting", hence why I made Mokou completely invincible and forbided bombing. Again, I find it a little too easy, but that may be simply because I made it and know what to specificly look out for.
Put this in Initialize:

Code: [Select]

LastSpell;That'll make it a last spell. See, you can't actually lose on "Imperishable Shooting," but you can lose on "Immortal.[/b]

Hmmm, the only thing I regret is not making it longer and more flashy. I probably should have made more lasers and thought more deeply in the spellcard patterns. But I was just too anxious to try out my first stage. Haha, sorry about that. But I promise I'll make my next stage better.

Spoiler:

I think I'll clash Umineko with Touhou next. Maybe make Marisa or Yukari the playable characters, and make the bosses Beatrice and Battleer? Red truths for spellcards and whatnot... Yeah. Maybe give it some of that mystery-horror feel to it and Beatrice that despicable cocky attitude? I'll see how it works...

Can't wait to criticize that unfairly give it a shot. :V

Anyhoow :V Thanks for the input. I'll be sure to improve next time around.

[draganuv15]

i cant see the bullets

[Iryan]

i cant see the bullets

You probably unpacked the zip into the script folder and then ran your regular danmakufu, right?

The folder downloadable here is actually a fully functional danmakufu folder and is supposed to be played with the danmakufu version inside the folder. If you don't do that, paths can be wrong and thus images may not be displayed.

[draganuv15]

You probably unpacked the zip into the script folder and then ran your regular danmakufu, right?

The folder downloadable here is actually a fully functional danmakufu folder and is supposed to be played with the danmakufu version inside the folder. If you don't do that, paths can be wrong and thus images may not be displayed.

oops  :3

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Hokay, lessee ...

First, I agree with pretty much everything all the other commentors have said. To me, "I am removing an element which is convenient to the player and which the player has everywhere else in the name of 'increasing difficulty'" translates to "I have no idea how to balance the difficulty properly." I'm talking about both the "no bombs but you still die if you are killed" thing -- no other Touhou game does that EVER -- and the "Sanae Script -snake isn't shooting at the boss for the first several seconds when each it spawns" thing -- the snakes are bad enough at selecting the boss for their target as it is. Oh right, also, yeah, the snakes are bad about selecting some random object Mokou's spawned instead of Mokou herself, even after that time-limit.

Dialogue: don't use Lawful Stupid Anti-Youkai Meme-Sanae, please. Yeah, everyone else is saying this, but it needs to be said again.

Also, the boss theme doesn't quite loop properly, but I'm not actually sure that's something you can do anything about in Danmakufu so w/e.

[Sejha]

oops  :3

It's very simple to fix.
Packaged within is a lib folder.
Inside there is the shot replace that you need to run the program.
Copy paste it into the lib folder on your main dnh folder.

[Fujiwara no Mokou]

Hokay, lessee ...

First, I agree with pretty much everything all the other commentors have said. To me, "I am removing an element which is convenient to the player and which the player has everywhere else in the name of 'increasing difficulty'" translates to "I have no idea how to balance the difficulty properly." I'm talking about both the "no bombs but you still die if you are killed" thing -- no other Touhou game does that EVER -- and the "Sanae Script -snake isn't shooting at the boss for the first several seconds when each it spawns" thing -- the snakes are bad enough at selecting the boss for their target as it is. Oh right, also, yeah, the snakes are bad about selecting some random object Mokou's spawned instead of Mokou herself, even after that time-limit.

Dialogue: don't use Lawful Stupid Anti-Youkai Meme-Sanae, please. Yeah, everyone else is saying this, but it needs to be said again.

Also, the boss theme doesn't quite loop properly, but I'm not actually sure that's something you can do anything about in Danmakufu so w/e.

Danmakufu doesn't allow music looping the way Touhou does, so there's nothing I can do about the boss music. If I cut it a bit at the beginning and end, it might fit together better when it loops, but it will sound wrong right from the start, so I cut it at the end to the best of my ability to make it more convinient.
As for the Sanae script, I already said this before, but I'll repeat myself again. The snake script is purposefully made to be more difficult. Snakes aren't that smart, so they might miss your target or go after one you don't want. The frogs will go forward no matter what, so that might be more convinient for you if you're picky about it. Both ways Sanae's main weapon is the one that shoots directly up no matter what, so it doesn't really matter.

To me, "I am removing an element which is convenient to the player and which the player has everywhere else in the name of 'increasing difficulty'" translates to "I have no idea how to balance the difficulty properly."

Don't put words into my mouth. I think I made this stage too easy. If you want me to prove it, I'll simply attach a replay with absolutely no deaths on my part.
Just because you may have problems with this level of difficulty, doesn't mean someone more experienced than you also does.
If you have too many problems with it, you can simply make it easier for yourself. I didn't archive this data, so do what you want.

[Fujiwara no Mokou]

reserved for updates

[Supreme Gamesmaster]

As for the Sanae script, I already said this before, but I'll repeat myself again. The snake script is purposefully made to be more difficult. Snakes aren't that smart, so they might miss your target or go after one you don't want. The frogs will go forward no matter what, so that might be more convinient for you if you're picky about it.

But... the snakes have lower DPS as it is. THE OPTIONS ARE BALANCED, 'k?

Both ways Sanae's main weapon is the one that shoots directly up no matter what, so it doesn't really matter.
...
...you realize that if this were true, there would be no point to collecting power items after Mountain of Faith.

Don't put words into my mouth. I think I made this stage too easy. If you want me to prove it, I'll simply attach a replay with absolutely no deaths on my part.
Just because you may have problems with this level of difficulty, doesn't mean someone more experienced than you also does.
If you have too many problems with it, you can simply make it easier for yourself. I didn't archive this data, so do what you want.
A failure to balance the game on your part is... well, a failure on your part. :/ We all struggle with it, and I'm no exception, but reacting like that is a bit...
More to the point, I agree: Touhou only forbids bombs in Last Spells, where it doesn't matter anyway, and I think we can all agree that Touhou is probably hard enough as is, and disabling homing options for no good reason is just cruel. >.>

tl;dr: Kimiko's right, don't flip out.

[Iryan]

tl;dr: Kimiko's right, don't flip out.

Kimiko may be right, but

To me, "I am removing an element which is convenient to the player and which the player has everywhere else in the name of 'increasing difficulty'" translates to "I have no idea how to balance the difficulty properly.

...is still a rather needlessly insulting way of putting it, especially since, as she stated, this is Fujiwara's first release, so I can relate to her reaction.

For example, you could have said:
"Arbitrarily changing the conventions of a game to make things more difficult, in a way that doesn't come naturally, makes the player feel like the game is 'cheating'. Although this notion is silly from an objective point of view, that doesn't make this emotional reaction less of a problem, so you should try to avoid that. It would be better to improve the difficulty of danmaku the pattern itself."

Be nice, please.  :derp:

[Captain Onimaru]

Not only is this her first release, but (to my knowledge) we're the first ones to play this other than herself.
That makes this more of a beta test wouldn't you say? There's no such thing as a beta test where people didn't have a lengthy list of issues.

It really shouldn't take more than a line or two to explain a problem though.
And in the end it's all up to Mokou wether or not she wants to fix some of those things.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Kimiko may be right, but ...is still a rather needlessly insulting way of putting it, especially since, as she stated, this is Fujiwara's first release, so I can relate to her reaction.

For example, you could have said:
"Arbitrarily changing the conventions of a game to make things more difficult, in a way that doesn't come naturally, makes the player feel like the game is 'cheating'. Although this notion is silly from an objective point of view, that doesn't make this emotional reaction less of a problem, so you should try to avoid that. It would be better to improve the difficulty of danmaku the pattern itself."

Be nice, please.  :derp:

*takes a bow* Point taken. Sorry!