Shadow's Grimoire of Danmaku (NEW: Miko Boss)

[Shadow]

Hello there! I am a new scripter, having picked up Danmakufu 0.12m two months ago or so. I have been tentatively browsing this specific forum for a while, but at the time, I never had anything to showcase or otherwise release here... However, just yesterday I managed to finish my first project in Danmakufu ever, a "remake" of sorts of the battle against Toyosatomimi no Miko in Ten Desires. The battle draws themes and is intended to parallel the original battle in terms of most patterns and Spell Card themes, though of course, several ideas are of my own touch... while several other individual attacks more or less draw inspiration from Phantasmagoria Trues. All credit in respect to the borrowed functions, the respective adaptations I made of them, and other utility scripts used in this script go to their original authors.

Several issues to note on the script itself--the battle might be at its v1.0, but it is far from perfect. I can guarantee a really erratic scope of difficulty because I had no other playtesters involved in the development of this script; I conformed to making the nonspells and Spell Cards as reasonably difficult as I could dodge, but I think I can label the entire battle as Hard or something in between it and Lunatic. Secondly, as an aesthetic issue more than anything, the synchronization of the BGM and the progression of the fight itself might be off due to the unnoticeable changes in framerate performance of Danmakufu, as I noticed when recording a video of the whole fight. That said, a v1.1 release will most likely try to fix this issue, along with several difficulty tweaks.

On a final note, the script was balanced using only the default ReimuB player, so try to remember that when using custom players. I hope you enjoy the script~


~ Releases ~


Toyosatomimi no Miko, the Remake (0.12m)
Download | Screenshot | Video


~ Projects ~


Currently none.

[Sparen]

@Miko project

Visually, this is AWESOME. Everything flows very nicely (for the most part), and although you may have taken code and graphics from others, it's still well made.

Those lasers in the last spell are AWESOME, by the way.

[Maths ~Angelic Version~]

Feedback to the Miko battle:
1st noncard: Not a bad interpretation of a Miko-like attack at all. Sometimes it seems that you'll get several fairly fast walls nearly simultaneously. I had trouble with it, but it could be because I play on Normal/Hard, not Hard/Lunatic.
Ascent Between Twelve Colors: Start firing bullets a little later (not during the cutin animation). That pattern of the arrowheads is interesting and Futo-like (her last Spell Card) and the bubbles provide more things to dodge.
2nd noncard: Arrows that explode into red bullets at the bottom of the screen? I think you should try to prepare the player for it (maybe start the attack with Miko shooting exploding arrows to the bottom near the left and right corners). It's very easy to get killed if you don't know about it in advance, and many players don't appreciate that. Other than that, it's good.
Desire of the Rising Sun: Hey, are those Lissajous curves? Interesting choice, but the difficulty is inconsistent between waves (because of random numbers somewhere in the script?).
3rd noncard: A fun way to use circles, but it can get nasty if you're unlucky with the angles (random angles again?).
The Pagoda Ablaze in Blue: Good warnings before the bullets appear. The pattern reminds me of Futo and Shou, but that's not really a bad thing. It looks intimidating and is reasonably dodgeable. Pretty good.
4th noncard: Quite similar to the noncard in Ten Desires. I can't really be fair about this one because I'm bad at crisscrossing (diagonal) bullets, so I won't write anything biased.
Five Wheels of Reincarnation: I don't know if I'm just an idiot, but I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to stay in a ring or avoid the rings. Squeezing yourself in the middle of the ring before it contracts can be annoying if you get unlucky/careless with the cards (can probably be avoided by proper positioning). I'd also increase the delay between the contraction/expansion of one set of rings and the appearance of the next set because it's hard to dodge the large glowing bullets while staying in the ring (but again, it could be because I'm a bad player). Anyway, the concept is still all right.
True Administrator: Devil's Recitation, Miko style? I like that you changed some of the attacks to make this stand out from Shinki's/Byakuren's. The aimed, curved lasers are a little fast.
Violation of the First Rule of Harmony: The sine waves of cards are hard to avoid in the first playthrough, but are reasonable if you know how to do it. Similarly for the curved lasers.
Ten Desires: Cards from multiple directions. That's actually an interesting pattern/card, but I can't help but wonder if

Spoiler:

those lasers were really necessary. Not that they look bad

.
It may sound like I didn't, but I enjoyed the script.
I hope that some of this helps and that I wasn't too harsh.
Overall: The patterns seem pretty creative (note: I have never played Phantasmagoria Trues, so maybe someone that has can tell if some attack here is suspiciously similar to a PT attack) without being out of character. There's one thing I'd like to mention: Some of these attacks require trial and error. Some players don't mind it, while others think it's annoying. Of course, whether you want to include it is up to you.
As Sparen said, the visuals are great 

[Shadow]

Many, many thanks for the critique, Maths. ^^ I don't mind it at all, nor I found it harsh, as you actually brought up good points. I will address them accordingly.

"Pierce Shard": I decided to stray from the typical ring-like split formations, so I suppose that is a good thing? xD Nevertheless, I reckon the walls could be a little too fast--nothing a decrease in speed wouldn't solve.

Ascent Between Twelve Colors: My original intention was to convey the paranoia-inducing clusters of bullets as in Colors of Twelve Levels, so I made a slow, unfolding pattern all around the player. Originally this had about 8 more bubbles per ring, but I quickly realized this was overkill, so I toned it down. I gave the bullets a long delay for this reason, but if absolutely needed, I can make a "tell" of sorts that would indicate the player has to move into more or less the center.

"Divide Flight": I see. I can actually visualize a few options right now--either delay the arc of arrows, or make them explode somewhere else, like the left/right bounds. Though this might affect the consistency even more, it is something I will do if I see a lot of complaints.

Desire of the Rising Sun: I was actually going to scrap this card, because if the RNG is feeling particularly hateful, two waves can hopelessly crush you in walls nobody really can dodge. I reduced the randomization of the yellow layer to 8 directions, but it still seems to like becoming impossible every now and then. The solutions I have at the moment are either decreasing the amount of bullets in this layer, or delaying the formation of waves to give the player breathing space.

"Blazing Cycle": I thought the main difficulty in this attack would stem from the fact you'd have to react quickly to how the rings are positioned upon being spawned. Nevertheless, I see a way out of the randomization involved, but I thought I'd explain my reasoning first.

The Pagoda Ablaze in Blue: Thank you~ I was actually a bit worried this would be too out-of-character and place for Miko, haha.

"Overblade Swarm":  Even though that was my intention, I have to agree that is a little too similar to the original, if not a bit too hard for the difficulty I was leaning for, too.

Five Wheels of Reincarnation: You were supposed to stay inside the rings. ._. That way, you won't be walled when the rings expand, while still managing to survive inside the tight area at the "peak" of contraction. I see your point about the time between the waves--I'll try to make it slightly longer and see what happens. Maybe also increase the actual radius of the rings, so that it's still humanly possible to dodge while in the safespot.

True Administrator: I think this would be one of the biggest offenders in regards to the Phantasmagoria Trues similarity. My intention was to parallel Byakuren's Devil Recitation in terms of power and intimidation, transposing this into Miko's attack. I actually realized a bit too late that this is unrealistically similar to Reverse Fantastica, but I had already started uploading the video. I am open to change the swirling pattern, as soon as I come up with a decent replacement. ^^; As for the homing lasers, I also meant to make them fast so they do not get to home in on the player too much.

Violation of the First Rule of Harmony: This card is just not built for first-timers, I reckon. After that, it just becomes systematic.

Ten Desires:

Spoiler:

I like PagodaLasers too much for my own good xD. I personally think they weren't exactly necessary, but the light/dark contrast effect was just too good to pass up.

Once again, thanks for taking your time to comment~[/font]