Danmaku!! Let me AX you a question

[Moogs Parfait]

Okay not appendicitis but an old people stomach disease. I have to stay at the hospital for a few days fur observation

[BATMANDANCEPARTY]

Oh dear, well best of luck recovering and I'd like to think this won't be too serious health wise
Getting stuck in a hospital is probably lonely since company can't stay over for too long (not to mention boring since your stuck there)
Hopefully it'll be a speedy process getting back home with your fam, where you belong
Best wishes for ya' moog

[Moogs Parfait]

Thanks for the well wishes you guys.

It is extremely boring. But I get to end my 2 day fast now!  I'm stupidly excited about that

[Zhelot]

Thanks for the well wishes you guys.

It is extremely boring. But I get to end my 2 day fast now!  I'm stupidly excited about that

I wish you a speedy recovery, and fasts suck, I hope you don't have to take a laxative afterwards.

More rules clarification questions (Stack edition):

So as I understand it, Responses go on "the stack" and resolve BEFORE the effect they are responding too. In the case of Meiling & Byakuren, they get to deal damage to a player before their initial damage resolves. So what happens when either one of those abilities Kill a player before their attack resolves? Does the attack still deal damage (aka Mutually Assured Destruction), or do all of defeated players effects immediately get removed from the game (ala MTG)?

Question 2: If a player starts their turn with 1 power in play, procedes to play 2 shoots, loses a life and therefore the power, but then draws into another power (via a swing draw or maybe just holding it in hand), and plays it, is that player able to play another shoot?

Put another way, do players count their danmaku used that turn and then compare that number to the extra uses they have available in play? Or does each item/ability give you extra danmaku uses individually (probably the solution easier to keep track of)?

Lastly, you had submitted the following Stage rules for testing, to mixed feedback (if anyone else reading wants to test this please leave your own feedback):



I compiled some suggestions and made an alternate version if anyone wants to test with that as well:

[Validon98]

Sorry to hear about you being hospitalized, Moogs, but it sounds like you're doing okayish, so that's good, at least. ^^;

Lastly, you had submitted the following Stage rules for testing, to mixed feedback (if anyone else reading wants to test this please leave your own feedback):



I compiled some suggestions and made an alternate version if anyone wants to test with that as well:

So... what does this mean, exactly? Like what does stage progression actually do, and what does it mean for minimum health, maximum health, and distance?

[Amew The Fox]

So... what does this mean, exactly? Like what does stage progression actually do, and what does it mean for minimum health, maximum health, and distance?

The idea is that too many players are dieing on the first round/before they even get a turn, and stalemates are never fun. Stage Progression is basically each round (from the heroine's perspective)  the minimum heath of players goes down, and then the maximum health of players goes down, along with players getting closer to each other to prevent players turtling. (Even though distance is starting to become less relevant with things that straight up ignoring it.)

It's still a work in progress, if it is even an idea that could be used.

[Validon98]

Why would the maximum health of players go down, though? Wouldn't that mean everyone gets reduced to close to zero HP if they didn't get hurt at all? I don't know, I get the minimum health thing, but the maximum health thing seems a bit silly. It's like basically saying "well everyone now has one HP and can be offed easily" once the game has gone on a certain amount. I understand it would make for shorter games but it sort of makes health... trivial? Maybe?

EDIT: Or rather... would the current HP of a player, if their maximum HP goes down, be forced down with the maximum HP, or would it be sort of like a broken limit, in the sense that it cannot go up any further, but it's not reduced because of the max HP reduction? I'm thinking of like Labyrinth of Touhou where Eirin can "overheal" and break people's maximum HP, but cannot necessarily heal more than that. Or in terms of this game itself, if someone has 4 HP (as their max), then it gets to the round where max HP goes down by 1, that player would still have 4 HP, but if they go down to 3 HP, they cannot get back up to 4 HP due to the max HP going down. Or... something.

[ShadowNCS]

Why would the maximum health of players go down, though? Wouldn't that mean everyone gets reduced to close to zero HP if they didn't get hurt at all? I don't know, I get the minimum health thing, but the maximum health thing seems a bit silly. It's like basically saying "well everyone now has one HP and can be offed easily" once the game has gone on a certain amount. I understand it would make for shorter games but it sort of makes health... trivial? Maybe?

EDIT: Or rather... would the current HP of a player, if their maximum HP goes down, be forced down with the maximum HP, or would it be sort of like a broken limit, in the sense that it cannot go up any further, but it's not reduced because of the max HP reduction? I'm thinking of like Labyrinth of Touhou where Eirin can "overheal" and break people's maximum HP, but cannot necessarily heal more than that. Or in terms of this game itself, if someone has 4 HP (as their max), then it gets to the round where max HP goes down by 1, that player would still have 4 HP, but if they go down to 3 HP, they cannot get back up to 4 HP due to the max HP going down. Or... something.

Currently, the way this is handled, current HP goes down together with max HP. The reason is that (with 4 1-UP cards), games would go on forever because everyone would heal themselves, and if you had a character like Eirin, who can heal herself to max really easily, she couldn't be killed during the endgame as long as she could activate her Spell card every once in a while.
To be fair, this mechanic shouldn't be introduced to solve the problem of having too many 1-UP cards in the deck (and neither Eirin's broken bomb), but there are probably also other reasons (that I can't think of right now) of why there is a max life cap.
I personally prefer the overhealing as well, but as things currently are, your current life cannot be more than your max life.

[Validon98]

Hrrm... yeah, I dunno, I think the max HP reduction as the game goes on does not really fix much with that whole situation. I dunno, I mean again, I understand that it's meant to rectify long game times, but if the issue is healing, why not rebalance healing instead of forcing low HP totals? I dunno, it just doesn't sit well. Plus does it really make sense for everyone's maximum HP to just sharply drop as time goes on?

Here's personally what I would recommend if you wanted to keep the whole max HP reduction thing. Do not reduce current life along with maximum HP, just make it so that you cannot restore above that much. That way people don't just lose life randomly because oh hey the game is going on too long, but it also mitigates the power of healing. That's how I would do it, at least. I dunno, I haven't been in any of the Steam group games, but this is a serious suggestion to try out, because the way it works is akin to people taking damage from time, which... makes no sense.

[Carrot Parfait]

Hello. This is Carrot, the other half of Mysery Parfait. Usually I let Moogs handle the forum stuff, but this response is going to be lengthy enough and he's out sick so I figure I would crawl out of my cave and type it up myself.

The Stack
Danmaku!! does not use the stack, in Magic: The Gathering sense. Instead, Danmaku is broken down into actions and reactions. Instead, Danmaku!! uses The Queue.

The Queue
Really, Danmkau!! should be a lot simpler than Magic: the Gathering. We don't want that level barrier-of-entry for players. The general rule of thumb is to just play cards and respond in the order that they come up. However, we recognize that you can get into some situations where order of play matters and players want some sort of ruling on how to resolve the cards. Allow me to take a first cut at describing the way actions should be resolved in Danmaku!!

The basic premise is that when a card is played, the entirety of the card text is executed. Players play responses, and these responses happen in the order played, after the execution of the card completes. Each of these responses card are then executed in entirety, and any responses to those cards get added to the end of the queue.

Steps of Card Resolution:

• Announce card
  
  • Reveal card
  • Declare targets
• Allow responses (Cancel effects)
• For each effect:
  
  • Check targets
  • Perform effect
  • Allow responses
• Resolve responses
• Clean up action

[/list]

Announce card or ability
The player whose turn it is is called the current player. They have the option to play a card or invoke an ability. They also choose when to progress from one step of their turn to the next. All abilities that can be used on another player's turn are generated in response to an event.

The current player chooses an Action card to play, such as Shoot!, or an ability such as the ability to activate your Spell Card using the Mini-Hakkero.  If it is a card from their hand, they place it on the table so that others can see it.
As part of playing it, they declare any targets required on the card. This is any time that a card refers to "a player" or "another player" and not "you" on the card. Some effects refer to the chosen players. These cannot be changed once the card is declared.

Targets do not necessarily need to be legal before the card is played. For instance, Byakuren's spell card gives her +5 Range and +5 Distance. She can use this, and attack a player who then becomes in range.

Allow responses (Cancel effects)
Starting with the current player and going in play order, players may play a response to the card being played. This will generally be written in the form "Play/Activate as another player plays a _____ card."
Most cards and abilities of this type allow the player to Cancel the card or ability being played. If this happens, then the card that is being canceled skips all effects and moves straight to the "resolve responses" step.
If a card has more effects in addition to the cancel effect (such as Reisen's Spell Card), these get added to the Queue.

Perform effects
For each effect on a card, you perform the effect in the order listed. An effect is a block of text written on the card that states an action to perform, separated by vertical padding. This does not include reminder text in italics, or text that defines a condition to use the card, or text that defines when the card can be played for reaction cards, or text that describes alternate costs or play modes, such as the ability on Graze! to play the card on behalf of other players, or the ability on Shoot! to increase the range of the attack. Multiple sentences together may be part of the same effect. For instance, "Choose a player. That player gains 1 life," is a single same effect. Most Spell Cards provide two effects, an initial effect like "Draw 2 cards," and then a second effect of "Attack a player in range."

Check targets
At the start of the effect, check to see if the targets are legal. For instance, if a target must be "in range," check the attacker's total Range against the total Distance to that target. These numbers can change between the time the card was announced and the time the effect is checked, depending on other effects previously executed. A card might have been played in response to another card, but by the time that card got executed, a target may no longer be legal.

Perform effect
Then, the actions listed on the effect are performed. This could be drawing cards, attacking a player, etc. Note that a player is not defeated even if they are at 0 health at this point.

Allow responses
If a player has a Reaction that can be played in response to when an effect is performed, they may play that response now. The effects of the response are not performed yet, but the card or ability gets added to the end of the queue. If multiple people have responses, add them in play order. If one of these responses cancels or avoids an attack, that part of the effect is enacted immediately. Any additional effects are added to the queue.

At this point the next effect listed on the card is performed, and so forth until all effects on the card are performed.

Resolve responses
Any cards played in response to the card or its effects now are resolved in the order they were played. They use the same steps for resolution, so a response may generate additional responses, which get added to the end of the queue.

Clean up action
Once all responses are resolved, the action is then complete. All cards are placed in the discard pile in the order they were played, with the initial card on the bottom. At this point, and only at this point are life totals checked. In other words, you can keep shooting and shooting in response, but a player will not die until all responses are finished. This makes it possible for a double-KO. At this point 1Up cards can be played to save a person who would otherwise be defeated.

Shortcutting and Rewinding

It's important to note that players will usually bypass this process and instead move to an abridged version. It's recommended to not use the above resolution system unless absolutely necessary. Instead the rule of thumb for quick play is to shortcut and rewind when a conflict occurs.

Example:
Patchouli uses her spell card to draw two cards and attack Yukari.
Yukari plays a Graze! card in response.
Reisen says she uses her own spell card to cancel Patchouli's spell card.

At this point, you would rewind to before Patchouli draws the cards or attacks Yukari. Yukari takes back her Graze! card, and Patchouli puts back the cards she drew.

If you want to avoid a case like this from happening, you can stop after playing a card and ask everyone, "does anyone want to cancel this?" If nobody chooses to cancel the spell card, then the chance is gone and players can no longer "retroactively" cancel it. Progress with the responses in a similar way.

If multiple people try play Graze! cards for the same person (on behalf of that person, for instance), then allow them to decide between themselves who is playing the Graze!, and the other player takes back their Graze! card (and Shoot! cards if played on another's behalf).

Let me know if there are any specific questions and I will try to answer them.

[Zhelot]

Thanks Carrot,

I think I got it, you've answered the 4 major questions I've had about Danmaku!! under the hood: That targets are declared upon playing the card, that canceling takes priority over reactions, and that "The Queue" is an [almost] first in, first out vs "The Stack" which is first in, last out, and that players survive until The Queue empties.

I'm guessing the hit to 0 is what determines who gets loot? (Or can Byakuren last hit someone post Reisen/Meiling's Spell Card for loot?)

Validon98,

My understanding was that the intent behind the stage progression system was to speed up larger games (7+ players) and to prevent people from being offed 1st round and then twiddling their thumbs for the rest of said long game.

Does it work? Kinda?

It does keep people from dying 1st round. Though players that end up at the minimum life often find themselves in trouble to be eliminated soon. It seems to be a solid strategy to do nothing aggressive in the early game to avoid making enemies and prepare to clean up those that got dropped down early. Though as a result of both the above, the Heroine is rarely attacked in the early game and has a greater advantage picking off targets while at full health in the mid game.

My experience has been once the end game (2-3 players) has been reached distance is already not much of a factor so the penalties to distance end up hosing any defensive strategy.

On the plus side (for some folks at least) the dropping maximum health makes it so as the game wears eventually all players are in reach of killing each other, making no one out of reach, however this has the unfortunate side effect of making turn order from the heroine even more important.

Frankly, more testing and opinions would be welcome. ^^

[Big Fairy]

Get well soon Moogs. Good thing it's not appendicitis because that can be dangerous and quite painful.
These new and improved cards of version 4-18 look great. I was honestly a bit worried that the update would maybe break the old game system which I liked, but it looks like it's made it even better. Hopefully in a few days I'll be able to test them IRL.

A bit surprised about the change that Crisis of Faith underwent. Did the old effect end up being too problematic?
Okuu seems to have become better, but I still feel she lacks something. Would it be imbalanced if she had something like the attack provided by her Spell Card attack requiring 2 Dodge cards to be avoided? Did you consider something like this?
Eirin indeed used to be way too powerful, or at least annoying (a game that would have ended 15mins in went on for a whole 3 hours because of her once). She seems to have become much more balanced now, but would you guys here prefer her Spell Card to be nerfed into providing only +1 HP instead of +2?

As a side note, conflicted about Beer becoming 1UP. Now on one hand, Beer was humorous and reminiscent of Age of Ethanols... but on the other hand, embarrassing situations in which Byakuren uses Beer to heal are now avoided 

[Moogs Parfait]

While it wasn't appendicitis or an ulcer, I had an inflamed intestine and possibly a small hole, there was a danger of me going septic.  I'm on a ton of antibiotics; it's nuclear winter in my system right now.  It's...extremely frustrating to be this weak and have this short list of foods I can eat for the near future.   But I'm long past tired of griping about it.

CoF confused people with its "Danmaku Election" mechanic, so we just made it instant.  It's something I fought for a long time but eventually it became clear there was no other way.

This is today's errata release for the trouble characters:
http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/download/danmaku418/tts/ErrataPita5.jpg

Yuuka's bomb now attacks all.
Marisa got a complete rewrite, check her out.
Tenshi gained some independence from 1up cards, since her spell card is the only one with a downside.
Okuu got her new passive rolled into her bomb, trading utility for a triple attack.
Eirin's bomb is now Omiki/Cheers and heals herself and another for 1.

I finally feel like we're homing in on a final version after the big rewrite, and as you saw above, Carrot is writing the new manual. 

Edit: I'm editing the first post as well.  I think this is setting some people's notifiers off so I wanted to let you know what was happening.

[Amew The Fox]

"This attack deals 1 damage, plus 1 damage for each PowerUp card you have in play.

Whoa. That makes Marisa reeeal dangerous. I so have to try that out at my next opportunity.

Tenshi's new Spell Card is...interesting. It seems to take a bit of the gamble of Challenge away, which isn't a bad thing, really.

Interesting seeing Okuu going with multi attacks. Wanna see how that plays out.

(Also, nice to see that you're getting better, Moogs.)

[Big Fairy]

Got around to playing a couple games with the new version, have some questions and observations:

• Can Melee's effect be copied after the player avoids its attack?
  Is the card's effect copied only towards the attacker? It doesn't seem very logical if instead of turning into an exchange of blows between 2 players it rather involves the player getting hit to teleport somewhere else and hit someone else. But if it's actually like this, then does the unrelated player who was attacked get to discard a Danmaku card to attack another unrelated person and keep on copying Melee this way?
• Is Miko's card giving effect usable only once per turn?
  
• Can Seal Away be used to attack a player that has no Items? People wanted a clarification on this.
• When Crossing to Higan takes place, do modifiers (be they Focus cards, natural bonuses like Nitori's passive or temporary ones like Byakuren's Spell Card) still apply? I'm guessing they don't but we couldn't be sure about it.
• Does the Rival still do the role swap if the Heroine has been defeated by someone else? We played as if the Heroine defeat would complete the Boss' objective so the Rival had to defeat the Heroine herself first.
• Unless Spear the Gungnir's immunity to canceling apply to Bomb Cancels, wouldn't it be better for the effect to read something like "deal 1 damage to a player of your choice. This does not count as an attack."? Or is the current text future proofing for a future card that will have some sort of bizarre cancel ability?
• Although it's fun to activate Spell Cards more often, I think that the number of Bombs is now too few and it can create situations where 2 powers loop back and forth. On the latest game we played, Byakuren constantly received Bombs and Spiritual Attacks and activated her power each turn, while Miko kept giving her hand away to an ally and activating her Spell Card. Byakuren was perfectly fine with this, so she never cancelled the activation, and those of us who weren't fine with it couldn't do anything as we did have Spiritual Attacks but no Bombs.
• Focus seems to be quite a bit useless now since it can't stack, but there weren't many opportunities to evaluate it more fairly. Overall people preferred to have a Supernatural Border in than a Focus though. In the same manner 4x 1UPs seem to be a bit too much, but the number of games we played wasn't really enough to judge this fairly.

We couldn't test the Stages system.
Everybody really liked the new Roles.
Overall the game is even more fun than before and I feel that (provided that people don't spend hours on their decisions) it tends to move a bit faster too.

[ShadowNCS]

• Can Melee's effect be copied after the player avoids its attack?
  Is the card's effect copied only towards the attacker? It doesn't seem very logical if instead of turning into an exchange of blows between 2 players it rather involves the player getting hit to teleport somewhere else and hit someone else. But if it's actually like this, then does the unrelated player who was attacked get to discard a Danmaku card to attack another unrelated person and keep on copying Melee this way?

Melee can be copied even when avoided and can be used against any other player. Melee can be copied until one attacked player decides not to discard a danmaku card to copy it, turning the battlefield into one huge brawl. Just imagine the user of Melee to fly to another person to hit them in the face. Although why a close range attack can ignore distance while a long ranged one can't doesn't make that much sense to me, either (I mean, the activator of Melee would be shot down before they can get close enough for an attack). xD;
But it still works.

• Is Miko's card giving effect usable only once per turn?
  

We've been playing it the way that Miko can activate it multiple times, but I don't have the card in front of me right now, so I can't say if it's 100% correct that way.

• Can Seal Away be used to attack a player that has no Items? People wanted a clarification on this.

I think the latest version of Seal Away states that you can do that.

• When Crossing to Higan takes place, do modifiers (be they Focus cards, natural bonuses like Nitori's passive or temporary ones like Byakuren's Spell Card) still apply? I'm guessing they don't but we couldn't be sure about it.

Crossing to Higan places you all right next to each other, modifiers by passives, Spell Cards and items are disabled, making Focus even more useless. ^^;

• Does the Rival still do the role swap if the Heroine has been defeated by someone else? We played as if the Heroine defeat would complete the Boss' objective so the Rival had to defeat the Heroine herself first.

The way we've played it, as long as the Heroine is killed and the Rival is still alive, they switch roles. I don't have the Rival card in front of me right now, so I can't double check what it states exactly, but that's at least how we've always played it.

• Unless Spear the Gungnir's immunity to canceling apply to Bomb Cancels, wouldn't it be better for the effect to read something like "deal 1 damage to a player of your choice. This does not count as an attack."? Or is the current text future proofing for a future card that will have some sort of bizarre cancel ability?

I think the way it is worded is because attacks are treated different from life loss. For example, if I'm not mistaken, Byakuren can shoot a Danmaku at any person attacking, including Remilia when using her Spell card. This would not be possible if Remi's Spell stated that it counts as life loss.

I hope I could clarify most of your points. (Until Moogs comes around and states that we've been playing the game all wrong. )

[Moogs Parfait]

NCS gets an A+

Upon the advice of my friends who run guilds, I set up a Mumble server instead of a TeamSpeak server.

Official Mumble Server (Max 16 users, I will create more room if need be):
Host: vx38.commandchannel.com
Port: 4253

[Big Fairy]

Thank you for the clarifications NCS.

Melee can be copied even when avoided and can be used against any other player. Melee can be copied until one attacked player decides not to discard a danmaku card to copy it, turning the battlefield into one huge brawl. Just imagine the user of Melee to fly to another person to hit them in the face. Although why a close range attack can ignore distance while a long ranged one can't doesn't make that much sense to me, either (I mean, the activator of Melee would be shot down before they can get close enough for an attack). xD;
But it still works.

I see. I guess a more logical mechanic would be something like players being able to cancel Melee via a danmaku card, unless the player who played melee used a dodge card with it (so it would be like grazing projectiles and linking it to physical attack in IaMP/SWR/Hisoutensoku), but I'm pretty sure that would be impractical. Melee is concept-wise a bit weird but it also leads to some quite fun moments actually.

We've been playing it the way that Miko can activate it multiple times, but I don't have the card in front of me right now, so I can't say if it's 100% correct that way.

It says "During her turn, Miko may give another player any number of cards from her hand." Going by Moogs' response I assume giving X number of cards to a player more than once per turn is correct. Isn't it a bit overkill though?

The way we've played it, as long as the Heroine is killed and the Rival is still alive, they switch roles. I don't have the Rival card in front of me right now, so I can't double check what it states exactly, but that's at least how we've always played it.

Did this ever make things too hard for roles like Anti-Heroine and Challenger?

I think the way it is worded is because attacks are treated different from life loss. For example, if I'm not mistaken, Byakuren can shoot a Danmaku at any person attacking, including Remilia when using her Spell card. This would not be possible if Remi's Spell stated that it counts as life loss.

Right, I didn't think of that.

[ShadowNCS]

It says "During her turn, Miko may give another player any number of cards from her hand." Going by Moogs' response I assume giving X number of cards to a player more than once per turn is correct. Isn't it a bit overkill though?

It really isn't. After all, if you give your entire hand to one other person, you are likely to be targeted by everyone else. This actually happened once. Miko regretted her decision afterwards.
And even if you give multiple players cards from your hand, keep in mind that you are basically defenseless after using your Spell Card by emptying your hand, and people you didn't give any cards to/ people who are on other teams than the one you gave cards to are likely to attack you, since you'll only have two cards, whereas you most likely GAVE YOUR OPPONENT some firepower via a Shoot card. Not that great of a trade-off, all things considered.

Did this ever make things too hard for roles like Anti-Heroine and Challenger?

Not really. I think the Rival has outlived the Heroine only once.
Every other time, the Rival is most likely the first one to die, since:
Heroine: knows not who to attack in the first round, so she might as well attack the only other person with the role revealed, who will try to kill you eventually anyway
Partner: there are two of you, so why risk hitting the other one when you can instead kill someone who opposes the Heroine?
Bosses: You have a high risk of hitting another boss, so let's just kill the Rival, since even the Heroine is okay with that. Also, you can just pretend to be a Partner trying to help out the Heroine by killing one of the people who will eventually try to kill her.
EX Boss: The Ex Boss is actually the only one who can attack whoever he wants. Unless he fears accidentally hitting the EX Mid-Boss, if there even is one in the game.
No matter how you look at it, the Rival is  the butt-monkey of the group.
So, no, it doesn't really make things more difficult for the other players. At least not with the people I play with.

In general, I think the Rival needs some reworking so their player won't be the first one to be targeted/ killed, but it might just be a problem with the people I play with (myself included).

[Moogs Parfait]

Rival is getting tweaked but I want to point out that the above partner behavior is bad play.  Attacking someone just because you can doesn't help you unless you want the loot,and the rival is fundamentally on the side of the partners.

[ShadowNCS]

[...] the rival is fundamentally on the side of the partners.

I guess that's one fact that people, me included, never really think about, since the Rival's role states that you need to kill the Heroine, whom the Partners need to protect.
Or maybe they do think about it, but just want to show allegiance to the Heroine so that player won't accidentally attack the Partner. I don't really know, actually, since I tend to be a Boss when we have 8 player games. xD;

[Moogs Parfait]

Carrot is requesting feedback from  newbies and veterans alike on the new rulebook he is working on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13HsO97-Nk6HHRNuOrySJyE0m97hVLwHd3KeKaqZC1mc/edit?usp=sharing

[ShadowNCS]

Carrot is requesting feedback from  newbies and veterans alike on the new rulebook he is working on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13HsO97-Nk6HHRNuOrySJyE0m97hVLwHd3KeKaqZC1mc/edit?usp=sharing

Alright, I read through the rule book and have found a couple of things, ranging from typos to just simple things I wanted to comment on.

 
"Defeated players cannot win the game, even if their goal is completed."
You may say so, but in my book, even a defeated Partner is a victor as long as the Heroine wins. ^^

Seasons:
As obvious as it is which symbol represents which season, you should still explain which icon represents which season. For we all know, even if we idiot-proof or programs games, along will come a bigger idiot.
Although I've seen multiple places where the icons are missing, so it might just not be in this google doc just yet.

When I read "Flipping", I immediately thought of "Flipping the Table". A clear sign that I've been playing your game on TTS for far too long. xD;

Main Step:
"You can also use a Bomb's secondary effect to to [...]"

Trashing: "[...] This is generally the same as discarding."
Unless this is explained somewhere else, IS it the same or not? I think we "often" had an argument whether or not Miko's(?) old ability (give any card you would trash to another player) would trigger when she had to discard (e.g. at the end of the turn).
If there is a difference, I would explain that certain rules are only triggered by trashing explicitly. Otherwise, I would get rid of the "generally" in the above text, since it still indicates some sort of difference.

Item Cards: "[...] You can only put permanent cards in play on your turn"
I don't know if this is a typo/ left-over from the item-less version of the game, or if this was intentional, but shouldn't "Item cards" be used here? Because they've never been called permanent cards before. Just wanted to make sure if this is a typo or not.

Healing Cards:
You may want to include/ repeat in the Healing Cards section that a player cannot go above their Max Life.

"Defense cards: Shields [...]"
Which is it now? "Defense Card" or "Shield". This is the only inconsistently named card type in the Card Type section, and while the Defense cards have a Shield symbol, you still might change "Shields" to "Defense Cards" for consistency's sake.

In the Spell Cards Section:
"In order to use the character?s Spell Card, it must be activated by playing a card such as Spiritual Attack or Bomb"
Wouldn't "[...] activated by playing an Invocation card, such as [...]" be better?

Oh, new chibis (and chibi arrangements) for the Roles cards! I like them! ^^
Although with Touhou 15, you may want to remove Reisen from the Stage Boss card and place her... well, there really isn't any more space in the Rival card, so I guess leaving her where she is might be better after all.
And the Rival now doesn't need to reveal themselves. Probably for the better. ^^;

Some typos in the Roles texts (unless I'm mistaking):
"The One True Partner can?t stand any other partners and want to defeat" (wants)
"Extra Bosses have the unique ability to reveal themselves during the game in order to gain special advantage" (to gain a special advantage/ to gain special advantages)


Characters:
Oh, so you CAN use defeated player's Spell Cards with Capture Spell Card now. Okay.
Wait, did Byakuren's ability change, or why can she activate ACTION cards now? If it did change, this might be pretty nice. Activating a Last Word or a Laser Shot ( ) as a counter.

Nitori: " If another player gains a one of these Items"

"Patchouli starts the game with 8 cards in hand if she is the Heroine."
I think Patche has become slightly more terrifying.

[Big Fairy]

Carrot is requesting feedback from  newbies and veterans alike on the new rulebook he is working on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13HsO97-Nk6HHRNuOrySJyE0m97hVLwHd3KeKaqZC1mc/edit?usp=sharing

For the sake of completeness it would be good to add an explanation about what the term Reveal means.
Definitely get rid of the "generally the same as discarding" part for Trashing as NCS said.
It might be useful to explain the difference between Avoiding and Cancelling before talking about card types.
When talking about "a player ever has two (shields or artifacts)", it would be good again for the sake of completeness to elaborate on whether this means having two in the field or in the hand.
It would be good to tell players to put cards to the discard pile in order due to the possibility of Great Barrier Weakening being activated. Unless this only has to be taken into account after the incident is activated?
For Patchouli's ability clarification, maybe something like "these values are affected by the +1 hand size bonus given to Heroines" can be added to the card itself.
I still think that a clarification about what the "the current turn ends immediately" part in Sakuya's Spell Card would be good.

Typos:
"Once you play a Danamku card,"
"Dodge cards include any card that let a player" (lets)
"You can use the Spell Card of defeated players." (cards)

By the way, does Perfect Freeze still freeze the target even if its attack is avoided, or did I dream this up? It seemed to me like it was mentioned somewhere...

[Zhelot]

Jeeze, I read through it had a bunch of comments, forgot to type them all down, then got distracted, my B.

Big Fairy & NCS all asked good questions and I should probably try to recall all the rules clarification questions we've dealt with in play testing and as well as the 2 more clarification questions I keep forgetting to ask:

Piggybacking on Big Fairy:

The interaction between Revealing and reaction cards needs to be more solid, ie: if someone reveals their role signifying they're about to die, can they be 1-UPed afterwards? If so do you try to play the game as if it wasn't revealed or is that intentional that you can use 1-Up that way and have their role be revealed from now on?

Can an EX-Boss reveal themselves (if the condition of 1 player down is met) right before the EX-mid dies/as the ex-mid dies? (For instance, if they were to warn the EX-Boss before they would take the finishing blow.

The Trashing/Discarding paradigm is kinda wierd, you have 2 mechanics that are functionally identical, yet lacking flavor differences to set them apart, the difference has been confusing, and since Miko changed it almost seems irrelevant now. Not to mention you could always phrase abilities to pay attention t where cards are discarded from instead "If a card is discarded from a hand" / "If a card is discarded from play" excetra.

Canceling & Triggered abilities: If someone cancels a shoot, does that also stop Sanae's & Youmu's Passive? MTG precedent says they wouldn't, due to 'countering' not stopping the card from being played in the 1st place, it just does not resolve. Though by that reasoning Youmu gets an un-cancel-able attack each time she plays a danmaku. Alternate phrasing, "When Youmu attacks 1 player with a danmaku card, she may have that danmaku attack another player in range."

Artifact/Shield "Legend" rule, if you play or borrow an artifact or shield, can you keep the old one and discard the new one (MTG legend rule, as of a couple years ago)?

You could phrase patchouli as "Patchouli gets +3 to her Max & Starting Handsizes"

Meiling, can apparently draw 4 more cards if she gets frozen by Cirno, as such maybe phrase her like so: """

Meiling's Max Hansize is 7 when it's not her turn.

Meiling draws 4 cards when she skips her turn.

Meiling may choose skip her turn.

You may not skip 2 turns in a row.
"""

Oh, I really like fun, quirky rules intros, I mean I love reading the flavor text on the Dominion rule books, they're always really fun. But beware, as Formal Ferret Games more elegantly describes: Be careful that your theming does not create dissonance between player's expectations of gameplay and the gameplay your mechanics deliver. Danmaku can be lighthearted, but it can also be a bunch of people subtly or overtly plotting against each other and/or ganging up on each other.

[WodofGar]

I'm glad this is doing so well. Definitely going to purchase when released!

[Aphid_MOTK]

I believe you should reconsider and actually formally use the stack underneath.

It seems to make more sense to use that elegant and well tested system instead of house ruling all those interactions between diffrent things and card types. Proper use of the stack for most of the game actions will allow you to streamline most of the 'response' cards in a very natural way. In addition, each player gets a chance to respond to each action (including their own). Any response cards that you intend to happen 'after the fact' can simply modify the target ability or spell/card.

Basically your 'countering' mechanic is essentially the old 'interrupt' mechanic, or its own mini-stack in a way, so you're already using the concepts. You're also already essentially using priority when every player has to agree to counter or not. 

Also, only one effect has to be considered at a time for 'figuring out what happens' or rule based purposes. Therefore the correct interaction becomes decidable. You should try to read http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr255, it has an interesting view on things, why this fairly abstract concept of a stack was created in the first place: it simplified a lot of interactions between diffrent rules that were tacked on as time went on, reducing the overhead of learning the game by having a sort of fundamental framework to build card interaction on. 

[Colticide]

Finally got to play a game of this! (Thanks Zhelot!) Surprisingly complex and tactful like popular card games, but also really easy to get the hang of. Can't wait for the physical release! Your team made a great game Moogs!

[Moogs Parfait]

I'm glad new people are finding and enjoying the game.  I'm capturing everyone's feedback as well so don't think I don't see it!

I worked extra hard to set up a brand new PC today and write this post.  Despite the fact that I have to send the PC back because it doesn't work properly; so I have to set up another later.  That means you all better appreciate today's post!

[Zhelot]

Yay more offical art! Thanks for your hard work Moogs.

@ Aphid_MOTK

Thanks for the Rosewater link, I always get something good from his experience, as for the Stack in Danmaku, there are some snags that make it undesirable for direct implementation in Danmaku, but the core design concept of keeping interaction simple is definitely ideal.

The issues I see with the stack for Danmaku lie largely in the priority system, waiting in turn order for reactions is both time consuming from a getting everyone focused standpoint, and makes reaction politicking a lot more awkward, not to mention canceling taking priority over general reactions, means either extra rounds of priority separate for canceling, and each reaction/trigger (I'm looking & Byakuren & Yukari's abilities). A more open reaction period, in practice, flows better.

On the flip side, the Queue as described above makes no mention of triggered effects and where they occur within the que, and if they resolve if their initial clause is canceled (Sanae, Youmu, & Yukari). The Stack has support for this, the Queue could use it.

PS: An elegant side-solution I'm really fond of is to have abilities add text to cards instead of triggering separate clauses ala Soulfire Grand Master. Example Youmu's Ability can be phrased as: Danmaku Cards Youmu plays that attack a single player gain: "You may attack a different player in range."

PPS: We had our 1st layers interaction/issue: So according to the rules a Heroine Patchouli's Max Handsize is 8, if She has the Sutra Scroll in play "Your max hand size is now 7" does it set her handsize down to 7 (ala timestamp in MTG) or does her Heroine Bonus to max handsize (+1) Also affect the Sutra Scroll? (meaning all Heroines that use the Sutra Scroll will have a max handsize of 8?)