~Hakurei Shrine~ > Rika and Nitori's Garage Experiments
Development of a dammaku game that can rival Touhou
WishMakers:
Ok, I didn't really want to throw my hat into the ring but I felt like I had to say *something* because the sheer obstinance from this thread is getting ridiculous.
--- Quote ---Well, by that logic every single one video game in the world should be made by 1 man, and nothing except coder's position exists.
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How does this logic conclude...anything exactly?
Often, coding a project is really the hardest part of the project. It takes the most work, the most constant energy, and typically the most hours as well - this is obviously not to discredit all the work that the other members do, but realistically when someone is coding on a project they are pulling the most weight. Despite that, not every game should be made by one man, and obviously people specialize in different things. However, if you were stuck doing the most involved and sometimes mundane part of a project, wouldn't you want to do some of the fun parts too? Wouldn't you want to put some of your own creative energy into the project that isn't just utilitarian like engine work? You get some of this from pattern design, but typically for a large scale project you don't get to focus on that as much as in small scale scripts. This is what Stuffman means by "you're only contributing things that they would want to do themselves anyway". What's important to understand is that anyone can make an idea for a project, even to the extent of your massive documentation, but not everyone can actually put it together.
Many people like you have come to these forums and otherwise with all the ideas in the world but not the way to execute them - but in order to get people on board, you need something concrete to show for it. You need to prove yourself. Your massive amount of ideas, no matter the quality of them, is not enough to convince people here - you need something concrete, and especially to get skilled coders, you need to prove that this game is something realistically attainable, especially with how many projects people already have. That means you need to start coding this thing for a bit by yourself - only you can prove that this project is worth investing a lot of time into, especially if they aren't getting compensated for their work.
--- Quote ---Same, for example, for films, where then nothing except director exists - isn't it fun to, let's say, to not hire actors and play all roles by yourself? You mentioned hiring a music guy - isn't it interesting to make music by yourself? Don't you have the musical compositions which you adore listening to? If you have no skill, why didn't you learned it? Why do you draw character art then? If it's fun, why then I hire character artist for my project? Or maybe because you also can do it, you have the proper skills?
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The incredible amount of condescension in this comment aside, nobody says you have to handle 100% of everything by yourself, even on the coding side. Here's what people are asking you to do - take the initiative. That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest. Stories and lore by themselves are great and important - but this is a community of making games. You appear to want to create a game. What you have is a story, not a game - if you want this narrative you've woven to turn into a game, you need to prove its plausibility as a game before anyone will give you the light of day, and that's just common sense. Some games scale back their ambitiousness to become a game, because their ideas are simply too grand. Others find themselves needing more ideas to even make their concept fit into a full fledged game.
So here's the deal - prove yourself to be a good project leader and prove that this idea has merit as a game, and then people will realistically listen to you. Otherwise your project will be known as "just another ideas guy with no means of production". I don't want to be a downer, but that's the reality we're dealing with.
Stuffman:
I'm not sure why you're rattling on and on about how important it is to have a team when the games you're looking to emulate were, in fact, made by exactly one guy.
Actually, that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. ZUN'S art.
A guy like ZUN could probably get absolutely any professional artist he wanted to do his character art, and on some objective level, yes, it would be better than his. But he does it himself! Because he wants to! And everyone loves it, because it's so weird and janky and unique! Touhou fans around the world watch new game streams on release day just to see what kind of ridiculous characters he came up with this time!
ZUN does not want or need a better artist to do his art.
And we do not want or need a better writer to write our stories.
Helepolis:
Ctrekoz, just something that crossed my mind, how old are you?
Ctrekoz:
--- Quote ---That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest.
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Until I have no proper skills myself, I'm trying to find someone who will be interested enough to help with at least "bare bones".
--- Quote ---I'm not sure why you're rattling on and on about how important it is to have a team when the games you're looking to emulate were, in fact, made by exactly one guy.
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That's very strange conlusion. How much Danmakufu scripts out there are made by exactly one guy? The whole concept about "one guy" seems to me being more as a result of how unpopular this genre is, and, even more, how skilled those people were. Theoretically, you can build an apartment complex absolutely alone, but how much it will take, and not only time? Anyway, for example, Toby Fox is usually mentioned as the sole creator of Undertale, but he did had people who helped him in doing sprites and art in overall. With their help, he created a proper demo, launched Kickstarter campaign, amassed 1022.48% of the original goal and finished his project. My plan is similar, but my main problem is to not having programming skills. I chose bullet hell genre because it's one of the easiest genres for indie developer, because I have inspiring examples like Touhou, Jigoku Kisetsukan, else, and because this genre ideally fits into my way of creative expression. The whole game world and game design is based around idea of a bullet hell game, and everything even started with me making ideas about "How would've that kind of a character be presented in a dammaku game as a boss".
It was already mentioned, but on russian we are using "dammaku" over "danmaku", and "dammaku" is closer to japanese pronunciation too. I'm too used to it.
--- Quote ---A guy like ZUN could probably get absolutely any professional artist he wanted to do his character art, and on some objective level, yes, it would be better than his. But he does it himself! Because he wants to! And everyone loves it, because it's so weird and janky and unique!
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That just childish and extremely naive already. He does because he can do that and he is absolutely fine with the results. Judging by his interviews, he never planned Touhou to become something grand and worldwide known, he just did it for fun, mostly for himself alone and fellow doujin scene. He could've done better story and better art, but he did't cared too much, doing as much as was enough to him (and rushing to finish the games in time for the next Comicet, maybe?), without plans about great popularity and thus the greatest possible quality. Happens, that after some time, Touhou became extremely popular exactly in the way he originally did, so why should he bother now with changing his ways - he just does what he always did and everyone goes crazy about it. Also, recently(?) he said that he will do 1 game per year, so it's a kind of obligation that may hold him down - 16.5 and 17 are not that great anymore. Still, with so much of popularity and amount of trust to his person he can do anything he wants for a long time, honestly, not to mention that many hundreds of thousands are willing to do everything instead of him. Anyway, he didn't done fighting games alone, he didn't done Touhou Cannonball alone, portrait art in Fairy Wars, he did not illustrate his books by himself, and even in dammaku games he has some other people besides himself mentioned in credits (which is probably irrelevant, but interesting still).
If I recall right, I've seen some interview when he stated that he doesn't consider computer games to be something really that important, or at least hiw own games, so he doesn't flesh out art and story so much in the result, he doesn't want to spent so much time on it - I couldn't find this interview, so you may not believe it if you don't want.
--- Quote ---The ultimate reason why I created Touhou is because I wanted to make game music at first. I was more interested in making music for games rather than the games themselves. So I made all this music, and I thought great, I'll find someone's game and put it in. But I didn't know anybody who was actually making games. So the next thing I thought was, right, I better make a game for this music to be used in.
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"The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Interview".
--- Quote ---Q: You said in an interview that you would continue making Touhou games even if their popularity were to drop. Do you still hold true to this statement?
ZUN: Honestly, I can't make anything except Touhou. As long as I'm still moving and I'm fine with it, I?ll continue making Touhou games. *applause from audience*
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and
--- Quote ---Q: Have you ever considered taking some of your musical ideas and take them into orchestras, small bands, group ensembles, and etc?
ZUN: I don't need to, because I have the fans do it for me.
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"ZUN's AWA Q&A Panel".
--- Quote ---The programming is the easiest part. Since there isn't
much question of aesthetics, the results usually don't differ from my predictions, so everything normally goes according to plan.
Compared to that, the music and art are... (--;
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Quite interesting. Zun's "PCB Afterword".
--- Quote ---Ctrekoz, just something that crossed my mind, how old are you?
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21.
Random Sphere:
My first post after 3 years of silence is going to be in this thread. Oh dear.
Anyway, I felt like I could add in a few things to this last message.
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest.
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Until I have no proper skills myself, I'm trying to find someone who will be interested enough to help with at least "bare bones".
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There's Sparen's guide on Danmakufu, which I believe is quite complete. You won't have any difficulty in following it. You'll be able to do the bare bones of your game by the end of it.
--- Quote ---Anyway, for example, Toby Fox is usually mentioned as the sole creator of Undertale, but he did had people who helped him in doing sprites and art in overall. With their help, he created a proper demo, launched Kickstarter campaign, amassed 1022.48% of the original goal and finished his project.
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And you know why he got so much support? Because he already had a huge record of previous work done - as a musician, an artist and a game dev. If he tried to do what you're currently doing, the Kickstarter probably wouldn't even have reached the goal, he probably wouldn't even have reached anywhere.
Even then, Undertale is a poor example for your case. He still did like 90% of the work.
--- Quote ---Also, recently(?) he said that he will do 1 game per year, so it's a kind of obligation that may hold him down - 16.5 and 17 are not that great anymore.
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TH17 wasn't bad in the slightest. It wasn't even painfully average. It had one of the most complete stories in the entire main series (I might even, add, the whole series), a very good OST and also very, very neat art. He even got to make what UFO and TS didn't have - a proper and balanced resource gimmick.
Gon giv u that on 16.5 tho.
--- Quote ---Anyway, he didn't done fighting games alone, he didn't done Touhou Cannonball alone, portrait art in Fairy Wars, he did not illustrate his books by himself, and even in dammaku games he has some other people besides himself mentioned in credits (which is probably irrelevant, but interesting still).
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Cannonball is a fangame, he only gave it a thumbsup so to speak.
Anyway, copypaste what I said on Toby Fox here. He got a track record of making good content so people deposited their faith on him.
--- Quote ---If I recall right, I've seen some interview when he stated that he doesn't consider computer games to be something really that important, or at least hiw own games, so he doesn't flesh out art and story so much in the result, he doesn't want to spent so much time on it.
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Actually, it's more like the games limit his ability to present his story. Remember TH17? We know how huge its plot is due to the omakes and such. The main storyline where the heroines faced Keiki was, comparatively, just a slice of a bigger Keiki.
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---The programming is the easiest part. Since there isn't
much question of aesthetics, the results usually don't differ from my predictions, so everything normally goes according to plan.
Compared to that, the music and art are... (--;
--- End quote ---
Quite interesting. Zun's "PCB Afterword".
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This is the quote that made me post this, really. In that context, ZUN refers to the fact that programming by itself isn't a "hard" task. Unless you're going for the modern fangame aesthetic of complex mathematical danmaku patterns and fancy 3D backgrounds that require even more math, coding isn't hard, but rather laborious. It doesn't require "much question of aesthetics", but it's still a lot of work. A whole load of work no one wants to put in unless they're being paid for it. Source: an undergraduate in CS and a bunch of almost-graduated CS friends.
So yeah, tl;dr: the way to get help from others is by showcasing your previous projects. No one is going to put their eggs in one, poorly made basket with holes in it no matter how you sell it as the best made basket in the whole world.
By the way, I read a bit of what you've written. It turns out you actually tried to just... rip off Touhou instead of going on a tangent from it and actually make something original. You changed the setting a bit but you still work with Touhou's most known established concepts but rebranded. So uh... yeah. You didn't even try.