Tree of Life - Full-length Danmakufu ph3 script - First demo released!

[professor_scissors]

Hello! After finishing Luminous Dream, I have returned almost immediately to the Danmakufu scene with a new project: Tree of Life.



Tree of Life is (or at least will be) another full-length seven stage Danmakufu script, starring seven new original characters in a new incident. Gensokyo is thrown into bewilderment as massive forests grow overnight all over the place, going as far as to choke out the Kappa factories. I won't say too much about the overarching plot, but it has themes of religion and industrialization.
Included here for your perusing pleasure is a preliminary playable demo:
Tree of Life v0.1
Complete package
Scripts only (Extract into Danmakufu ph3 folder)

Included in this demo:
One stage, with original art, music, events and danmaku!
Five difficulty levels: In addition to the usual four, there's a 'beginner' level for people who have never touched a Touhou game and are turned off by the high difficulty!
One playable character: Nitori Kawashiro, with an original player script and variable shot power!
Vitality System: A new set of special mechanics revolving around absorbing life energy from your foes!
Special unlockable Last Word spellcards at the end of every boss battle on Easy or above!

Features to look forward to in the next demo:
Two more stages, starring three new original characters!
Two more playable characters: Reimu and Marisa!
A proper main menu and game package!
A wide variety of graphical and system improvements!

Further features to look forward to in the final game:
A full storyline and Extra Stage, starring another three new original characters!
Spell Practice!
Six endings!





Gameplay:
Controls as per any standard Touhou game. To begin, select 'Stage' from the main menu, then select your difficulty. 'I' to turn on invincibility, 'U' to turn it back off, 'Ctrl' to fast forward.
As you defeat enemies, you will collect leaves that increase your Vitality (lower left corner). The higher your VIT, the more points you get from all sources, including point items and spell card captures.
During spell cards, a green Life Gauge will appear around the player, slowly filling up. The closer you are to the boss, the faster it will fill. When the spell card ends, the number of leaves you get as a reward is proportional to how full the Life Gauge was. When it's full, you will automatically Death Bomb on a hit.
Hearts and Stars give 1/5th of an extra life or spell. Since there aren't enough of either on stage 1 to give any, they are non-functional for now.

The demo provided here is far from the final shape of the game. There is a lot to change - placeholder graphics, missing effects, inconsistent sound, balance tweaks, and Vitality mechanic adjustments all need to be taken care of. In the meantime, please play it and leave comments about your impressions so far - I particularly need testing on Hard and Lunatic difficulties.
Music by Joel, art by Ayame and Pixle - same team as the last project. Expect Demo 2 to be released in a few more months - this should go much faster than Luminous Dream, since I have a full dev group from the beginning. Until then, I'll be using this thread as a dev blog as work continues. Anything from past Stage 3 will be marked as spoilers.
Enjoy!

[Lavalake]

I saw this topic when I was browsing through this forum.
I literally was like:
"OH MAH GAWD!!!! TREE OF LIFE TOPIC!!!"
I am so surprised and excited.
I have never seen Nitori as a playable character.
And I can't wait for the rest of the game.

Edit: I really love the gimmicks of this game. The leaf collecting reminds me of Mystical Power Plant for some reason.

[touhoumaniac]

Cleared hard mode in first try. It was really easy except for that final spell which i failed.
After several attempts i also cleared lunatic. It felt like bombing happened with a delay or deathbombing is impossible. I didn't like the long delay where player character was not available after losing a life. At first i thought that final spell is just not fun, but limiting myself to only horizontal movement made it doable.
I like the music and stage portions of the game the most currently.

And I can't wait for the rest of the game.

[Ciel]

AHHHHH I SAW THIS IN TUMBLR so I just came to poke at this topic too 8D

First of all, I have absolutely no idea about danmafuku, and how to program it. I only played it for a while and that's it. ^^;

So far, I played Normal. (Because I'm horrible in Hard/Lunatic...;; ) My only complaint is that I really love the stage music, but the boss theme fell a bit flat, but other than that, it's really enjoyable! I like how the normal enemy formations and the Last word is a bit creative, reminds me a bit of Mystia. Maybe you can do a little effect on Nitori like the spell 'affected' her?

BUT YES CAN'T WAIT FOR THE REST!

[fondue]

Whoa, this looks really impressive. Imma give the demo a shot!

[Sparen]

My thoughts:

1) ph3 [.0 pre12]? That's... outdated.
2) Stage background didn't show up, but the spell background did. I mean, I got a 100% white screen. I have the v0.1 complete package
3) When Nitori bombs, the shaking is overdone. Also, the spell name is where the boss spell name usually is
4) Graze SFX might make it easier to tell when you're grazing.
5) Stage music is really nice, boss music is... underwhelming. Not very exciting, definitely not memorable.
6) Beginner Mode has some pretty hard attacks, such as the throwing lantern (only the lantern) and the optical illusion (where the bullets are coming from the sides at ridiculous speeds for beginners.
7) Nitori's shottype is... underwhelming. It's not bad, but it's not very impressive either. Or maybe that's just because I'm used to using Veemon (which has 10 different shottypes in one player script)
The SFX sound a little too artificial.

Other than that, nice job! Can't wait to see what comes next!

[Lavalake]

@Sparen
1: Switching to the latest PH3 in the middle of the game might change some stuff.
2: The stage background loaded for me. I just extracted the folder onto my desktop and played.
7: it's fine to me.
I kind of agree with the rest.

Edit: 5: After listening to it, it does get sound memorable and unique. I kind of like the the boss music. I recommend to manually go into the files and listen to it.
And you are actually my biggest inspiration. Without you, I might not be here on this forum. Much less scripting. I am really looking forward to this game. Good luck.

[professor_scissors]

Your feedback is being noted for the next release. Thank you for your continued support.

Currently working on the remaining character designs for the rest of the game, and the spell cards for stage 2. For now, have some rough early designs for the bosses of stages 2, 3 and 4:

Spoiler:

http://i.imgur.com/HUd2xGd.png

[TheTeff007]

Liking the design of the Stage 3 boss. I'll play your demo as soon as I get home later~

[Imosa]

Nice work, I only played Normal so I'm afraid I can't comment much. It looks pretty good but I did notice this. None of the text fits in the text boxes. Maybe this is a problem on my end since it seems nobody else has reported it. Any idea what's going on.

[Sparen]

Nice work, I only played Normal so I'm afraid I can't comment much. It looks pretty good but I did notice this. None of the text fits in the text boxes. Maybe this is a problem on my end since it seems nobody else has reported it. Any idea what's going on.

If you are not running native Windows or are using a different font, the text will now fit correctly.

[professor_scissors]

Yikes! I didn't do any testing on non-Windows platforms, so I didn't catch this at all. I'll need to figure out a workaround...

In the meantime, have one more design sketch, for a character who appears on stage 2, but isn't properly introduced until much later.

[PhantomSong]

Yikes! I didn't do any testing on non-Windows platforms, so I didn't catch this at all. I'll need to figure out a workaround...

In the meantime, have one more design sketch, for a character who appears on stage 2, but isn't properly introduced until much later.

Inb4 Extra boss. She look cool. A ghost of some form I presume?

[Lavalake]

Her armpits seem exposed. A ghost shrine maiden perhaps?
Also, that hat looks really nice.
Is she like Nazrin, appearing two times in the game, or like Keine, appearing once in the extra stage and once in the 6 stages?
Or maybe Yoshika?

[Sakkeru]

Very nice game, I like it a lot. The boss music does feel a little... less, than the stage music? It doesn't feel like a boss theme, but since the boss is the youkai of confusion, that seems very fitting. The background is really nice too. I like the fact that it's 2D, it feels a little like the PC98 games (in a good way, I love them.) Actually just art and general everything is really wonderful.

Though, there is one thing I've noticed I'd suggest looking at. During the pre-battle conversation with the boss, usually pressing ctrl skips the conversation. However, on this, it just seems to speed up the movement of everything (sprite floating, background scrolling etc.) and have no effect on the conversation. I've no idea if that's just a danmakufu thing, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Imosa]

If you are not running native Windows or are using a different font, the text will now fit correctly.

I'm running off of a Windows operating system, if that's what you mean. I'm not entirely sure what native Windows is.

@Sakkeru: If you hit ctrl during a stage it will speed up all the bullets too.

[professor_scissors]

Spoiler info about that last character design:

Spoiler:

Stage 2 and (sort of) 6 midboss and stage 5 boss, Ryoka Akategawa. The ghost of the number one disciple of a certain god. Has the power to invoke emotions using music. If I make a third game (yes, I have plans for one), then she may become a playable character.

The Ctrl functionality is indeed a staple of Danmakufu ph3 - as far as I know, there isn't a way to turn it off. I'll add a different button for dialogue skipping (spacebar?) as a workaround, at the least.

[Lavalake]

She sounds very much connected to the plot.
I might be able to figure out the final boss now.  :3
Anyways, her ability sounds really interesting and I want to know how you are able to turn it into danmaku.

You have big plans don't you. Making a series of game and all.
I've dreamed of making a series of Danmaku games by learning C++.
I wish you luck on your games.

And a little info:
I saw LD on youtube one day after learning about Danmakufu. (About 2012, two years after learning about Touhou.)
I found it interesting and it led me to this site. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.
I would have probably just sat on the sidelines and never learning how to script.
~Thanks you~ Don't give up.  :3

[Soul Devour]

Noticed this topic yesterday and finally got a catch to try out the demo today. Played it on Hard difficulty twice and I'll list off the positive and negatives in no particular order:

Pros:

+ Difficulty of the enemies, non-cards and spellcards all seemed fairly appropriate for the difficulty level. The Last Word was awesome, once you figured out how it worked.
+ Stage 1 Theme. I enjoy it very much
+ I like the uniqueness of Nitori's shot type.
+ The background for Stage 1 and the boss is very eye-pleasing. Simple but effective.
+ The character art has that charm to it.

Cons:

- Stage 1 Boss Theme. Eh...doesn't really feel like it fits. The battle or the character.
- While the difficulty of all the cards seemed appropriate, a couple non-cards and spellcards felt like they had a bit too much life. On the boss's midboss noncard, first boss spellcard and second boss non-card, I was getting a time out warning despite trying to pound the boss.

(Edit: On Lunatic Sayori's second noncard is flat out not worth taking down. It's less trouble to just dodge and wait for the time out then to put yourself at constant danger to try and beat the timer.)

The good definitely outweighs the bad. I must express some legitimate concern with the boss theme though. One of Luminous Dream's weakest points (imo) was the boss themes and this (admittedly one stage demo) didn't really alleviate that concern. I'm glad I can actually kill all the enemies on the screen this time though.

[professor_scissors]

Progress is still going on behind the scenes! It's just not progress that's too fun to look at.

I just got the designs done for this game's versions of Reimu and Marisa. Music-wise, I have 8 of the game's 17 music tracks at least rough-drafted, and we're looking at revisiting Sayuri's theme. I have demo files of every midboss/boss danmaku pattern on stage 2, although a lot of them still need tweaking to be more fun.

For some visual content, have a look at how Marisa has changed since LD.

[professor_scissors]

Art and gameplay side of stage 2 are making good progress. Backgrounds still pending, Chiwa's danmaku still needs a lot of work before release.

I had to redo the boss rendering code, because the code I have assumes a generally symmetrical boss and just flips the sprite for left/right facing. Since Chiwa's hair is distinctively asymmetrical, I need separate left/right sprite support.

Next: Designing the last remaining undesigned character, combat sprite for stage 2's midboss, then backgrounds and the other two player characters.

[professor_scissors]

Double Dealing Character spoilers:

Spoiler:

FRIG Kijin sort-of has Sayuri's Last Word gimmick

I'll probably keep it as-is, I guess. I don't have any better ideas, and it's not like Kijin ever does exactly what Sayuri does...

EX boss has been approximately designed, giving me a full cast. Got some more danmaku ideas, which fills in some of the holes in my design doc.

[professor_scissors]

Stage 2 midboss fight complete, along with a lot of spell/nonspell concepts filled in on later stages. Next task is rebalancing the Stage 2 boss fight.

[professor_scissors]

More in-game art. All the enemies in Demo 2 are now renderable, although cut-in and dialogue art are still pending. Also began work on the Stage 3 midboss fight here. This particular pattern looks dull in screenshots but pretty cool in motion.

Next up in the art department is the other two playable characters, finalized design for the EX boss, and the backgrounds. A lot of music being written as we speak - if you were one of the many people who didn't like Sayuri's boss theme, prepare to be pleasantly surprised by the next demo.

[Spectral Nexus]

I really, I mean REALLY love the Character Design of the Stage 3 Boss ( I think her name is Rizalia Vivas). She's really up there in my "Favourite Fanmade Bosses List". I know I'm inexperienced but some time in my life I will make a stage with enemies, a midboss and boss. It's seems pretty hard, but there's nothing practice can't do. 
I am loving the game and really liking all of it's features so far, keep it up

[professor_scissors]

Thank you!

Rizalia Vivas is indeed the correct name - she's a Kapre, a mythological creature from the Philippines associated with smoke and practical jokes. I'm quite happy with her design as well.

By the way, I was crunching some schedule numbers, and it looks like the earliest release Demo 2 could see is around Thanksgiving. Being more realistic, I'm going to shoot for Demo 2 launch by Christmas day.

[professor_scissors]

Here's all that this thread will see of the final two characters before the full game's release:

This
That

[Sparen]

Here's all that this thread will see of the final two characters before the full game's release:

This
That

I hope that second one ISN'T who I think it is.

[professor_scissors]

I hope that second one ISN'T who I think it is.

The playable characters are the only visitors from canon.

So, don't worry.

[Sparen]

The playable characters are the only visitors from canon.

So, don't worry.

*Phew*