Well then. I have just arrived from my now-completed penance for cursing out the Lord, which was a small matter of committing seppuku with the flat end of a toy hammer, and am now finally ready to once again present my ideas up for judgment. I even colored it in for you
illiterate morons so that deciphering it would be a little easier.
Note that there is a little disclaimer at the bottom. If you have the patience, go ahead and read it.
Before I start, I would like to present to you the world premiere of
Flashtirade's Crappy Artist's Conception Convention! Within the convention will be various pieces of my designs that I felt needed to be broken down and/or demonstrated. I will be linking Convention often, so be sure to check it out!
Alright, here we go.
Disclaimer: Any images or explanations within this post and others of mine that are of a similar nature are generally not to be taken at face value. They are simply a visual representation of spell cards that I have come up with, and they are by all means meant to be left to interpretation and/or change by those actually programming the game. If you feel something should be changed or deleted, or if you just want to make a comment; go ahead, I don't really care.Spell Card Number 1I designed this for whoever had the snake-thing as part of their design. I no longer know who that is (since you changed your pic), but I suspect that it is Nobu.I was thinking that there should be something like
this in at least one of your spells, since you do have a snake.... It would start with the caster (you) picking a spot somewhere between the middle or the upper-middle and staying there for the entire spell card. Suddenly, a large snake-like figure made of danmaku slowly swirls out from your person (not literally) in a wide radius, shooting slow-moving danmaku in a certain pattern
(see Exhibit 1). It would continue its outward spiral around the caster until a designated endpoint (called X and placed right under the caster for demonstration purposes). It would then switch over to the next part of the spell card.
This is basically a reversal of the first part. It heads from X back to the caster in a spiral. There are two things to note, though. One, whatever direction the spiral went in for the first part must be the same for the second (i.e. clockwise - clockwise, counterclockwise - counterclockwise). Second, four mounts appear around the caster and will orbit around her while releasing rings of fast-moving danmaku. These mounts will not disappear when the spell loops back around to the first part (which it will, fyi). The basic concept is to crowd the screen with a wall of slow danmaku while fast ones whiz by and catch players (targets) by surprise.
After a certain requirement is met (time out, defeat, idk), the spell card will switch to
this part. The same snake-thing from earlier
(see Exhibit 1 again) would wriggle/fly/somehow move across the screen while releasing bullets in the same pattern as before. I broke up it's movement path into 4 parts so that it can be viewed correctly. However, the caster will be taking a similar
but not the same path while shooting rings of danmaku, as the moving shot-mounts did before. [I also thought of letting her shoot tracking shots or something, but not before I scanned the picture.] The thought process behind letting the caster take a nearly identical path was to make it look as if she were riding the snake-thing as it proceeded across the screen.
Spell Card Number 2Inspired by Bubble BeamBefore I begin, let me explain the concept of something I call "sway". Obviously, the idea is not original: a mount rotates in one direction while shooting, then it rotates the other way while shooting, then it repeats.
That's it. However, I tried to give them specific (easy) angle measures so that it would look more uniform. There are demonstrations of various angles in
Exhibits 3 and 4 at the Convention.
Now, the caster aligns herself at the center of the screen and remains unmoving for the entire card, but she may reposition herself after a cast. She is constantly (and for the entire card, even while repositioning) releasing tiny danmaku in 12 "+/- 90-sway" directions. A demonstration of the resulting pattern of only 4 perpendicular "+/- 90-sway" mounts is
Exhibit 2 at the Convention. Now take 3 of Exhibit 2 and overlap them so they're all evenly spaced to start off with, and you get the idea. While this is going on, the caster emits a small ring (big enough to enclose her) of large shots. There must be a bunch of them, I'd guess at least 100 (All images of this are based off of 100). The ring does not move forward; rather, it stays still until the next part is triggered.
When fully realized, it will look something like
this picture. Basically, the ring expanded in three speeds: fast, average and slow (the slower ones are closer, the faster are farther). Based off of 100, there are 20 fast, 30 average, and 50 slow. The caster is still spewing out little danmaku in the pattern mentioned before. The screen does not reset as the spell card begins to repeat (shortly after the explosion), and all shots on the screen are still there when the card cycles again.
Spell Card Number 3Also inspired by Bubble BeamThe caster flies in from X to Y, letting off a cascade of shots (hence the name) in all directions. They are pulled down, resulting in a drooping look. The caster herself is also releasing waves of danmaku. Those falling shots become important in the next part.
The next part. All the falling shots explode, with random bursts of danmaku flying everywhere. The caster is surrounded by some (in this case 6) large danmaku, which swirl towards her while releasing little rounds. They vanish when they reach the caster, and this signals in the final part.
It's going to take a little explaining to break down
this image into something understandable (Yes, I know the target isn't in the same position as before). Okay, using a central axis aimed towards the target, pairs of "+/- 45-sway," "+/- 60-sway," and "+/- 90-sway" mounts are placed on the caster. There are diagrams available at the top of the page and at the Convention
(see Exhibit 6). To cover the backside, the caster constantly releases dense waves of danmaku. In the midst of all this, the caster fires a burst (I chose five for now) of special mounts which send torrents of large shots and shotting laser. They (the middle one, and the others are evenly spaced around it) travel quickly along the central axis directed at the target as almost-tracking rounds because the central axis adjusts to the target's movement. Their back-end lasers do indeed go straight through the caster but deal no damage, and the rounds make it off-screen rather quickly (at most 2 seconds or something). When they do so, their lasers stop firing. However, this is made up by the fact that the caster fires a succession of them every second or so (20 is an arbitrary number). There is a general explanation present at the bottom corner of the picture, and there is a demonstration of a single special round as
Exhibit 5 at the Convention, as well as a picture of one round coupled with the caster arrangement as
Exhibit 6. The entire spell cycles back to the beginning, and continues until defeat or time-out.
Now, if you will excuse me, I will be off trying ODST (without Live). Thank you for your patience.
