~Hakurei Shrine~ > Rika and Nitori's Garage Experiments
Development of a dammaku game that can rival Touhou
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Ctrekoz:
Thank you everyone for the answers. Let me properly reply to each, except Stuffman. This is very long post, but I separated each group of answers based on to who I reply.

1) I will start with Randome Sphere.


--- Quote ---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.
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Yes, you are right. But I think I will not need to raise so much money, and i'm not trying to make a Kickstarter campaign in this thread. Good demo, good presentation, knowing of your audience, advertising, and etc. - all of this can help me enough to raise that small support that I will need even without huge record of previous work. Same goes for any other developer.

Example was about that despite being know as the sole creator of the Undertale, he wasn't alone, you don't need to be alone to create something great, and that's all. I'm perfectly know the difference of how much he did compared to me currently.


--- Quote ---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.
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I don't want to argue much about this since it's offtopic and it will be mostly about our tastes anyway, even if there is objective points to make still, but I just want to say that I liked almost absolutely everything about Touhou games starting with 3 to 16, including IaMP, PoFV. SWR, Soku and GFW. I've not played in photogames that much and in 1-2, so can't say. Also, I never had problems with UFO and TS gimmicks - in fact, they are one of the most favorite Touhou games for me, TS probably being the most favorite.


--- Quote ---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.
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Fair about CB, but how many fangames you know with direct approval of Zun? Anyway, the point is of not being alone each and every time. Everyone loves what he does alone, everyone loves what he does not alone. Everyone loves Touhou.


--- Quote ---Actually, it's more like the games limit his ability to present his story.
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May be. I'm going around this with better dialogues, having separate in-game menu with lore documents, as well as I write Author's Materials.


--- Quote ---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.
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I'm sorry for being a bit rude, but it's you who didn't even tried to read my material properly. "I read a bit...". I've wrote that document exactly for this kind of situation.

"...going on a tangent from it and actually make something original..." - it's exactly what I've did. If you are biased and will want to quarrel with me to be "the right one in the end", denying everything objectively good about my project, it's understandable, but I'm not going to participate in that kind of discussion. I hope you will consider possibility of changing your opinion, or you have a good arguments to support your current, otherwise there is no meaning to discuss further. I can understand bias, hate, laziness about reading, ignorance, but understanding doesn't make me feel better.

2) Helepolis


--- Quote ---So, Ctrekoz, I think you need to accept the hard reality that currently you lack reputation to effectively recruit people for your project. The reason you're getting so much backfire is that you're not accepting the fact that currently you got nothing to offer in terms of core activities -> Programming. I made this post earlier in the thread for reasons.

Anyway, ignoring all the fluff about famous people and talented people making awesome games, the fact remains that you're not showing the right attitude here. You're rather being (quite) defensive, extremely counter-arguing with examples blown out of proportions, and most of all showing no signals of "All right, I will dive into this and do my best as much as I can" or something like that.

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As was already said by me once: "...no need to act like guy who popped my "bubble"". You think I didn't accepted "the hard reality" long before starting this thread? And what's wrong with my attitude of being able to honestly, respectfully, and very thoughtfully discuss my opinions with the others' opinions, asnwering their feedback? This is seen as "...defensive, extremely counter-arguing..."? It always eternally saddens me that almost each and every time when people happen to have different views on the subject, instead of proper dispute with consideration of "I may be wrong, he may be right, i'm going to humbly accept my mistakes if so and change my opinion, maybe I didn't seen something" or "let us share our thoughts and make the best possible decision, or learn something new, or improve our current opinion", people start to antagonize each other with the intention of "I must prove my point no matter whan and i'm right no matter what". It's not exactly what you're doing here maybe, but you are not 100% right either. I just want to discuss things, that's all, it's all very open and reasonable, it's not my goal to convince each and everyone to "join my side" by all means neccessary. And I don't find my examples being any bad, mentioning it along other things feels as trying to "set me in place". I'm glad that this is public forum and everyone can clearly follow the whole discussion, as well as having the whole time in the world to read everything carefully and make their decision.


--- Quote ---...and most of all showing no signals of "All right, I will dive into this and do my best as much as I can" or something like that.
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1) "I'm pragmatic and realistic person, and I will continue to work towards the success of what I want to be done. It would've be great for me to learn programming or graphics, but for the time being I have no time and energy for this, so i'm looking for other ways, but i'm not dismissing the possibility of learning it in the future".
2) "Yes, I will continue to try, to search ways, to learn stuff and etc., and your feedback helps me, thank you".
3) "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"".
Eloquent enough.


--- Quote ---Think about it. You started this adventure in on 23th of July 2019. We're in November now. That is already 3 months and nobody has seen any programming effort from you yet.
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I started it much longer ago. Please don't expect me to work non-stop, and reasons for that was given in my previous posts not once. I never said that I will simply wait for someone to come and "save me", but if I have feedback to discuss, then why not to. When I will have more development progress to show, I will.


--- Quote ---And I kind of want to steer this towards a closure...
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This thread is not only about me searching for team. This is the place when I may show updates on development, by most of all, it's the place when i'm ready to discuss any feedback, be it development, how people like or don't like my lore, characters, and etc. . I didn't tried to directly convince exactly you or someone else in this thread to work with me, it's sharing opinions and stating your points. Not to be rude, but I can't see any reason to close this thread except of "I'm tired of seeing people civilly discussing things".

3) Rhyxes


--- Quote ---Hi...
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Hi.


--- Quote ---1. Right off the bat, clickbait-y title. And even admitting to it right away makes it look more like a "you got pranked!" more than anything else, thus heavily reducing any credibility you may have.
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I'm very sorry. I had to do it to receive proper attention.


--- Quote ---2. You say a lot of things that make your project look "better than" Touhou / Len'en, thing is these are two established franchises with their own world and intrigues, while your world, from what i read, is oddly similar to Touhou ( inspiration =/= rebranding, as it had already been said before)
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Exactly: Len'en works only because it is established, it exists as series of games, but it copies Touhou so much that it's not even funny. It was a blatant parody at first that then became it's own series with some unique features. My world suffers from having extremely heavy bias that can be broken only with releasing of proper game. With carefull reading of my documents you can perfectly understand how unique and different my world is, but 95% of people will not do that without released game, which I accepted in the very beginning of working on my project.


--- Quote ---Saying that your WIP game's lore is worth more than 20+ years of storytelling by various medias (games, print works and CDs) is BS, not gonna lie.
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Answer is in what you had quoted: "Maiden Deity's lore is much more developed than in any single Touhou game, and is noticeably different in many details". It's fine that with quick reading you did not catched it, it's not so apparent, so I will just quote last sentence of "5. Thoughts on the success of the project" to prove myself further: "I expect "Maiden Deity: The Dragonfly's Dreams" to be a lot more qualitative in comparison with any Touhou game - taken separately, of course, I am not so impudent to tell that my newly created universe surpasses Touhou taken as a whole, with its more than 22 years of history".


--- Quote ---Right now it looks like you want to leech off the popularity of Touhou & Len'en by saying "look its the next big thing but you need to make it for me".
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I don't care about having Touhou's popularity, but I care about creative self-realization and admirable cultural impact the most. As was already said: "I'm looking at this as just having two good series in the same genre, which both do wonderful cultural impact and bring happiness to people, inspire them and etc.". I want to see people making fan art, discussing lore, characters, music, etc., being inspired by it, being happy. We all adore good fictional universes and why to not want to create your own? Profit motives are secondary, like personal fame and money. I don't even consider Len'en as having great popularity, and, honestly, I'm not even trying to take any inspiration from it at all, i'm bringing it up only because people speak about it so much in Touhou-like games context.


--- Quote ---3. I have read your documents, i do think your project could be going somewhere, but it is hard to keep reading through walls and walls of text, you need to be CONCISE. Less is more, as they say.
People need to get the point in a few sentences.
I have read but i couldn't get myself to the end. Please use bold and italic for important terms and what they signify, it will drastically improve reading experience.
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The thing is that everything is important. Yes, "Features of the project" is a wall of text, but it has not much to do with lore. If about the latter, why do you want me to describe something in two sentences that was thought out almost in year? Anyway, "Game universe" section has 4 documents with only ~4-4.5 pages if summed up, it's very short and gives the most important starting point about universe of Maiden Deity. I even did shorten versions of Level concepts and short overviews in "General" section. Yes, even shorten versions of Level concepts are quite big, but it implies that you already has enough interest to read it based on experience with previous documents. You have all time in the world, i'm not waiting for quick feedback.


--- Quote ---4. I do absolutely not understand the need for details such as "ambidextry" for a game where you won't probably pay attention to it (unless all danmaku MUST be fired from the hands). The devil is in the details, but that detail doesn't matter in a danmaku fight, does it?
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And how literally anything about lore or character design matters in a dammaku fight? Don't tell me that characters express themselves so we need to know them better and such, you can just make lore, make dammaku game based on it but never make your lore public, or you can make lore or character design that will simply never ever influence dammaku patterns you did. Something matters more, something matters less, you may refer character's hair color in his pattern or you may not, but this is important for his visual image still.

As to why exactly I chose to make such an unusual highlight, it's because it once crossed my mind, that in real life any of us would've been glad to have ambidexterity, but if you are not born with it, it's hard to learn it and you don't need it to live a good life anyway. If I recall right, this was catalyzed by working on Sа̀iko S?kudo's biography (3rd level boss). Since my characters have Spirit powers, it's a lot easier for them to learn it, and it may help a lot in their matters, be it combat or daily life, and for someone like Saiko it's even more principal, given her combat attitude and leaning towards physical style rather than usage of magic. It's a neat little detail to be involved in my world more.


--- Quote ---What would happen if someone didn't respect the rules but forced a fight in the middle of town with no regards for the weaker opponent? What is the penalty for not respecting the rules?
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As you may seen in the document, there is at least two authors for this rules (from the lore standpoint): Goddess of Dreams and Wishes and someone else. While the first Goddess is mostly a very kind person, the second character is the one who you don't want to piss off even at the slightest. It's a deity too, and given its powers hiding will not help you, and even if something goes off or it will be just too lazy, it can always send someone to deal with the rebel. Pretty much "you are immediately erased from Mugenri" as you've said, hm-hm-hm~. I'm mentioning this in Author's Materials, but not in the "4. Spirit Battles" itself, since it is implied that everyone in Yumehana knows these rules by default, and what is more important, they know who is behind them. Maybe I should mention it still, at least informally, that's a good point.

If to think about it, let's ask the same question to Touhou series. Why someone like, for example, Junko, cares about dammaku rules? She fears Reimu? Seriously? Or someone like Utsuho? Pretty off-character for her to had patience to sit there in the former Hell of Blazing Fires after eating Yatagarasu and invent spell-cards, not to mention that it's strange for that idea to cross her mind in the first place, and that she wanted to conquer the world. Conquer it like a lady throught fair and strict dammaku-battles? There is no one bold enough in Gensokyo to oppose the rules? Who they fear, is it Reimu, Yukari? We know that "good guys" usually win, but we have a lot of examples in fiction when villains didn't cared about anything and feeled powerful enough to oppose others even if "good guys" were not pushovers either. Something to do about ancient war with vampires? It doesn't explain anything. We already know how much of Touhou characters have so overpowered abilities that 99% of the time they are just mentioned in their profile and never used anywhere, so I doubt there is no one strong enough to oppose the rules. The answer seems simple: Touhou is "family-friendly" franchise and, well, spell-cards are the staple of the games, even if they are not explained so greatly, Zun needs to use them to have a proper game. First of all for the sake of gameplay, only then it's something to do with the lore. And, gain, maybe he didn't thought that his games will become so incredibly successful, so not like he tried to work on lore so hard. And now, well, they are successful even without that work, so why to bother so much. Anyway, it's just his way really, not like i'm blaming him - he does what he wants to and he is incredibly successful and famous person.


--- Quote ---Also, I highly recommend creating a VN if you really enjoy writing
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I already said that it's impossible, and no, my universe is not Touhou-ripoff, you have all materials presented to you to see this.

As to humility, I was always humble and remain as such, but there is a difference between being humble and talking about yourself and your work in a bad light when it not deserves it. It's a classical example of how we perceive other people, i.e. "if you talk about yourself in a good light, you are prideful and narcissistic". I'm realistic, that's all. I'm ready to admit objective facts that show how good I am, i'm ready to admit my errors and faults, i'm ready to insult myself if it's justified, i'm ready to change my opinions, and etc. . The best method to prove that you are right about yourself being good person with good work is to no talk about it, but work, give examples, and I have them in my initial pitch, as well as it can be understood from how I behave in discussing things here. Still, the best prove will be my released game, I know. Also, the whole thing about different opinions is that agreement with other's opinion is also an opinion, so there is no need to always seek points that will differ from points of the others, which seems is that how most of the people think and behave themselves in disputes. What i'm saying again it's even if my point differs from yours, it's not intended to be a quarrel by me, so nothing antagonistic from my side.


--- Quote ---Good luck to you.
--- End quote ---
Thank you.

To end

Each feedback helps one way or another, but I especially  grateful for kind comments that Trickysticks and Sparen made, this helps me a lot more than antagonistic atmosphere. I'm truly care about what i'm doing, so I'm maximally serious about everything here, and it's big stress to see "backfire", but i'm still going. It's not the matter if someone hates me or supports me, I want to make this dream live be it months, year, or 10 years after this day, and I hope that one day I will return here after achieving success and laugh. Yes, I will keep trying, keep searching ways, update on my progress, I will try to get into programming, but it takes a lot and a lot of time, but i'm patient. Even with that said, I'm still ready to discuss any kind of feedback here. The only thing that bothers me, is that world changes each day, and maybe all of this will not be so relevant after years pass, from cultural impact standpoint. Still, I want to see it shine,

Thank you very much.
Helepolis:
Right, so with that I'll grant the author of having the last word on this. For further discussion or personal inquiries, please use PM or discord or w/e your favourite medium is.

I am locking this thread for two specific reason:
- Avoid further derailing / discussion
- It doesn't serve its job

@Ctrekoz, feel free to recreate the thread in the near future when your project gets off the ground in whatever way.
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