~Hakurei Shrine~ > Rika and Nitori's Garage Experiments
Development of a dammaku game that can rival Touhou
(1/8) > >>
Ctrekoz:
Things like   ̀  in names and japanese words is an emphasis for the right reading;
There is a lot of text, so don't rush and read everything carefully and attentively - it is worth it, and here is everything I want you to know. Please, this is my lifework.

Sorry for the clickbait. Of course, even if you make a dammaku game with better visuals, gameplay, lore and etc. than in Touhou, you can't really believe to rival such a colossal media franchise with more than 22 years of history by making just one game, right? But everything begins with something...

Anyway, to the point:
Greetings. I'm writer working on concepts of a dammaku game which is named "Maiden Deity: The Dragonfly's Dreams", and productive worktime is around 11 months so far, doing 95% of things solo. This game set in completely different universe with different characters, but, mostly in terms of game design, inspired greatly by Touhou (but not only by it), so this is the best place for me to make such a post. Also, this is not Len'en-like parody, but completely serious and different project. While game universe is also greatly inspired by Touhou, it has significant differences in details, as well as some completely unique ideas compared to it. Further, all characters are original completely, not a bit inspired by the universe of ZUN, even whatever similarities you may find, being very interesting and unique in all of their aspects, be it bio, design and etc., which I will show you below.

To remain interested, look at this (you can zoom art to see every detail, just wait for its full loading):
- Sketch of the 1st boss, kijimùna Shaggygа̀icho (wings will be removed);
- Almost final art of the 2nd boss, mermaid Lady Yvѐtta Mizushì (will be number of changes, most importantly more lush tail) and her planned musical theme which will be renamed to "Surpassing Elegance ~ Splatter Dance". Currently I do not have rights on this song, but I plan to discuss it with the composer.

Current state of the team:
1. Me - team lead; producing and publishing; writing; gameplay\level\character\music design; community management; advertising; russian and english translation;
2. Characters' portraits artist and designer, who done, for now, only 2 arts that you saw, and will continue to work only when I will form the rest of the team. His style and methods of work are perfect for me, so I don't need another man on this position;
3. I have composer and sound designer in mind (maybe you know Sylvysprit). Last time we spoke, she was interested to work with me, but we discussed only schedule and prices. I want to make a "big talk" only after forming the rest of the team.
I'm looking for: 1) programmers of everything; 2) artists of backgrounds, sprites, interface, and the like; 3) gameplay and level designers. Also, even if you can't directly help in development, I welcome opinions, critique, proposals and etc. about my concepts and\or my way of work. Even if you will just say that "I like your character X a lot", it will already help me - however, I much more prefer elaborate opinions.

To gain more of your interest, I will show you below: 1) A Short overview of game's characters, levels and music; 2) Short overview of the game universe in comparison with Touhou; 3) Features of the project; 4) Concepts of the game's universe, main heroine and first 3 levels (including midbosses, bosses, attacks and etc.); 5) Notes to programmers, artists, composer\sound designer, payment standing and thoughts on the success of the project.

Important!
- Everything is spoiler-free;
- Please, pay high attention to the notes (to the right of the documents - just click on brown text to see a proper note), hyperlinks, and also, you can use Table of contents to the left;
- Main Heroine and 3rd boss currently don't have a sketch or art, but you may read about their visual design and look at design references;
- Even if you will not be impressed by, let's say, Main Heroine, and will think "nah, priestess bla-bla-bla", please read about other characters - currently, I am most proud of 3rd boss. Everyone has different tastes, but I also offer a variety of character types;
- Main Heroine's and Levels' concepts have Shorten and Full versions. Choose Shorten first (highly recommended) if you want to read less text and not interested in very specific game design details and text description of visual design of first 2 bosses;
- There is too much of inspirational music to listen at once and some compositions are looped, so you may left most of the compositions for later;
- Remember that english is not my main language, so maybe some wordings in these files are not perfectly beautiful, mostly regarding character's bio. It can be worked out, of course.

General
1. A Short overview of game characters, levels and music
2. To break your bias about "Touhou clone", let me give you a Short overview of the game universe in comparison with Touhou
3. Features of the project

Game universe
1. "Prehistory"
2. "Deities and other mystical creatures"
3. "Spirit"
4. "Spirit Battles"

Main Heroine
1. Shorten
2. Full
3. Design references

Level 1
1. Shorten
2. Full
3. Sketch of the boss (wings will be removed)
4. Design references

Level 2
1. Shorten
2. Full
3. Almost final art of the boss (will be number of changes, most importantly more lush tail)
4. Her planned musical theme
5. Design references

Level 3
Here I decided to leave only Full version, so be prepared for 14 pages
1. Full
2. Design references

Development notes
1. Notes to programmers
2. Notes to artists
3. Notes to composer\sound designer
4. Payment
5. Thoughts on the success of the project

A lot of writing is done beyond the first Main Hero and 3 levels, but there is no sense to place it here (around 48 more pages currently, compared to 42 pages of content that I provided right here not counting documents in General and Development notes sections). Approximately 85% of full game writing is done.
If you are interested, here is the overview of current writing progress, i'm not hiding anything.
In any case, the closest goal right now is to make a demo with first 1-3 levels to allow crowdfunding, and for this writing is done fully - while making demo, I will, obviously, continue my work. Even 11 months was not enough, heh, but i'm close.

Contacts
Maiden Deity's Discord
My Twitter
Discord - Ctrekoz#5174
Or write a message here

Thank you.
Ctrekoz:
Please, I really need your feedback. I'm never going to abandon this project - I can pause it, but not forget completely, and then resume my work again. I will see it successful eventually.

Pitch is too long? Content about game universe, about characters, levels, art, music is too hidden, i.e. I should do something more "visualized" instead of text and text+hyperlinks? Maybe you are interested, but do not want to work for free? If so, then how much money do I need to accumulate? Maybe you didn't saw bold text+hyperlink on which you can click to open the latter? Maybe I need to buy more music and art to show? Maybe you did read things and can give me feedback from just player, not developer, perspective, i.e. "X is very interesting"? Maybe you want to discuss lore of the game universe or characters? Maybe you want to see spoilers?

All this writing is of enormous quality, even being not 100% finished yet, and it's not just for me, it's something to make other people happy too, to inspire them, to contribute to culture, and I eventually will make it live. I need to know ways to improve.

Also, kinda offtopic question: why there is so many eastern Touhou fangames, so much effort put in something like FDF, Gensou Shoujo Taisen, Labyrinth of Touhou, Touhou Puppet Dance Perfomance, Koumajou Densetsu, and etc.? Is this impossible in western community? Don't consider this as blaming, I'm just really curious - so many teams and quality Touhou games from eastern developers, but I can't come up with much examples from western side.
Satokaisawa:
I think it's interesting, but I don't know of anyway to help. These characters seem interesting. I want to see this project become a reality as well, I just can't help, I can't make things with good quality. I am also busy with things.
theSlug:
My first impression was "wow, that's a lot of text!" witch I think is a good thing, we can really see effort in everything you had write, and I would try to keep the last 15% in this level of detais/ describment. Although I didn't read all the documents, I liked the main character and the bosses.

However, I know that just one wall of good text won't be enough to catch all people's attention. crowdfunding might be a good idea, but  you should do something more "visualized" as you said on your second post.

I would focus on the demo so people can clearly see what you have done and how you "passed" that content in your game.

(english is not my main language too, so I apologize if I said something unclear)
R. P. Genocraft:
That's a lot of text you've posted, and regardless if it's a good read or not, when confronted with that much text just out of nowhere most people would rather do something else with their time. If you do indeed manage to release a demo, people will play it, and if they find it interesting they might be curious to learn about the lore, but for now you're basically saying "here's pages and pages of stuff I wrote, read it, you'll like it".

I hope that didn't come off as rude, that was certainly not the intention. But good lore needs something to get people interested, and a ridiculous clickbait title and walls of text don't work.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page

Go to full version