Even if you are a Danmakufu genius, one thing that always needs considering is the design of the danmaku itself. This is your gameplay factor, the most important part of any boss script. This thread is for discussing danmaku design. Give tips, debate about guidelines, etc.
Some things I just want to throw out there:
-Nonspells are typically for no-gimmick dodging. Look at UFO. Ichirin and Murasa didn't use their respective gimmicks during their nonspells. They don't need to be complex: repeat the same basic pattern with progressively harder twists thrown in, and you should be fine for your nonspells.
-What I've found to be a good standard for boss health is to have 2000-3000 health for the nonspells, and 1000-1500 for spells (use a 10,10 damage rate, and change it to 50,50 after a delay of 800-1200 frames). Test with all the default players and make sure that they can all easily beat it before the timer reaches 10. Remember that you're designing the boss fight as a whole, not just as a series of attacks, so don't be afraid to throw in some shorter patterns as well.
-Keep in mind the amount of time it takes your pattern to repeat. Mokou's "rings of death" aren't hard on their own, but it's the quick succession of them without breaks that makes people dread this attack. Compare to Byakuren's first spell, which is very dense, but has a pause in the action. When the next wave starts, the player has a chance to reposition himself and strategize.
-You shouldn't force micrododging of bullets with vague hitboxes. Rather than forcing people to dodge between tight bubbles, just make walls of smaller bullets. Rather than using fireballs for micrododge patterns, take advantage of their blending and make macrodanmaku out of them, or give the player a chance to dodge from further away.
Anyone care to argue these points?
EDIT: Also throwing in Naut's stage design tips from the PoSR thread, since they're going to go unseen otherwise:
Basic Touhou-style Stage Design Concepts and Ideas.- First off, stages are long and varied. The best thing to do is imagine how it'll play out in your mind. If you enter stage design without having an idea of what you'd like it to turn out to be (other than "ttly awsum"), it's almost always going to turn out to be shit. A great way to do this is to imagine what you'd like to play, and then quickly scribble it down. Include small diagrams.
- Mix up big enemies and little enemies. Little enemies will usually only fire a basic flurry of bullets and leave the screen quickly, and are often used in larger "waves" of enemies, where multiple file in at the same time. Big enemies will often fire a more complex pattern that'll cover most of the screen, and can be used in addition to small enemy waves to create more complex ways to progress through a stage (kill the smaller enemies first, or get rid of the big one?).
- You'll want about six to ten different types of enemies in one stage. This is only an average, shorter stages can have less and longer stages pretty much need more. Using combinations of enemies and varying movement patterns is what gives each stage it's flavor.
- Try not to use smaller basic enemies only once, instead send them in with different movement patterns to provide some sort of uniqueness to each wave, since they'll be firing the same flurry of bullets. However, don't spam them constantly (unless their movements significantly change the danmaku they throw), since this will get boring fast. Sending in one or two waves at the beginning of the stage, proceeding along with other stuff, and then sending them in later on in the stage may be a good strategy to get maximum utility out of that enemy type, and won't seem as boring.
- Big enemies are a little harder to manage. There are a few good ways to handle them, and which one you use will greatly depend on the danmaku they throw. One good strategy is to send in a smaller wave of enemies, then send in a large enemy proceeded by the same smaller wave of enemies. This way the player knows the gimmick to the smaller enemies and can easily handle them (having just seen them), but has the added challenge of dealing with this special enemy which could significantly alter his strategy. You can also send in small groups of big enemies, filling the screen with bullets. Usually these groups would only consist of two or three big guys though, since any more and you'd probably be better of making them smaller fairies. Sending in repeated "waves" of big enemies should only last for 2-4 repeats, sending in any more gets boring fast when they are in succession. A good example of this is at the end of the SA Phantasm stage. The pattern that the enemy fires is really cool, but that portion of the stage is awfully boring -- and lasts for a full minute(!!!). Typically the focus of the stage should be on the big enemies, and people will remember key points in the stage by them primarily (unless you overuse small enemies, then people will just remember "that streaming enemy spam" or whatever), which is what you want. You should have a reasonable idea of what's coming at you after 2-3 playthroughs, and larger enemies are a great way to section off remembering blocks of the stage.
- Many bullet patterns are aimed at the player, and you need to really be careful about this. You don't want too many aimed patterns for your enemies, since the player will just feel like he's streaming the entire stage (usually a bad thing). On the same coin though, you don't want too many patterns to not rely on the player at all, since he'll feel like he's not really interacting with the stage. Typically, smaller enemies will fire bullets depending on player actions (movements, whatever), whereas bigger enemies will fire static patterns. It's not a law or anything, but a good rule to follow.
- Enemy bullet patterns and wave designs are great, but how should we string them together to form a stage? Well as you may know, syncing enemy waves to background music adds so many layers of awesome that can't really be expressed accurately in text. Even if the player is not conciously aware that the enemies are in sync to the music, it subconciously adds to the whole experience of the stage. Each enemy wave has that much more impact on the player. That said, you don't need to sync every single wave of enemies to the background music, most of the time just the big waves or midboss encounter will do, and best results are acheived if you can get it to sync with a significant shift in the musical progress (if the music suddenly speeds up or goes silent, que midboss, etc.). Even if you don't regard music as a big part of your stage designing process, you should definately try to get waves to sync up with these key musical shifts, it'll do wonders to the people playing your script.
- Enemy movements needs to be more varied than "enemy approaches from the top of the screen, shoots bullets, leaves". Coming from the side, curving around, shooting bullets while moving, all of it works well. Try to avoid enemies coming from the bottom of the screen, unless you're certain the player isn't going to be there. Avoid enemies spawning in the middle of the screen, unless you have some sort of warning animation to show where the enemy is spawning. As expected, the enemy should not be able to kill the enemy as it's spawning, as that would be a horrible cheap shot and only serve to piss off the player.
- How about player actions? Most of the time spent in a Touhou game is at the very bottom of the screen. How boring is that!? Get the enemy waves to force the player all around the screen. Get him into the game. You don't necessarily need to make walls of bullets that force him up or anything, but if a pattern is getting denser on one side of the screen, usually he'll try to go to the other to get away from all the bullets. Use this to your advantage. A player who isn't just micrododging his way through a stage is usually having a better experience than if all he has to do is hold shift and tap left or right occasionally. If you plan on stringing stages together into a full game, you could try mixing up the primary dodging strategy for each stage. For example, you could have one stage that has primarily macrododging (moving around the screen unfocused), and then the next stage can be primarily micrododging (minimal focused movement). A good Touhou example actually comes in spellcard form -- Kanako's Virtue of Wind God mixes up macro dodging (getting around denser waves of bullets) and micrododging (slipping inbetween the waves), which makes for a really fun dodging experience. This, coupled with the cool looking pattern the bullets form, the music, and the background, makes for a really emotionally powerful and fun spellcard.
- Speaking of the background, in terms of stages, you should almost always "keep it simple". You do not want the background to be distracting in any way, but you also don't want it to be horribly boring. If stuff is always happening in the background, shit's flying everywhere or something like that, it can take the focus off the danmaku and actually makes for a bad experience. The focus should always be on the danmaku, when danmaku is present. Now that's not to say that you can't have a pretty background, but make sure it isn't too distracting. Shifts in the background location (moving from a forest to a clearing or something similar) should be accompanied by a brief pause in the danmaku. You can play with this a little too, sometimes you want to confuse the player into thinking "how did I get here!?" or something like that.
- You don't want to just throw random assortments of bullets everwhere. It doesn't work in spellcard form, and it doesn't work in stage form. Spamming a whole bunch of different kinds of bullets everywhere in all sorts of different colors looks ugly and plays horribly. Make sure your enemies actually have some sort of pattern, and try to use a limited amount of bullet graphics in the stage so it doesn't feel all over the place. Use a set amount of colors that go well with eachother (ask somebody else if you're not so aesthetically gifted). Pick a theme if you want, though it's certainly not required.
- Finally, get somebody to play test your stage before you release any sort of version of it to the public. If you weren't sure of something, that second opinion will go a long way. Actually, even before you get to that, ask yourself a simple question "does this feel like shit?" If it does, chances are people will feel similarly. Unfortunately, it doesn't always apply for the vice versa, so you'll definately need another opinion on whatever you make.
