Danmaku!! Let me AX you a question

[Voltorn]

Marisaaa, oh, I'm so gonna print a deck or two to try this out. I'm glad I still have my poker deck and extra card sleeves.

[ShadowNCS]

I also love player stories particularly because of the narrative that comes out of them.  It's like doujinshi fuel

In that case, consider the following  2700+ words story your "fault". ^^
Because now, it's Story Time!

I felt uncomfortable with having such a large comment in a forum (you never know how mods might react if somebody basically writes down a story in a forum thread), so I posted the story on dA instead.
Here's the link if you want to read it: http://fav.me/d7d085y

And whoops. This story turned out a little longer than I thought. ^^;
I hope it was interesting to read (and that my writing style did not bore anybody reading it to death xD; )

It's possible that my memories are a little wrong on how some of the events turned out, but that's pretty much it.
The dialog, except for the beginning bit, has been freely invented to make the story more interesting. ^^

And really, I don't know what was wrong with Miko's cards. She might have attacked a little more than in my story, but still, Miko was a rather... unmemorable character in this game. She barely attacked, and somehow still ended up almost losing because she never had any Grazes either. Miko must have had really bad card draws all the time. xD;
Also, if it seems that some of the players had too many cards on their hand, then that's my faulty story. ^^
Also, we had forgotten that you could discard a card for the fairy wave instead of losing a life. Either that, or Nitori had a Power and used a Last Word. I can only remember that everybody lost a life at the fairy wave point in the story.

And yes, Nitori had some amazing card draws. The person having played Nitori later told me that he started with THREE bombs. No wonder I could never make use of my permanents. XD
And Nitori's passive ability granting her one distance is really nice to have.

[Moogs Parfait]

In that case, consider the following  2700+ words story your "fault". ^^
Because now, it's Story Time!

The following work of fiction is copyright Mystery Parfait, with only minor involvement by someone named ShadowNCS.

The story is great, thanks so much.

Are you sure that Reimu wasn't Marisa in disguise?  It really felt like she was

Also I'm glad Nitori's passive got a chance to shine.  It is actually one of the stronger passives.  At the start of the game without a power card, it takes 2 Shoot! cards to hit Nitori once, which is somewhat the opposite of Reimu's ability.  In addition her bomb can shut down people's power cards with 100% success. 

[ShadowNCS]

The following work of fiction is copyright Mystery Parfait, with only minor involvement by someone named ShadowNCS.

The story is great, thanks so much.

Are you sure that Reimu wasn't Marisa in disguise?  It really felt like she was

I had a lot of fun writing it, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^^

Well, it doesn't help that Reimu started out with a Mini Hakkero and then Borrowed some stuff from Keine (and that I'm a huge Marisa fan), yeah.
But who knows, maybe she was really Marisa in disguise?  :3

Also I'm glad Nitori's passive got a chance to shine.  It is actually one of the stronger passives.  At the start of the game without a power card, it takes 2 Shoot! cards to hit Nitori once, which is somewhat the opposite of Reimu's ability.  In addition her bomb can shut down people's power cards with 100% success.

I just realized how useful Cirno's passive ability can be against Nitori if she is sitting next to her. "+1 Range. Cirno cannot attack any players at a distance of 1 [...]" But Nitori's distance is 2. Cirno is a genius after all! For she has found a way to bypass Nitori's passive ability! xD

[Moogs Parfait]

You haven't really Danmaku!!'d until someone forgets about Cirno's ability and puts themselves into range by using a Power and loses the game.

The stolen borrowed alpha art for Master Plan was that picture of Cirno calculating Pi's exact value after all.

[Darkchibiterasu]

Well, let it be known I tried to play a match with my friends. As soon as I said I have a Touhou card game that I want to try, they all sorta laughed at me. It sucks being the only Touhou fan in my entire school. Now I have an entire deck of the cards, and no one to play with. Shoot.

[ShadowNCS]

The stolen borrowed alpha art for Master Plan was that picture of Cirno calculating Pi's exact value after all.

That's more of an incident than a Master Plan.  That truly shows her true genius. ^^

Well, let it be known I tried to play a match with my friends. As soon as I said I have a Touhou card game that I want to try, they all sorta laughed at me. It sucks being the only Touhou fan in my entire school. Now I have an entire deck of the cards, and no one to play with. Shoot.

I know your problem. I'm the only one in my circle of friends who's into Touhou, too. The way I basically tricked them into playing this game was that I told them everything about the game except that it was Touhou (and what it's called because they would have been able to count one and one together). That I only told them after they had agreed to try the game.
I guess trying out that tactic is a little too late for you now, though. ^^;
Maybe you can convince them to at least try it out by comparing this game to other (trading) card games they might like?

[Darkchibiterasu]

Maybe you can convince them to at least try it out by comparing this game to other (trading) card games they might like?

That's actually really clever, because for some reason or another, Magic: The Gathering has been really popular lately. Time to come up with ways to trick them convince them to play the game.

(I should probably learn how to play Magic first.)

[Moogs Parfait]

It might upset some people but I could always provide a 4kids version of the PnP.



Maybe a tutorial on introducing your friends to the game would be better.

[The Greatest Dog]

Please, don't! What would Beer!! and Endless Party and -everything- be called?
My friend group didn't even know what Touhou was, but they just liked the concept of the game and shooting each other up.

[Helepolis]

It might upset some people but I could always provide a 4kids version of the PnP.

provide a 4kids version

4kids

4Kids is, let us say that subjectively they are good at messing things up on this planet and take away people's enjoyment.

[SIRookie]

I know your problem. I'm the only one in my circle of friends who's into Touhou, too. The way I basically tricked them into playing this game was that I told them everything about the game except that it was Touhou (and what it's called because they would have been able to count one and one together). That I only told them after they had agreed to try the game.
I guess trying out that tactic is a little too late for you now, though. ^^;
Maybe you can convince them to at least try it out by comparing this game to other (trading) card games they might like?

You say that, but they know how much of a Touhou fan I  am, and even though I've called it Danmaku!! to their faces and they haven't realized it. Just describing the gameplay and roles and nothing else has them interested.
It's just that these people primarily play video games so I need to convince them -further- to play.

[Helepolis]

Well, you cannot expect everyone to be a Touhou fan or know about Touhou. And if not, expect them to be interested in Touhou. There is no written rule for people to be fan of X because they play/know Y. Take card games in general (Uno, Machiavelli, etc). They aren't always the same and different games have different feeling, audience, interest level.

Danmaku!! puts an emphasis on Touhou both as art-work and content (gameplay), and therefore the setting is pretty much a focus on Touhou-fans.

[Moogs Parfait]

We're definitely targeting existing Touhou fans, but telling people about the game before telling them the theme of the game is fair play, I think. 

I'm not supposed to work Sunday evenings but I was bored, so I made a silly thing.

[The Greatest Dog]

you know if that was an actual character I would bomb everything with her.
How many incidents are we talking about...?

[Moogs Parfait]

Well there are 16 in the base set and each expansion adds two more...

[ShadowNCS]

Momo Parfait certainly looks interesting as a character.
She probably would have broken the game we played today. xD
We got so close to a Crisis of Faith, but since the heroine drew it, it didn't activate. Curses. xD

Speaking of which, I wrote another story about our game today. http://fav.me/d7drwr9
That'll be the last of my gameplay stories for now. Not because my usual group (great, now I sound like a D&D player... not that I mind ^^) doesn't want to play, but because of the upcoming holidays.
Well, maybe we can meet during the holidays and play your game, who knows. ^^

[Moogs Parfait]

Awesome!

I had some questions

Do your players still telegraph when they have a Capture Spell Card or playing Satori and want to copy someone's spell card?  In my experience people forget what the bombs do and you can tell when they are about to copy someone.

What are your thoughts on Nitori? You've had several games with her it sounds like.

[ShadowNCS]

Do your players still telegraph when they have a Capture Spell Card or playing Satori and want to copy someone's spell card?  In my experience people forget what the bombs do and you can tell when they are about to copy someone.

In our case it was more like that the player of Nitori first played the Capture Spellcard and THEN looked around what to do with it. (And only after he had decided I laid down the bomb. )
In Satori's case, I think her player never got a Spell Card (until the very end when it didn't even matter any more).
But still, I don't think any of my friends remember the Spellcards just yet.

What are your thoughts on Nitori? You've had several games with her it sounds like.

Nitori is a tank. And a great one at that. From what we've played, nobody wants to attack her, leaving her with a great health advantage.
Especially early on, Nitori will see (next to) no damage simply because you don't know what role she has anyway, so you might as well take down some other characters.
Of course, if the players aren't so stupid as to destroy Mini Hakkeros instead of stealing them (I admit that was a stupid move on my end), she might not be that much of an annoyance. But if Nitori is lucky (or rather anyone in her range unlucky) with the cards, she's really difficult to take down.
She's great in the way that you need to adapt to a new strategy in order to deal with her, especially if she acts as a shield for the heroine (as in our last game).
I wouldn't say that she is broken, as she lacks in the offensive department. But you don't really need offense in a free for all when everyone is killing each other and leaving you untouched.
So, really, I would say that Nitori is one of the better characters. Either that, or we just have bad luck or plain suck at adapting a style to deal with her. xD;

I would really like to play Nitori at some point (but since we draw the characters randomly, it was a miracle both Nitori and Reimu came up again to begin with), but knowing my luck, when I get to play Nitori, Cirno will end up sitting next to me. xD

[The Greatest Dog]

It seems like there's a generally different playstyle between our groups, where everyone in my circle likes to hoard cards when possible through incidents like Rekindle Blazing Hell and Endless Party, in addition to characters like Remilia, Tenshi and Yuuka being ever popular. As a result, getting a singular Power tends to be easy, and there goes the Distance advantage.

Characters like Byakuren, Marisa, Youmu, Alice, and Suika are also popular, who have entirely roundabout ways of attacking Nitori anyways.

[ShadowNCS]

It seems like there's a generally different playstyle between our groups, where everyone in my circle likes to hoard cards when possible through incidents like Rekindle Blazing Hell and Endless Party

Yeah, I tend to play my cards as soon as possible in the hopes I can deal with my enemies quickly. I usually fail at that, though. (What a surprise.) xD

Remilia, Tenshi and Yuuka [...] Byakuren, Marisa, Youmu, Alice, and Suika

To be fair, except for Byakuren, who was downed in like one and a half turns because she only had Shoot! cards on her hand and everyone focusing on her because her player, me, was the one knowing the game best, we haven't had the chance to play as any of these characters.
All I can say is that with the characters we've had so far, Nitori is great. ^^
(But that reminds me, I probably should take a look at the abilities of those characters.)

[commandercool]

I have a print-and-play copy sleeved up on my desk right now, ready to go for some trial runs this weekend. I wish I had taken the time to do it before the convention I was at last weekend since it had a nice gaming space and probably a lot of willing participants, but oh well.

I haven't played yet, but I have gone over the rules with a few board game folks. Here are the comments and questions we have so far:

-The rulebook refers to some things that, as far as we could tell, seem to not be in the game. The ones I can remember are the Shikigami card (couldn't find this anywhere, was it removed, has it not been implemented yet, or did we just miss it?) and the reference to Suika returning to 2 life if someone saves her with Beer (is this part of an old/not yet implemented ability, or a property of her or of Beer that just isn't explained on those cards?)

-Youmu's passive ability, assuming we understood it, has some extraneous wording. It reads "Youmu may choose to attack an additional different player with each Danmaku card". If we're reading correctly it could say "Youmu may attack an additional player with each Danmaku card" and seems like it would be slightly clearer and slightly less wordy. "Additional player" already seems to imply that you can't attack the player you're already attacking again, and "may choose" seems redundant.

-Yuuka's passive ability also seems to have some redundant wording. It currently says "When one or more players lose life from a card played by Yuuka, she may draw a card. Use this ability one once per card played". The second sentence isn't necessary, since "one or more" is already conditional and should imply that it doesn't occur more than once per card. If players were getting confused about how the ability works then the second sentence couldn't hurt I guess, but I don't think it's necessary.

I've definitely got three people ready to play on Saturday, so assuming we can pick up at least one more we'll play some games, take notes, and I'll report back.

[Moogs Parfait]

Rulebook is still outdated, will try get it updated this weekend.

1. Shikigami was a card deemed too confusing and was taken out.  It basically allowed you to use an inactive character as a meat shield and activate their bomb.

2. Suika used to gain 2 life from Beer cards, instead we gave her the infinite gourd effect.

3. We'll take a look at the wording.  Implication seems to not be enough a lot of the time ,  lots of people are not used to to reading technical rules language.   

Thanks for the feedback, I look forward to more.


My scheduled post didn't post to the websites...I'll do that now.

[Moogs Parfait]

The Half-Ghost Half-Human Gardener, Konpaku Youmu, was illustrated by Mins, who worked like a champ to complete her in-between school assignments.  His deviantArt page is http://minevi.deviantart.com/.

[img width= height= alt=youmu mobile wallpaper 1080" width="168" height="300" class="size-medium wp-image-415]http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/wp-content/uploads/youmu-wallpaper-1080-168x300.jpg[/img]

Like many of the characters you've seen already, Youmu is a character we recommend new groups limit their character card pool to.  Her ability is simple, with every Danmaku card she attacks two different people.  Her spell card makes her range unlimited until her next turn and allows her to attack twice like usual.  In both cases she isn't forced to attack a second person, it's optional.

[img width= height= alt=Konpaku Youmu Character Card" width="280" height="196" class="size-medium wp-image-414]http://danmaku.mysteryparfait.com/wp-content/uploads/konpaku-youmu-280x196.jpg[/img]

Youmu's forte is her precision.  She can neatly cut down her foes while sparing her allies.  This ability is unique among Danmaku!! characters.

Youmu doesn't seem to realize it, but she's living the dream.  Many people wish they had two bodies for reasons mundane and not so mundane.

[commandercool]

Rulebook is still outdated, will try get it updated this weekend.

1. Shikigami was a card deemed too confusing and was taken out.  It basically allowed you to use an inactive character as a meat shield and activate their bomb.

2. Suika used to gain 2 life from Beer cards, instead we gave her the infinite gourd effect.

3. We'll take a look at the wording.  Implication seems to not be enough a lot of the time ,  lots of people are not used to to reading technical rules language.   

Thanks for the feedback, I look forward to more.


My scheduled post didn't post to the websites...I'll do that now.

1.-2. Fair enough, that's what we figured, just wanted to make sure I didn't miss printing a page somehow or something.

3. I definitely think leaning toward wordings that are over-explained rather than under-explained would be a good idea, but for people who are used to precise rules language the non-standard phrasing actually confused us more and we had to take a moment to re-read everything to figure out what it actually did. Seems like we got the idea though, so if that's the tradeoff then I suppose that's fair.

[commandercool]

Played a game earlier with six people. Koishi was the heroine, I was the partner with Sanae. Reimu and Suika kept the game relatively locked down with their bombs for a few turns while the bosses accumulated Shoot!s, and the turn before they were ready to kill Koishi we hit the Lilly White incident and she hit three people in a row with her ability, including Koishi. I tried to save her, but everyone jumping on her at once was too much.

These were the comments people had:

-Reimu seems too good. Half of the game revolved around her bomb and people copying her bomb, and her passive also seemed way stronger than everyone else's passive. If Reimu has range to the heroine it's pretty difficult to keep her alive.

-The rulebook doesn't say what to do when the deck runs out. I assume you re-shuffle the discard pile, but it doesn't say that anywhere that I could find.

-The phrase "reveal" means to look at the top card of the deck, note it, and discard it. Usually when a game says "reveal" it just means to show the card to everyone and then put it back, since nothing about the word "reveal" suggests that you do anything with the card except look at it. Consider changing the term, clarifying in any text that cares about revealing that the card is discarded afterward, or changing the effect so that the card gets put back.

-I found the wording of Seal Away to be ambiguous and had to check the clarifications to figure out what it did. It reads "Choose a player and force them to trash a card at random from their hand or a permanent of theirs in play". It's not immediately clear who decides whether they discard a card or a permanent. The FAQ confirms that the player using Seal Away does, but I think the wording leans toward the victim making the choice. Consider clarifying this with something like "Choose a player. You may choose to have that player trash a card at random from their hand or trash a permanent of theirs in play".

-I don't think keeping roles hidden makes sense for Touhou. The flavor makes sense for Bang!, but the bosses not knowing who the other bosses are seems strange. I don't know what the fix for this is, but it seemed weird.

-Is the Ex Boss harder to win with than the Renegade in Bang!? People were insisting that the Renegade doesn't have to kill the Deputy, but the Ex Boss does have to kill the Partner. I didn't have a copy of Bang! on hand to check that out.

The hardcore board gamers seemed kind of frustrated by the similarities to Bang!. They didn't seem to think that the game was different enough to justify being its own thing. Everyone kept saying "Why aren't we just playing Bang!? This is exactly the same game". As someone who cares about the theme I obviously don't share that reaction, but it was enough of a thing that it seemed to be worth noting.

I liked it enough to play it again, but a few of the other people I played with didn't love it. And fair enough, they didn't know anything about the theme and had already played basically the same game.

[Moogs Parfait]

That's regrettable that your group didn't seem to like it.  Theme is unfortunately a double edged sword and it sounds like it hurt us here.  We obviously think Danmaku is different enough from Bang to warrant its own game, I won't enumerate the differences here though.  In general I've noted your wording suggestions, I'll address specific things below.

Played a game earlier with six people. Koishi was the heroine, I was the partner with Sanae. Reimu and Suika kept the game relatively locked down with their bombs for a few turns while the bosses accumulated Shoot!s, and the turn before they were ready to kill Koishi we hit the Lilly White incident and she hit three people in a row with her ability, including Koishi. I tried to save her, but everyone jumping on her at once was too much.

I assume you mean Satori?  Koishi isn't in the base set.  Though maybe you made your own Koishi since she's got some obvious implied mechanics.

-The rulebook doesn't say what to do when the deck runs out. I assume you re-shuffle the discard pile, but it doesn't say that anywhere that I could find.

Yes you reshuffle, I've noted to add that.

-I don't think keeping roles hidden makes sense for Touhou. The flavor makes sense for Bang!, but the bosses not knowing who the other bosses are seems strange. I don't know what the fix for this is, but it seemed weird.

Really? What started this whole thing was how similar the themes of Touhou and Bang are.  Even before the EX Boss comes in, Touhou usually has a fight at least one boss who is completely uninvolved, one who is tangentially involved, and then the final boss and her minions.  Your allies may even attack you.  Of course everything is mixed up for Danmaku, but the youkai still all win if Reimu is indisposed.

-Is the Ex Boss harder to win with than the Renegade in Bang!? People were insisting that the Renegade doesn't have to kill the Deputy, but the Ex Boss does have to kill the Partner. I didn't have a copy of Bang! on hand to check that out.

The latest version of Danmaku!! doesn't require the Partners be defeated.

[commandercool]

That's regrettable that your group didn't seem to like it.  Theme is unfortunately a double edged sword and it sounds like it hurt us here.  We obviously think Danmaku is different enough from Bang to warrant its own game, I won't enumerate the differences here though.  In general I've noted your wording suggestions, I'll address specific things below.

Yeah, board game snobs gonna be board game snobs. You probably weren't going to rope most of these particular guys in anyway, so not getting them hooked at this point doesn't mean much. The one other guy who was familiar with Touhou liked it okay, although he had never played Bang! either.

I assume you mean Satori?  Koishi isn't in the base set.  Though maybe you made your own Koishi since she's got some obvious implied mechanics.

Oh yeah, I meant Satori.

Really? What started this whole thing was how similar the themes of Touhou and Bang are.  Even before the EX Boss comes in, Touhou usually has a fight at least one boss who is completely uninvolved, one who is tangentially involved, and then the final boss and her minions.  Your allies may even attack you.  Of course everything is mixed up for Danmaku, but the youkai still all win if Reimu is indisposed.

It doesn't totally not work, but it seemed weird at the time. Yeah, I guess if I contextualize it as the first half of the game before the story-relevant bosses show up it works fine. Since most of the characters are the later stage bosses it just kind of threw me off of how the flavor works in theory.

It's exactly the same.  We didn't change that from Bang!  The Renegade loses if they don't kill the Deputy first.

Fair enough. That's what I was told, doesn't make it true.

[Moogs Parfait]

It's Thursday so update time.

We've updated and posted Remilia's art officially.   You all may notice her art's been updated. 



In project news, we're doing a final art push to get the art for the demo game.  The artist we'd selected to do the role cards was really sick until this week so it's going to come down to the wire.

I still haven't updated the rulebook, but I finished the nursery!   :derp:  The doctor told us the baby is coming a week early so everything got moved up. 

Sakuracon is this weekend so I'll be happy to have Carrot's assistance again after his Mahjong panels are done.

[Colticide]

This is still very exciting! And loving the artwork more and more. Not sure if this was asked yet but how many characters do you plan to have playable?