Development of a dammaku game that can rival Touhou

[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.

[Ctrekoz]

Thank you for the answers. Of course your point is totally fair.

All I can show right now except writing is this:

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.

Aslo, you can see design references and listen to musical inspirations at links to a corresponding Concepts (references are in "Pictures" folder, music is in the end of the text Concepts themselves, in "Inspiration" category). I agree that this is "hidden" stuff, but it is bad to look at this things out of context. Or maybe I should put design references and inspirational music at separate hyperlinks to be more visible?

I have to pay a lot of money to have more music and art which I can't do exactly right now (in foreseeable future I want to comission final versions of full height art of Yuriko and Saiko), and as for programming, I can't do it myself in any rate, even roughly. I've spend 11 productive months (i.e. counting each day of a good work) already for writing, design, translation, seeking team, other stuff, and even then it is not 100% done, and I still have a lot to do even in the field in which I have skill. I think you can imagine how much time and energy I need to spend to learn programming from scratch, granted that I have a lot of other concerns, my health is not good and you cannot always have unlimited spare time - I think it is a lot better to finally find a job instead and use my money for better living as well as to spend them on this project. My hope right now is to find enthusiatic people who can do even rough programming, and maybe we can work something out and then gather more people with it. As said in documents, there is no any pressure or deadlines.

...and I would try to keep the last 15% in this level of detais/ describment

Oh, I didn't understood that part.

[theSlug]

Oh, I didn't understood that part.

I meant your text is fine and you should continue like that

[Ctrekoz]

Ah, I understand now. Well, that is why it is not fully done yet . Anyway, for example, first 4th and both 5th levels are almost fully fledged-out, including bosses, music design, dialogues and such, shape of extra boss (including name, bio, abilities, place in the whole story, design and etc.) and second version of 4th level is definetily set, but I need to expand some things, same for endings and 2nd playable character story. Oh, believe me, the second final boss is something damn incredible and, spoiler, dark, this is one of the most favorite characters of mine alongside Lady Yvetta and Saiko. Others are nice too of course, but who you will like more depends on your taste. Well, first 3 levels and lore documents are done fully, while the rest of the writing is almost done.

[Ctrekoz]

By the way, here is some interesting answers on some questions about lore and characters: https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/comments/cgplto/development_of_a_dammaku_game_that_can_rival/eula3gn/

[starks]

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.

This is bullshit. A good chunk of the great fangames or trials over the past year have been western. Just to name a select few...

Analogue Reverie: Dream Logical World
Team Dreamcatcher: Servants of Harvest Wish
Team Urban Mimzie: Sapphire Panlogism
Τeam αlternative Σnding: Glory of Deep Skies, Unification of the Artful Rain
Ephemeral Entertainment: Ephemeral Unnatural Balance

[Ctrekoz]

I've made some updates to pitch in overall and to formatting of documents, but most importantly, design references now have separate hyperlinks, and now each text document is hyperlinked to Google Docs instead of Drive, so you can see Table of contents to the left, proper formatting, and in overall documents are much easier to read, you don't need to manually open them for this on Docs anymore.

About western fan games my question was aimed not on just dammaku scripts (which are great), but on something more "big", as was shown by examples provided. Yes, FDF is a dammaku game, but it's made on custom engine (or it's just Unity?) and sells on Steam.

[R. P. Genocraft]

The western Touhou community is much, much smaller than the Japanese and Chinese ones, and I'd say it's also less united, but I'm not sure. Anyways, the number of people with the knowledge and dedication to make a game is obviously much smaller, especially without such an easy-to-learn engine like Danmakufu.

By the way, it's daNmaku, not daMmaku.

[Helepolis]

From my own personal experience: In my entire life, where I was partaking in a game's community which also had fan work, I've never seen a project started or completed where the "project leader" was not actively developing along.

Come to think of it, my entire lifetime here on Shrinemaiden I haven't seen any similar sized project here succeed (which is now over 10 years)

[ITZAH]

good luck with the project, i'm also creating my game and i understand how hard it is and the amount of work and time needed
My recomendation is that don't try to rival any game, just do your own stuff and do what you like, also as a game designer/creator, i will say that the creator of the game must create the music aswell, its mandatory imo, creating your own music will inspire you to create a better story, characters, bosses etc... zun in a video said, that he creates the music first before everything else, because with the music he can get the inspiration to draw characters and wirte the story, he creates touhou characters and sotry  based on the music.
good luck!

[Ctrekoz]

Thank you.

"Rivaling" is just a clickbait. I do not want to rival Touhou nor be in constant comparison with it. I just have a dream project that I want to make live, and i'm not dreaming about "being successful exactly like ZUN" or "I will destroy Touhou, my universe is better". 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. .

In terms of musical inspiration, I fill out a very big list of various songs which really inspires me. I'm really very huge music lover, so this is no problem for me. There are songs that are inspiration for characters' level and boss themes, sure, but there is also music that I find simply fitting to their nature, temper, in various theoretical situations and moods, which I imagine in context "musical composition+fan art" which can appear in the future, when the game universe will be popular. Be it one character, multiple of them at the same time, just art of the landscape, etc... . Like, for example, Johann Strauss II - Waltz "Voices of Spring"; ABBA - Dancing Queen; Sean Schafianski - Blue Water, Blue Sky; Yakuza 0 OST - Heartbreak Mermaid (imagine her singing in karaoke); Heroes of Might and Magic IV: Excalibur OST - End Turn, and ton of others for Lady Yvetta.

I'm perfectly fine the characters (every aspect, visual design included) and story already done, remains little to finish. Sadly, my character artist is busy right now, so to have main heroine and 3rd level boss sketches I need to wait month, couple of them or find another artist. I mean, demo version will not include levels past first 3, so I'm not rushing with commissioning sketches of the other characters, but their bio, design, textual design of attacks, dialogues and everything else is also almost fully done, I will just not show them to public anyway until release, huh.

I have composer with which I want to work, but I don't have enough money to pay him. Still, you can listen to this, which is intended to be Lady Yvetta's boss theme under rename of "Surpassing Elegance ~ Splatter Dance".

Good luck to you too.

[Ozzy]

Princess Sylvysprit is the music artist you're looking to work with? If it is, I should probably tell you that among the community their commission prices have often been noted to be rather high. Have you talked with with other potential composers at all? If not I think it would be best to explore other potential options as there are a LOT of talented music artists in the community who may have more affordable prices.

I'm not telling you to not go with Sylvysprit if you're really dead set on it, but I want to encourage you to explore all of your available options in order to make the best decision for your game. I wish you luck in doing so.

[Ctrekoz]

When we spoke in january, she said that if there is more than 10 songs, then price is 90 euro per song - of course, it's very high and I don't have so much money right now, though if I would've had enough, I would've spend them on it. Crowdfunding would've helped enough I believe, but there is no demo yet. I'm not against considering other composers, but I didn't found anyone else yet who seems suitable enough. As written in "6. Notes to composer\sound designer" and as can been seen in references regarding stage and boss music in full versions of Concepts, I don't want music in my project be nor "Touhou-like" nor "Len'en-like", in which style the most of touhou community composers work, and I think Princess Sylvysprit may do it how I need.

Situation with character artist is similar: his style perfectly suits me and I have enough money to pay him at least for colored sketches similar to Shaggygaicho's sketch quality, but he is currently very busy and cannot work with me. I'm not against considering other artists but didn't found anyone else with suitable style.

[Ozzy]

In any case, my recommendation is to hold off on commissioning assets for a game that does not even exist. Most developers to my knowledge start creating the game first with placeholders, since gameplay is pretty much the most important part of a game. What I'm saying is that if this game never comes to be you will have wasted a lot of money on music and art. I know you are certain today that it will be done eventually, no matter what, but no one can predict the future. I've thought that a lot for projects that I became invested in only to lose interest years later.

In summary, my recommendation is to stop the meticulous world building, character designing, art production, and music production and get started on the game itself. All of that stuff is secondary. I know you're not a programmer, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Danmakufu is fairly easy to learn on a base level and there's a decently sized community behind it. I had no programming experience when I started with Danmakufu and just recently released my own game on Steam using it.

[Ctrekoz]

I think those assets can help to raise more interest and even inspire myself to work more. Commissioning of art sketches in not that costly actually, and currently I need only 2 more (Yuriko and Saiko). Music is, of course, costs too much, i'm not going to buy it in near future. I'm pretty much done with currently needed world building, game design and etc. to start working on programming, be it myself or with the others help. Right now I'm not inspired enough to continue hard work, I need to rest and wait - 95% of time I work alone and I cannot endlessly keep interest just by my own means, without enough help and feedback, and life has many other things to have attention on. It is more than 1 year of time spent already if combine all days when I worked. I'm not forgetting about this project, just currently pretty passive about it. Thank you for the kind words.

[Stuffman]

Right now I'm not inspired enough to continue hard work

You haven't done anything yet.

Look, there isn't any polite way to say this so I'll just get right to the point. Please read the following satirical article.

https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/man-with-really-cool-idea-for-game-just-needs-volunteers-to-do-coding-and-art/

See this? This is you. You're an idea guy. Idea guys are useless. Everyone who has actual gamedev skills would much rather use them making their own game.

Learn to program or do graphics or something, because if you have nothing to contribute this thing will never get off the ground, unless you plan to pay everyone involved.

[Ctrekoz]

I know that coders are the absolutely smartest and the most great, the most important people out there who will prefer to respect me over showing them Minesweeper copy instead of six books of The Lord of the Rings translated into 38 languages, no need to remind me that. There is nothing more important and nothing more harder in the industry than coding, not even close, evertyhing else is just 5 minutes of thought and effort worth, thus every at least decent coder already has project with worldwide success which he did working alone. Words "team" and "passion" don't exist either, your are either one-man-army or hire everyone for enormous money.

In more serious note: yes I know what you mean, no need to act like guy who popped my "bubble", and no I did not "haven't done anything yet", which you can understand based on carefull inspection of what I have provided here and by my comments on Moriya Shrine forum in the similar topic, but you will not do this. I can't blame you since it's not your own project and you have not much of interest to read so much text, but that's how I tried to present it for now. Yes, I know that this forum consists mostly from coders, but if you really think that disrespecting publishers, produsers, writers, designers (any aspect be it gameplay, visuals of the characters, or else), artists, translators, composers, sound designers and others is fine and they are useless people, then I have not much to say. Who is the more important in building an apartment complex? The ones who plans its initial placement, makes all measurements, etc.? The ones who do all negotiations on "high level"? The ones who plan structural design? The ones who provide materials needed? Maybe the ones who install windows? The one who operates construction crane? The one who paints the walls? Someone else? Everyone has they role, be it bigger and harder, smaller and easier or closely comparable in importance and difficulty, and it doesn't mean that if you do something hard then someone certainly has easier time and you have the right to disrespect him.

I do not disrespect anyone, except my sarcasm in the first paragraph, and I understand importance of every part of this project. My self-esteem considering my own importance is alright too. 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.

[Stuffman]

To continue your analogy, you're the guy who paints the walls, but you have this GREAT idea for a building and you just need an architect and a building company to put it up for you.

There's a reason nobody wants to work on your project.

EDIT:
Lemme elaborate because this is the part you don't seem to get. Doing the high concept stuff, character design, worldbuilding, writing, picking out music and stuff is the FUN part of making a game. That's the part everyone WANTS to do. The programming and spriting and shit is WORK. Often miserable work. It takes forever, and the only reason anybody does it is to get the end product.

If the situation were reversed, and you were a programmer and you were like, "hey guys i want to make a game but i need character and story ideas and stuff" people would be coming out of the woodwork to get you to make their ideas come to life.

I'm dismissing you because you only want to do the fun parts, and leave the real work to everyone else.

[Ctrekoz]

Now I see your point better, but you're not exactly right. It's not me wanting to do only "fun" parts, it's me doing what I capable of doing and doing it good, and what I can't do or what I do bad, I seeking help with that, which is absolutely natural. If I would've been skillful enough to do everything alone, I would've done it. I'm not only painting walls, I'm architect myself, also making all neccesary negotiations, quality control and etc. - who I need is builders. Does translating more than 100 Word-pages from russian to english seems fun to you? Is it really fun for me to receive so much stress when facing negative feedback, but still trying to reason and discuss? Working with japanese character artist without me knowing japanese and without him knowing english? Me constantly searching people on various positions I need? Keeping my interest forever just by myself?

Writing, world building and everything else like that is fun, sure, but I doubt you realize how truly hard is to do it actually good, not something that only teenager girls will like. If you cannot walk my path, you can at least examine what I've presented and see it, and year of spent time is counting each productive day. I had moments when It was specially hard and stressful, and I thought that in future there will be people who will say that this is easy, and since time passes, my current emotions will be forgotten and I may even believe those people, so I need to just remember: "Yes, this is very hard work" and to not hesitate about this point. Even coming up with names and surnames was damn hard. Seeking needed info for example: do you think I knew before who is ?me no wakahìko, what is Tо̀shiya or who is Tawа̀ra Tо̀da and which fairy tale is assosiated with him? I can't begin to imagine how much pages I've read even counting only rereading of my own text. If you are not careless and do not want for your universe to have plot holes and be like "lmao it has no lore", the more your write, the more questions come up, the more things you need to answer, to rethink, to rewrite. It is very hard to just sit and describe you everything in two words, but as I said, I presented a big part of my work to examine which can easily prove you everything needed, and it's not even everything that I have. How can you judge me without doing that? You think Tolkien had easy and fun time making his bestseller fantasy works? I'm not Tolkien, but not writer of dime novels either. Not only writing, but do you know that I have ~10 pages of text and ~264 design references alone regarding visual design of the characters, and I still have not done design of the extra boss? Same treatment goes to music design, it's not just "woah I need badass song", same treatment goes to design of gameplay and attacks, to everything that I'm capable of doing right now.

Also, programming and spriting is not that really fun? So you say that there is no games in industry with interesting and pleasing gameplay, visuals? Yes it's hard to do, but result makes up for it. Same with writing. When you see your hard efforts was worth it, and you finally can face only the end result and forget about what was before, isn't it the great feeling? Not to mention money profit.

...people would be coming out of the woodwork to get you to make their ideas come to life

Huh, and who says that their ideas worth it, that they are really interesting and fully thought out? "Hey guys, I want to make 3D Touhou MMO" - that kind of idea? I wonder if Blizzard or some similar company hires their writers or game designers or similar positions choosing random people with pretty faces from the streets.

[Stuffman]

Shit, dude. The amount and/or quality of your writing is not what's in question here. What I'm trying to tell you is that it's irrelevant.

Here's a hypothetical. I decide to come out of danmakufu retirement and make another game. I'm going to do all the programming, graphics, and character art myself, same as before (disclaimer: I had to hire a music guy too).

I have the choice of using your world/characters/story, or making my own.

Why would I want to use yours?? All that stuff is fun and I want to do it myself, and by default, it's going to suit my tastes better, because I made it. (And, frankly, the level of meticulousness you're describing would be obnoxious to work with, because it leaves no room for my own expression.)

Here is the takeaway:
Nobody will want to work on your project, because you're only contributing things that they would want to do themselves anyway. No matter how much cool art or music you commission to drum up interest, it won't change that.

Learning to program and doing the code yourself is unavoidable if you want this thing to happen. You might be able to get a graphics guy to help you once you have something substantial to show off. I have two courses of action to suggest:
1) Sit yourself down in front of some tutorials and start crackin'.
2) Alternatively, consider making a different genre of game where programming will be less of a hurdle and your writing will be a more substantial part, such as making something with Ren'py or RPGMaker.

[Ctrekoz]

Yet there is ideas around which works not only one person, but a team and not only because of payment interest. Colossal amount of fan content all around the world is made based on existing fictional universes and etc., not on people's own, like take Touhou as an example. If you are capable of doing art and character design, why are you drawing Shou Toramaru instead of your own original character? So this is what i'm trying to do right now, i'm trying to make people interested in my own world, and i'm working on it from the point not of "fan game that a bunch of random guys will play and praise a bit, so story here is just because, no one cares anyway", but I really want to create something that will be interesting and inspiring for many hunders of thousands around the world, thus writing quality. Further, It's not the question of "he worked hard but I need to work harder so I will not help him" or "I will do something easy, let's go then". Yes there is not much success yet, yes pitch may be too long and etc., but i'm trying. You may offer me to write a book then, but how much people is interested in, let's say again, Touhou, only because of it's gameplay? It's even more hilarious when people understand how much plot holes there is, how stupid in-game dialogues there are, etc., but they still adore this universe and most of the fans not played in the games itself even once.

Nobody will want to work on your project, because you're only contributing things that they would want to do themselves anyway.

Well, by that logic every single one video game in the world should be made by 1 man, and nothing except coder's position exists. Same, for example, for films, where then nothing except director exists - isn't it fun to, let's say, to not hire actors and play all roles by yourself? You mentioned hiring a music guy - isn't it interesting to make music by yourself? Don't you have the musical compositions which you adore listening to? If you have no skill, why didn't you learned it? Why do you draw character art then? If it's fun, why then I hire character artist for my project? Or maybe because you also can do it, you have the proper skills? You said that amount\quality of my writing is not the question, yet you still imply that this is easy to do and irrelevant in the whole picture of "from what the finished game consists". Good luck in writing the whole The Witcher 3 scenario all by yourself then, with all the quests and dialogues. My project is not The Witcher 3, but it's still giant amount of quality writing.

And, frankly, the level of meticulousness you're describing would be obnoxious to work with, because it leaves no room for my own expression.

Not at all. I have problems in game design of attacks, how much of lesser enemies and in which formations there will be, and etc. . The best example is visual design, which I consider being thought out by me the most, on par with writing. I mentioned that I have a lot of text and design references about it, but i'm not an artist myself, so I cannot thought out every singly pixel of the picture, I can't personally test all color options and etc. . Simply compare textual design of Lady Yvetta from the full verion of Level 2 Concept, design references and the picture that my character artist did - you will see a lot of stuff taken from what I described and showed, but there is a lot of stuff which artist did himself, freely. Or look at how humbly I described Shagyggaicho, his design was done mostly by artist himself. There is a lot of creative freedom left in everything, be it music, art, gameplay, and etc., I accecept discussions and ideas about "my own field", i.e. writing, visual design and etc. too, everything you want.

I understand importance of coding and how hard it is to do it, but I have no skills in this field yet. Please understand that my work is not easy either - it may be easier, but not easy. I understand your points and a lot of time passed since I started to search for help, and little success was achieved. I'm not blaming anyone and I don't say that I'm the smartest here, that I did everything the best and that everyone is stupid. Yes, I will continue to try, to search ways, to learn stuff and etc., and your feedback helps me, thank you.

[WishMakers]

Ok, I didn't really want to throw my hat into the ring but I felt like I had to say *something* because the sheer obstinance from this thread is getting ridiculous.

Well, by that logic every single one video game in the world should be made by 1 man, and nothing except coder's position exists.

How does this logic conclude...anything exactly?

Often, coding a project is really the hardest part of the project.  It takes the most work, the most constant energy, and typically the most hours as well - this is obviously not to discredit all the work that the other members do, but realistically when someone is coding on a project they are pulling the most weight.  Despite that, not every game should be made by one man, and obviously people specialize in different things.  However, if you were stuck doing the most involved and sometimes mundane part of a project, wouldn't you want to do some of the fun parts too?  Wouldn't you want to put some of your own creative energy into the project that isn't just utilitarian like engine work?  You get some of this from pattern design, but typically for a large scale project you don't get to focus on that as much as in small scale scripts.  This is what Stuffman means by "you're only contributing things that they would want to do themselves anyway". What's important to understand is that anyone can make an idea for a project, even to the extent of your massive documentation, but not everyone can actually put it together.

Many people like you have come to these forums and otherwise with all the ideas in the world but not the way to execute them - but in order to get people on board, you need something concrete to show for it.  You need to prove yourself.  Your massive amount of ideas, no matter the quality of them, is not enough to convince people here - you need something concrete, and especially to get skilled coders, you need to prove that this game is something realistically attainable, especially with how many projects people already have.  That means you need to start coding this thing for a bit by yourself - only you can prove that this project is worth investing a lot of time into, especially if they aren't getting compensated for their work.

Same, for example, for films, where then nothing except director exists - isn't it fun to, let's say, to not hire actors and play all roles by yourself? You mentioned hiring a music guy - isn't it interesting to make music by yourself? Don't you have the musical compositions which you adore listening to? If you have no skill, why didn't you learned it? Why do you draw character art then? If it's fun, why then I hire character artist for my project? Or maybe because you also can do it, you have the proper skills?

The incredible amount of condescension in this comment aside, nobody says you have to handle 100% of everything by yourself, even on the coding side.  Here's what people are asking you to do - take the initiative.  That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest.  Stories and lore by themselves are great and important - but this is a community of making games.  You appear to want to create a game.  What you have is a story, not a game - if you want this narrative you've woven to turn into a game, you need to prove its plausibility as a game before anyone will give you the light of day, and that's just common sense.  Some games scale back their ambitiousness to become a game, because their ideas are simply too grand.  Others find themselves needing more ideas to even make their concept fit into a full fledged game.

So here's the deal - prove yourself to be a good project leader and prove that this idea has merit as a game, and then people will realistically listen to you.  Otherwise your project will be known as "just another ideas guy with no means of production".  I don't want to be a downer, but that's the reality we're dealing with.

[Stuffman]

I'm not sure why you're rattling on and on about how important it is to have a team when the games you're looking to emulate were, in fact, made by exactly one guy.

Actually, that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. ZUN'S art.

A guy like ZUN could probably get absolutely any professional artist he wanted to do his character art, and on some objective level, yes, it would be better than his. But he does it himself! Because he wants to! And everyone loves it, because it's so weird and janky and unique! Touhou fans around the world watch new game streams on release day just to see what kind of ridiculous characters he came up with this time!

ZUN does not want or need a better artist to do his art.
And we do not want or need a better writer to write our stories.

[Helepolis]

Ctrekoz, just something that crossed my mind, how old are you?

[Ctrekoz]

That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest.

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".

I'm not sure why you're rattling on and on about how important it is to have a team when the games you're looking to emulate were, in fact, made by exactly one guy.

That's very strange conlusion. How much Danmakufu scripts out there are made by exactly one guy? The whole concept about "one guy" seems to me being more as a result of how unpopular this genre is, and, even more, how skilled those people were. Theoretically, you can build an apartment complex absolutely alone, but how much it will take, and not only time? Anyway, for example, Toby Fox is usually mentioned as the sole creator of Undertale, but he did had people who helped him in doing sprites and art in overall. With their help, he created a proper demo, launched Kickstarter campaign, amassed 1022.48% of the original goal and finished his project. My plan is similar, but my main problem is to not having programming skills. I chose bullet hell genre because it's one of the easiest genres for indie developer, because I have inspiring examples like Touhou, Jigoku Kisetsukan, else, and because this genre ideally fits into my way of creative expression. The whole game world and game design is based around idea of a bullet hell game, and everything even started with me making ideas about "How would've that kind of a character be presented in a dammaku game as a boss".

It was already mentioned, but on russian we are using "dammaku" over "danmaku", and "dammaku" is closer to japanese pronunciation too. I'm too used to it.

A guy like ZUN could probably get absolutely any professional artist he wanted to do his character art, and on some objective level, yes, it would be better than his. But he does it himself! Because he wants to! And everyone loves it, because it's so weird and janky and unique!

That just childish and extremely naive already. He does because he can do that and he is absolutely fine with the results. Judging by his interviews, he never planned Touhou to become something grand and worldwide known, he just did it for fun, mostly for himself alone and fellow doujin scene. He could've done better story and better art, but he did't cared too much, doing as much as was enough to him (and rushing to finish the games in time for the next Comicet, maybe?), without plans about great popularity and thus the greatest possible quality. Happens, that after some time, Touhou became extremely popular exactly in the way he originally did, so why should he bother now with changing his ways - he just does what he always did and everyone goes crazy about it. Also, recently(?) he said that he will do 1 game per year, so it's a kind of obligation that may hold him down - 16.5 and 17 are not that great anymore. Still, with so much of popularity and amount of trust to his person he can do anything he wants for a long time, honestly, not to mention that many hundreds of thousands are willing to do everything instead of him. Anyway, he didn't done fighting games alone, he didn't done Touhou Cannonball alone, portrait art in Fairy Wars, he did not illustrate his books by himself, and even in dammaku games he has some other people besides himself mentioned in credits (which is probably irrelevant, but interesting still).

If I recall right, I've seen some interview when he stated that he doesn't consider computer games to be something really that important, or at least hiw own games, so he doesn't flesh out art and story so much in the result, he doesn't want to spent so much time on it - I couldn't find this interview, so you may not believe it if you don't want.

The ultimate reason why I created Touhou is because I wanted to make game music at first. I was more interested in making music for games rather than the games themselves. So I made all this music, and I thought great, I'll find someone's game and put it in. But I didn't know anybody who was actually making games. So the next thing I thought was, right, I better make a game for this music to be used in.

"The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Interview".

Q: You said in an interview that you would continue making Touhou games even if their popularity were to drop. Do you still hold true to this statement?
ZUN: Honestly, I can't make anything except Touhou. As long as I'm still moving and I'm fine with it, I?ll continue making Touhou games. *applause from audience*

and

Q: Have you ever considered taking some of your musical ideas and take them into orchestras, small bands, group ensembles, and etc?
ZUN: I don't need to, because I have the fans do it for me.

"ZUN's AWA Q&A Panel".

The programming is the easiest part. Since there isn't
much question of aesthetics, the results usually don't differ from my predictions, so everything normally goes according to plan.
Compared to that, the music and art are... (--;

Quite interesting. Zun's "PCB Afterword".

Ctrekoz, just something that crossed my mind, how old are you?

21.

[Random Sphere]

My first post after 3 years of silence is going to be in this thread. Oh dear.


Anyway, I felt like I could add in a few things to this last message.

That means learning to code even a little bit and make something bare bones to generate interest.

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".

There's Sparen's guide on Danmakufu, which I believe is quite complete. You won't have any difficulty in following it. You'll be able to do the bare bones of your game by the end of it.

 

Anyway, for example, Toby Fox is usually mentioned as the sole creator of Undertale, but he did had people who helped him in doing sprites and art in overall. With their help, he created a proper demo, launched Kickstarter campaign, amassed 1022.48% of the original goal and finished his project.

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.

Also, recently(?) he said that he will do 1 game per year, so it's a kind of obligation that may hold him down - 16.5 and 17 are not that great anymore.

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.

Gon giv u that on 16.5 tho.

Anyway, he didn't done fighting games alone, he didn't done Touhou Cannonball alone, portrait art in Fairy Wars, he did not illustrate his books by himself, and even in dammaku games he has some other people besides himself mentioned in credits (which is probably irrelevant, but interesting still).

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.

If I recall right, I've seen some interview when he stated that he doesn't consider computer games to be something really that important, or at least hiw own games, so he doesn't flesh out art and story so much in the result, he doesn't want to spent so much time on it.

Actually, it's more like the games limit his ability to present his story. Remember TH17? We know how huge its plot is due to the omakes and such. The main storyline where the heroines faced Keiki was, comparatively, just a slice of a bigger Keiki.

The programming is the easiest part. Since there isn't
much question of aesthetics, the results usually don't differ from my predictions, so everything normally goes according to plan.
Compared to that, the music and art are... (--;

Quite interesting. Zun's "PCB Afterword".

This is the quote that made me post this, really. In that context, ZUN refers to the fact that programming by itself isn't a "hard" task. Unless you're going for the modern fangame aesthetic of complex mathematical danmaku patterns and fancy 3D backgrounds that require even more math, coding isn't hard, but rather laborious. It doesn't require "much question of aesthetics", but it's still a lot of work. A whole load of work no one wants to put in unless they're being paid for it. Source: an undergraduate in CS and a bunch of almost-graduated CS friends.

So yeah, tl;dr: the way to get help from others is by showcasing your previous projects. No one is going to put their eggs in one, poorly made basket with holes in it no matter how you sell it as the best made basket in the whole world.

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.