A word on Touhou Mecha

Long time no see, folks. As you might know, I was doing most of the work on DSD’s side project, Touhou Mecha.

I’m going to make it official: At this point, it’s unlikely that Touhou Mecha VN will continue. All of us have been busy so we’ve got our hands full trying to finish Eastern Starlight Romance, of course. But more than that, my interest in the mecha genre isn’t what it used to be.

The two TM episodes that I finished will be available for download for the foreseeable future. My thanks go out to OverCoat, who worked on the music, and the rest of the DSD team for making it possible to get to that point.

Anyway, I’ll be seeing ESR through to the end, then I can think about what I can do for future projects.

ESR’s art overhaul nears completion

Hi folks, Graph here. I’ve made good progress toward revising the old art. We’ve got the full heroine lineup now!

image

There’s also been a lot of revisions for the rest of the cast, too. Rather than redo everyone from scratch though, the focus there is on the face and coloring technique. Still, I think most of it turned out passable.

image

image

Also, we’ve got an important announcement! A new demo is coming up!

Initially the plan was to wait until the whole game’s done, but a couple of things have come up that influenced our decision to make a Demo 3:

1. A number of users have reported that they’re unable to run the game on Windows 10, even though they were able to do so before upgrading to Windows 10. We want to release the game with a more recent version of Ren’py to see if that improves compatibility. Hopefully it works, but if not we’ll keep at it until we find a solution or workaround.

2. As mentioned up top, the art overhaul is nearing completion. As of this writing I have three characters left to revise and the Event CGs from Demo 2. Then we make sure things still look fine after the switch to HD screen resolution, and that’s about it!

Story-wise, the plan for this demo is to only go a little bit further than Demo 2. This is to minimize editing time and allow the writers to keep going at their own pace. Next time around it’ll be the writers’ show, and hopefully the final release!

My target time for Demo 3 is July or August; we’ll narrow it down as we get further along. To those of you still following along, we thank you and hope to deliver something great this summer!

ESR art update

Hi folks, it’s about time I dropped a report on my progress too.

Backgrounds
Pretty much done here, and also converted all the old backgrounds to the new 1280×720 screen resolution. Not only that, several backgrounds got a major overhaul. As one prime example, Hakurei shrine from the demo…
old shrine

And the new version! Granted, this isn’t just a result of skill improvement over time, but also having the patience to spend more than 2 or 3 hours on a background.
new shrine

You can expect some new scenes in the final version as well, such as this little marketplace in the Human Village:
village market

CGs
Harder to say since the script isn’t all in yet, but out of the stuff that’s currently there it’s like…
60% done
20% CGs from the demo need revising for the new screen res
20% others to do

GUI
Updated for the new screen res.

Danmaku + other effects
Old images updated for new screen res, haven’t done the new stuff yet. Not sure how far along it is yet, though I’ll probably get this done quickly at the end like I did before.

Cut-in sprites
Haven’t touched it since the demo. I want to redraw the 5 heroines and Marisa fresh, and the others will probably just get quick edits at best, just because of the sheer size of the cast.

Alright, getting back to it. I’ll endeavor to post more regular updates when I get to the home stretch.

A word on ESR’s art.

Graph here. So, here’s my plan for my part in ESR for the next few months.

I decided not to try imitating the style of my old art when finishing up the remaining Event CGs. I consider this project a training exercise of sorts for myself, and using all the tricks I’ve learned in the past few years makes for the best practice, rather than going back to a style I probably won’t use again.

If I’ve got time at the end– and there probably will be a good deal of testing and QC to do after the writing deadline in June– I’ll redo the old character art, and perhaps the first round of CGs. Otherwise, we’ll make do with what we’ve got. I’m sure you guys will agree that this has gone on long enough!

I’ve also decided to upgrade the screen resolution of the game to 1280×720. Just small enough to let us use some of the old art if we need to. Have a taste!

Ice Cream with Flan

Alice and Dolls

Touhou Mecha Chapter 3 progress

Hi folks, Graph here with an update on Touhou Mecha Chapter 3.
Okuu's Discovery

The character sprites for this Chapter are done now! Admittedly I’ve been pretty lazy since the start of the year, and this should’ve been done weeks ago. I’m planning to kick things into high gear for the next phase, Chapter 3’s battle scene.

I’ll have new mecha art trickle into the Twitter account over the next few weeks. Look forward to it!
Old Rivals
Kisume

DSD back on Twitter!

Reimu, TM ver.

“DSD was on Twitter”, you ask? Yes, though we barely used it. It’s listed under daisukimadan.

I’m looking to change that by posting smaller, more frequent updates on Touhou Mecha using that account. Major progress updates will still be posted on the blog, and linked to from the Twitter account.

I don’t know if ESR will be updating frequently enough to use the Twitter format, but rest assured you’ll be hearing a progress report on that over the holidays.

Anyway, it’s been a slow first month for Chapter 3, but I’ve been plugging away at the sprites for the latest cast additions. With that, it’s time for me to get back to work!

Chapter 2 CGs on DA

Select CGs from Chapter 2 of Touhou Mecha have been posted to my DA gallery here. Included are a few in larger size, and others that are only seen in-game briefly!

With that business out of the way, we can start working on Chapter 3. And with any luck we can get a more detailed status update on ESR up soon!