Author: IcedFairy

Demo 1a released!

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It was a long and grueling process (mainly because we felt our way though the process very slowly), but we’ve tested our 1st demo as much as we can, and now we’re going to hand it to the general public.

Download it here (windows) or here (other OS).

We’ve got about a third of the art and music done, and we’ve edited the writing a good two or three times (not that we probably won’t edit it again at the final release) but we think it’s a decent taste of what we’ve been working on since starting up.  Hopefully you’ll like it.  Even more hopefully you’ll give us ideas on how to make it even better.  Or beta testers already gave us some ideas that will take some time to implement, but greatly increase the quality of the work, and we’re hoping you all give us some more ideas for our writing while we can still implement them (or at least tell us we’re on the right path 🙂 ).

This has been a really great team, and without their determination and loyalty to the project I’m certain we would have fallen to the wayside like many other projects have in the past.  I’m glad to have worked with them all, and I’m looking forward to seeing a tiny taste of our work (even though we have so much more to do).

Feel free to drop your feelings on the demo here.

Beta testing.

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We’ve been quiet for a while, but that’s because we’ve set our nose to the grindstone and put together most of our first demo. We’ve done all the art and music we need, and we’ve got a little over half the programming done as well.

So why are we asking for beta testers for a demo? Well two reasons. One is we don’t trust four people to be able to catch all the spelling and grammar errors in our work. Another is we’re looking for people to help us for future beta work, and possibly one or two to critique our scripts as they’re written. And of course the more eyes that check our work the faster we can get a finished project out for general consumption.

So if you’re interested in being a beta tester please drop us a line at beta@dsd.faceroll.net . Things to include in the e-mail:

– Your member name on the DSD forums if you’ve registered there.
– How much time you think you can spend testing.
– Any testing experience you might have.
– Any other reasons we should pick you.

If you get chosen we’ll send you info on how to acquire and comment on the demo as soon as we clean out all the big bugs.

Demo 0.0.1

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This post will be a little shorter then normal.  We’ve started programming on our first demo, so I figured I should explain a little more what to expect out of it, and why we’re planning a second demo.

We’re putting out our first demo for three main reasons.  First, to test our work.  Second, to get player feedback on our work.  Third, to keep our programmers from being terribly bored.

So why are we doing this over two demos?  Well quite frankly we need the testing and user feedback now.  We’re about 40% done with the script, and things will start flowing faster as we get closer to the end (even if there is more work).  Which means we need the players opinions on our characters, humor and style now, so we can fix it before it becomes the entirety of the game.

On the other hand there’s a lot of other stuff that isn’t done.  With 40% of the script we can give the player ALL the script for the first 40% of the game.  Art on the other hand isn’t as simple.  Easily 75% of the poses happen within the first two weeks of gameplay.  So even if Graph is ahead of us writers in work, there’s still missing stuff in the early game.  In a similar vein, way more then half the music appears in the first two chapters.

So we need to put out something, but it won’t be the full experience we intend for the final version.  That’s why we’re going to put out a second release, when art and music have everything squared away, to show you what we want the game to look like when it’s done.

Still, we’ve got a lot of stuff ready for the initial demo.  And we hope it gives the girls a nice intro.  The initial demo will go halfway through Chapter 2, and include the start of most of the side stories, in addition to the first seriously dangerous encounter Marisa can blunder into.  We’ve got a little bit of art and music left to go, and a chunk of testing to do, but we hope when it gets in your hands you’ll be able to tell us what you loved and what you hated, so we can help make the final game a better experience for everyone.

Statistics

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Marisa is a magician of many talents. In addition to her combat skills and charming personality, she’s a decent thief, and has a vast knowledge of spells (if nowhere near Patchouli’s level).  Of course such skills need constant maintaining.  Otherwise the madhouse that is Gensoukyo will leave you behind.

Thus throughout the story Marisa will have a chance to work on minor projects that boost her abilities.  We’ve loosely categorized them as “Danmaku,” “Kleptomania,” “Knowledge,” and “LOVE.”

Danmaku is of course Marisa’s ability to spark people in the face.  While our heroine’s not going to suffer the indignity of being killed by fairies on the way home, Marisa’s Danmaku stat will likely determine the outcome of many of her fights against the other residents of Gensoukyo.  And considering that in Gensoukyo “Who cooks lunch?” is a decided by dueling there may be a few fights of note.

Kleptomania is a disease.  In Marisa’s mind,  a very fun and entertaining disease.  With it you’ll find important objects appearing in your pockets, useful implements falling into your hands, and you’ll be better at cheating at Mahjong.  Being good at stealing also helps delicate manipulation in general, just in case you needed to help with a puppet show or something.

Knowledge is a girl in the Scarlet Devil Mansion a great aid in figuring out where useful things might be or picking up great ideas.  For a Magician, Knowledge is also power.  While Danmaku may determine if you can hit with a spell, Knowledge will allow you to perform useful magic tricks on a day to day basis.

LOVE (caps lock required) is Marisa’s ability to get people who would otherwise beat her to a pulp to actually enjoy the time they spend with her.  Whether charming your friends and enemies, or just fast talking your way past people who really should know better, LOVE is a great thing to have.  And remember, cooking is about heart.  (BTW: That’s a game hint).

We’re still tweaking the actual numbers right now, and there’s of course an early period at the beginning where we aren’t so mean as to toss stat challenges at Marisa.  But as things progress your skills will start to tweak how effective Marisa is in the story.

System Elements

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It was probably mentioned before that the game started out purely as a Person type social game.  You went to people and completed their social links sorta at random.  And while that was an awesome idea, it didn’t really make for a grand story.  Still some ideas were born when we were still plotting things out there, and they managed to survive to the current game incarnation.

The first big thing (that we’ve already mentioned) is that there’s a decent chunk of story before anything pathlocks.  Marisa has a lot to do with each character.  Patchouli, Marisa and Reimu all play a big role in Marisa’s own story, and they aren’t going to disappear after Marisa makes her romantic decisions either.  Flandre’s story on the other hand is a little more contained (and lethal) so those players with faint hearts can avoid that.  Still she’ll make the occasional appearance even then.

The second thing that came out of the early planning stages is Stats.  Events early in the story tie Marisa up for some time, so her skills are a little rusty at game start.  Thus in addition to everything else, Marisa will have chances to work on her personal abilities.  These will influence things from how well the inevitable danmaku fights go, to how fast she can loot Eientei.

Thirdly we have a hint service.  Everyone’s favorite (or second favorite at least) satori, Koishi Komeiji, will happily give Marisa hints on how to improve her romantic standings (or survive the next day…).  Of course she eats up time, but sometimes that’s a small price to pay.  Koishi finds this whole situation hilarious and thus is glad to lend a hand.

Lastly we have the side stories.  While they were initially designed as time sinks, they managed to intertwine themselves into the main plot enough so that they survived the shift to a more traditional style.  Well most of them were twined into the main plot.  One was just too funny  to cut.

Anyway we’ll give a few more details about those as we go on.  Hopefully you’ll be able to see some of them in action soon.  We’ve got another musician and programmer working with us, and things are going smoothly (if always slower then we’d all like I’m sure 🙂 )

Reimu

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Miko Player 1.  The pillar of Gensoukyo.  Reimu’s fairly laid back for someone who has to deal with youkai on a regular basis, though the arrival of a new shrine and the constant threat of poverty have forced her to spend more time working.

Reimu and Marisa were friendly rivals back when Reimu needed a turtle to fly and Marisa had brown(red?) eyes.  Only Rinnousuke has known Marisa longer then Reimu.  They have a strong and enduring friendship….  Which is not exactly conductive for a relationship.

Still with a bit of trickery and effort, you should be able to convince Reimu to take another look at you.  And with so many years of being friends, Marisa and Reimu know each other very well.  Unfortunately, by becoming a youkai you may put Reimu in a sticky situation.  And you don’t want to force Reimu to choose between her love life and her shrine duties.

Of course even if you don’t choose to pursue Reimu, becoming a youkai is going to change your friendship.  Just as events have caused Marisa to start worrying about death, your actions may cause Reimu to start thinking about her long term duties to both the shrine and Gensoukyo.  Especially with Sanae dropping by as an example of a miko whose shrine is doing well.  Your actions will decide how this long time friendship evolves… or ends.

Patchouli

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And with Graph having granted us another wonderful set of screen shots, I figure it would be a good time to talk about our Patchouli.  The head of the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s library is quite possibly one of the learned magicians in the Touhou series, making her the best person to speak to in order to accomplish magical research.  She’s also the true owner of several of the books in Marisa’s home, so she has a tiny grudge against our heroine.

For Patchouli we tried to aim for her personality in EoSD.  Not the most social of people, but still able to enjoy a joke.  Assuming you understood her humor of course.  She’ll be a little less asthmatic  then she was in her first appearance, but don’t expect her to run marathons either.

Patchouli’s unique among the main characters in that she’s definitively older then Marisa, in both physical and mental age.  In addition, those considering Patchouli’s path will quickly find that they have a rival for her affections.  Still with charm, perseverance, and possibly the return of stolen items, you could win her heart.  Or at least become known as something other then “that black white rat.”

Always look on the brighter side of life…

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This posts going to be a little short to keep attention where it should be, specifically on Graph’s screenshots.  For those wondering, yes Marisa is reading the original Dracula to Flandre, and no she had no idea what she was getting into when she started it.  Hilarity is sure to ensue, and by hilarity I mean a big mess.  In fact the aftermath of this is the first time you can get yourself painted over the walls, though hardly the last.

That’s right, it’s entirely possible that your guidance of Marisa will lead to a time paradox and rather bloody game over.  Our Gensoukyo is a generally nice place, but you’re still dealing with very powerful people.  If you manage to screw them over badly they might just get angry enough to explode you, seal you, shove your soul into a doll, turn you inside out, or turn off your lungs.  And, well, romantic entanglements can be messy.

Still, we aren’t going to kill you for taking the wrong entrance to the Shrine, or for not wiping the blood off your shirt (well aside from that path). And there’s a powerful ally who can give you hints as to what to do and not to do.  Should you choose to spend time with her of course.

Marisa

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Marisa, as the heroine, gets a lot of time.  Admittedly she doesn’t get that much art time since we’re using Marisa’s point of view (most of the time) but in terms of screen time she’s almost always there.  Thus we’ve taken a fair amount of time to try to develop Marisa herself.

The first thing we tried to make sure of was that Marisa wouldn’t just be a generic protagonist.  She’d have her own personality quirks, character flaws and strengths, just as she does in the original games.  Of course this is a visual novel as well, so we have to give the player a fair amount of choices too.  Fortunately Marisa’s complex enough to have many different ways of approaching a situation, all depending on her mood (and the players whims).  Still there are going to be some times where Marisa does something brilliant or stupid (or both) that will be out of the players hands.  You didn’t expect the black white witch to not steal control at some point did you?

Of course uncontrolled theft isn’t the only thing Marisa will be bringing as a character.  Marisa’s quest for immortality is a large chunk of the game, and we spent a good deal of time working out the reasons for that and filling out the rest of her character.  In the process we created a whole lot of story for Marisa herself.  In fact Marisa will be the character the player learns the most about as they guide her through her quest to become a true magician.