Ask A Developer!

[LTalon]

So, you've looked at our work and have questions to ask. Things that you don't think necessarily need their own entire thread.

Or perhaps you just want to ask something random. Fire away! This is a thread for you to do just that! The developers are here to answer your questions! Writing, music, code, art, whatever. If you want to address a specific section of the staff, we'll respond to that as well.

[Cuddlefish]

Mentioned this before, but this bothered me in the demo: why "Gensoukyo"? Inconsistent romanisation. I wonder if it's been changed so far.

[LTalon]

I believe the romanization style we were using utilizes ou for long o. We've been trying to be consistent about that, but we may have missed a few from before we'd made a solid decision on what romanization to use. If there are specific examples of that that you've noticed, please let us know.

[IcedFairy]

Actually as the person responsible for that I'll explain. The romanization I was taught uses ou for long o sounds, except at the end of a word. I'd offer to change it, but it'd probably end up being only half done and thus inconsistent throughout the body of work. Hopefully it doesn't burn anyone's eyes.

[Cuddlefish]

Actually as the person responsible for that I'll explain. The romanization I was taught uses ou for long o sounds, except at the end of a word. I'd offer to change it, but it'd probably end up being only half done and thus inconsistent throughout the body of work. Hopefully it doesn't burn anyone's eyes.

Agh, too many conflicting systems. I wonder which convention that was?
I don't mind too much, and nobody is likely to really complain about it, since it's easy to understand and therefore functions as a word.
...just don't change "Touhou" into "Touho". That would be confusing.

It's strange, though, that the English-speaking fandom typically uses "Gensokyo" and "Touhou".

[VN Fairy]

Agh, too many conflicting systems. I wonder which convention that was?
I don't mind too much, and nobody is likely to really complain about it, since it's easy to understand and therefore functions as a word.
...just don't change "Touhou" into "Touho". That would be confusing.

It's strange, though, that the English-speaking fandom typically uses "Gensokyo" and "Touhou".

Well, I think that might be my fault. I constantly spell Gensokyo as Gensoukyo, so it may have caught on from there. This is also probably because I know some Japanese, and so the name of Gensokyo ("Illusiory Land") is made up to me as "Gensou", or Illusion, and "Kyou"... but because no one else has a U at the end of Gensokyo, it was shortened to Kyo to not look weird with how other people were saying it.

[28JFJ]

I have a few questions:
1.Why is there no rinnosuke route?
2.Will the soundtrack be posted on youtube or on download?
3.Can you please send me this games version of "Un Owen Was her?" to me (if you can)?
4.Can you tell me all the book/literature refrences that were mentioned by Flandre in the demo?
5.What is Bun?cula? (cant remember if thats how it was spelt)

Sorry if these questions can be answered by looking at the blog and sorry if I asked too much

[Mixtape]

I'll just answer the music questions.

2.Will the soundtrack be posted on youtube or on download?
Both, once it's finished.

3.Can you please send me this games version of "Un Owen Was her?" to me (if you can)?
I'll PM it to you.

[IcedFairy]

1.Why is there no rinnosuke route?

No one felt comfortable writing it, given the way we had Rinnousuke as more of an uncle figure. Not to mention we're barely able to handle all the routes we have currently.

Can you tell me all the book/literature refrences that were mentioned by Flandre in the demo?

All of them? I'm not sure I'd remember unless I searched through the script. I know she references Agatha Christie and Sandman, but I abused references early on.

5.What is Bun?cula? (cant remember if thats how it was spelt.

Bunnicula is a children's book about a rabbit that drinks the juice out of vegetables. Due to American IP laws Bun?cula is totally not that.

[28JFJ]

Thanks for answering. I have a few more questions (sorry if I ask way tooo much)

1.Will there be more than one ending for each girl?
2.Will there be any instant death(game over) scenes? (sorry if this question might spoil anything)
3.What do the Stats in the menu mean? Will they affect anything in the story?

[LTalon]

Oh oh! It's like a short answer test!

1) Yes, there will be multiple endings for just about everyone.

2) Yes, there are bad endings. There was one in the demo, actually, if I remember correctly.

3) The stats in the menu represent various things that Marisa is good at (or bad at). And yes, they affect things later on in the story, primarily what options appear.

Oh, and in response to Flandre's literary references:
Flandre Day 1: >Kagome, Kagome is a traditional Japanese game and song.
Flandre Day 2: >The Factols Handbook: D&D Planescape
>And then there were none: Agatha Christie novel by the same name. Also, an old nursery rhyme.
Flandre Day 3: >One for Sorrow, etc.: An old English Rhyme
>Also, the Rhyme is used in Neil Gaiman's Sandman
Flandre Day 4: >The Heart of Darkness: A classic novel written by Joseph Conrad about the evil humanity is capable of. Well-known for being
extremely dense and difficult to read.
>Bun?cula: Bunnicula, as IcedFairy said. A children's book about vampire rabbits.
>Dracula: Bram Stoker's Dracula.
>Mahou Shoujo: Not really sure, could reference any number of things.
Flandre Day 5: >"THE DESTROYER HAS BEEN CHOSEN" etc.: Ghostbusters reference.
>"Clock Tower!"/Beef Jerky etc.: Castlevania reference.
>Stone Mask: Jojo's bizarre adventure.
>Portrait of a young girl done in blood: The anime, Le Portrait de Petite Cosette. Also bears resemblance to the Oval Portrait by Edgar Allen Poe.

And that's all of the ones I could find.

Iced: Edited to fill in a few blanks now that they're all up. The coins were just coins.

[28JFJ]

Thanks for the answers ^_^
I guess I have to play through the demo again to find the Bad End and its kind of amusing that Flandre has the best knowledge of literature (even more than Patchouli) and she is the most childish.
I might be back with more questions (I guess)
I hope im not being too much of a bother

[28JFJ]

Yet again I have a few more questions, yet again there is a lot....

1.Is the next demo an improvement on the first, is it a continuation of the first or is it both?
2.If it is a continuation will the first demo saves be compatible with the second demo?
3.How will the full version be released?
4.Do you have any plans after ESR? Will it be Touhou based?
5.How are the characters drawn and coloured?
6.Who is your favourite Touhou character and theme?
7.Which character do you not like in Touhou?

[Graph]

I can answer a few of these, as the main artist. I don't know if you were going for an artist's explanation or layman's terms, but for now I'll keep it kind of in the middle.

5. I usually tried to stay close to the character designs from the official games, but I always look up Danbooru for inspiration on how other artists handled things. For example certain ribbons and frills are often omitted for simplicity, and the color schemes vary a lot with the artist's style.

-I make a sketch in Corel Painter, using a Wacom tablet, then I show it to the writers. I generally try to get it approved by IcedFairy and/or LTalon since they've done most of the writing.
-After that I trace over my sketch with cleaner lines, then I open the file in Photoshop and use the Magic Wand tool to fill in the flat colors ( I don't comprehend how Painter's Magic Wand equivalent works).
-After that I open the file in Painter again and do color details such as the eyes and patterns on clothing, and then I do the shading and highlights in Painter as well, both on their own layers.
-Final touch, I open it in PhotoShop again and use the magic wand to select areas of flat color. Then I use those selections to adjust the color of the shading (for example, areas that are white underneath should have a lighter shading color, and the shading on skin should have higher saturation).
-Then I use PhotoShop to save as a PNG, then shrink the image to the game's resolution (all cut-in images are 600 pixels tall).

If there's something particular you want to know more about I'll try to explain. This process has kind of evolved over the course of development, and actually I think its current state took shape around the end of 2010.

6. Favorite character, definitely Utsuho. It's really hard to settle on a favorite theme though... I'm going to give a nod to Suwa Foughten Field right now though. In general a lot of my favorite themes are clumped up in stage 6 bosses and Subterranean Animism.

7. I'd say it's more accurate to say there's certain interpretations of characters I don't really like. For example I don't like the Yuyuko that does nothing but make a lot of trouble for Youmu. I think they all have their moments though.

[IcedFairy]

1.Is the next demo an improvement on the first, is it a continuation of the first or is it both?

Both

2.If it is a continuation will the first demo saves be compatible with the second demo?

We've done our best to make it reverse compatible, though we've done some edits to earlier parts. So if you've got the time I'd recommend starting from the beginning.

3.How will the full version be released?

Similarly to the demos. This is a freeware project, which is a good thing because of ZUNs new distribution rules.

4.Do you have any plans after ESR? Will it be Touhou based?

We'll see where we are at the end. We've bounced some ideas about, but it's best to finish what you start first.

6.Who is your favourite Touhou character and theme?

You've got another Utsuho fan here, though I love most of the characters.

7.Which character do you not like in Touhou?

The Watatsukis aren't my favorite people.

[Mixtape]

6.Who is your favourite Touhou character and theme?
Character wise I like the entire Scarlet residence. If I have to choose one I'll say Remilia. As for theme, I really like Locked Girl and more recently, Magus Night. Septette of the Dead Princess also deserves a mention.

7.Which character do you not like in Touhou?
I can't think of any characters that I actually dislike. Obviously there are interpretations, like Graph said, but apart from that I can't think of anyone.

[SleepKirby]

28JFJ, don't worry about the amount of questions, I think it's nice to get some casual forum activity going.
Since I'm a programmer on this project, I'll answer (2):

(2) It should be *possible* to resume from your old saves, unless you saved at a point of the story where we made a major change (in the game code). Looking at my old saves, I'll throw out a guess that at least 80% of old saves should still work, on average.

However, I've recently planned to re-do the code for the statistics (LOVE, Danmaku, etc.), so even if you can continue from your old saves, your stats might unfortunately be reset to 0. If that's indeed the case, then as IcedFairy said, recommended to start from the beginning. If you want to skip through the game quickly, though, here's a tip: type > (right angle bracket) to skip directly to the next choice. (I forgot whether this functionality is in the current demo, but it will be in the next demo.)


(6) I like a lot of the characters... let's go with Sakuya though.
From the games, I like a lot of the Mountain of Faith music - Nitori's stage theme might be my favorite there. I also really like all of the Imperishable Night stage 4 themes. As for Touhou arranges, I have way too many favorites there.

(7) As Graph said, it's just certain character portrayals that irk me a bit.

[LTalon]

Well, since everything else seems to have already been answered...

Well, adding on to #4

4) I think we all have some vague ideas of what we'd like to do next, but we really haven't discussed it at length yet.

Personal question time!

6) I don't like playing favorites, but if backed into a corner, I guess I'd have to go with Tewi or Suwako. Meddlesome Immortal Loli Squad go!

7) I also don't like certain characterizations, but Rumia's inexplicable popularity irks me slightly. But just slightly.

[28JFJ]

Questions
1.Are the characters in ESR closer to canon or fanon personalities?
2.Are the backgrounds drawn and coloured in the same way as the characters? And what type of Wacom tablet did you use?
3.Can anyone explain ZUNS new rules? I am a bit confused by them. Like does it effect the Western fanbase in any way?
4.Will the full version of ESR have a Gallery and Music room?
5.Will any of the PC-98 characters have any major-ish role besides cameos?
6.Is there any way to tell whos route you are on?
7.Do you have any favourite pairings in Touhou?
8.How did you first find out about Touhou?
9.How much of Touhou have you played?

I might as well answer some of my own questions, since all I ever do is ask and I guess its fair that way.
Favourite Character: Alice
Favourite Themes: Doll Judgement,Un Owen was her?,Lunatic Eyes,Reach for the Moon,Magus night,Reincarnation,Lunatic Princess and a lot more
7.My answer: MariXAli or Flan and RemiXSaku
8.My answer: Listening to Night of Nights
9.My answer: Out of Official games: Mainly EoSD but I have played a little of PCB,IaMP,IN (I refuse to move on to the others until I can actually get to Remilia, I end up losing at Stage 4 Koakuma after all continues on Normal)
Out of Fan games:Mystical Chain,Touhou Soccer 2,Touhou Pocket Wars EVO,Sengoku Gensokyo, Labyrinth of Touhou

On a side note do you think some of these questions should actually be in "Opinions,Comments and Critique" section, also if I have any ideas for ESR should it be in that section.
I hope this isnt TLR

[Des]

When are you guys planning a second demo? Also to Iced Fairy: Did you see my request for cross-advertising links on our pages?