Touhou player object in PGMMV - The basics

Akira here!

Since PGMMV is known to help aiding the creation of action-based games, then I think it is also capable of creating bullet-hell shooter games like the Touhou series, without diving into Danmakufu scripting and script hacking!

With just a few steps (not quite few), I am able to create a basic Touhou-styled player object! Here I created a player object for Satori Komeiji from my fangame series SAAD, which have the basic attack of shooting lasers (assumably) from the eyes (Believe me, she even doesn't have the ability to shoot lasers with eyes, it is in fact the danmaku interpretation of Satori staring into an opponent with her serene eyes (actually, that gaze is learned from Megumi)).

Here's how I work on that object:

• Start off with five basic movements for each movement type (unfocused and focused), which are idle, up, down, left and right. Then add two input nodes for each movement, one for triggering a movement from the idle movement, and one for the reverse. The input required to trigger / untrigger a movement is the same, but with focused movements, there's an additional input, which is the "Shift" key.

• Of course there are some inconsistencies when changing from unfocused to focused at will, so just add some more input nodes from the unfocused movements to the focused movements. The result is a flowchart that resembles Shinki's second-to-last attack in MS.

• After done with the movements, it's time to move on to the "pew-pew" function! Just plop in a few bullet actions into the flowchart, and add some input nodes to them and connect them with the movement actions. There are two input nodes that you need to add: First is for shooting bullets when "Z" is pressed, and other for stop shooting when "Z" is released. But aside from releasing "Z", there must be a cooldown period (It can be anything but please, it must be at least 0.1 secs) so as to the player cannot spam the bullets like crazy, and also to minimize the chance of a "slow down" glitch when we move for too long. (there were several times I encountered the slow down glitch when I tested the movements when the bullet count on screen is huge and the cooldown time is short).

And... above is an image of the complete (well, mostly) player object script made in PGMMV!

It went alright, so I decided to move on to making an "option" script to make an "option" moves around the player like in Touhou games and shoots the secondary shot (you know, like Cirno and Reimu, who have options that shoot additional bullets). In this case, it is hearts when unfocused (representing the serene gaze of Satori at that moment, which is described as "full of love") and helixes (srsly, I cannot do hypnotic spirals for that because that could be buggy when visualizing Satori's focused attack in a danmaku-styled aesthetic) when focused (representing Satori's hypnotic eyes at that point, which can induce past traumas to the enemy).

That's how I make a basic Touhou player script in PGMMV!

See ya later until the new announcements about new tips and tricks devlogs (basically they are like a mix of devlogs and how-tos, and they are my attempts to make the process of making my fangame series open-source! (of course, you can't redistribute all of my content without proper credit, but you can mod it by changing the art / sound assets, or some (but not all) of the scripts))!

Akira Akagi Games