Touhou Tenkijo Devlog No. 2

It has been a while since I last posted here. I do not regularly post here nowadays because most of the stuff I do relevant to my works will be primarily on Reddit.

Music

So, progress of the game's development was almost frozen due to issues of remastering the default battle theme (Fight, O the Descendant of the Archangel! ~ Strawberry Crisis!!). The theme sounds so wonky when I make it using a Game Boy GM soundfont, and I tried to find out several ways to "fix" the track by changing the instrument banks, but it still sounds not right. Hopefully I made a version with NES / Mega Drive instruments, and thank goodness, it sounds nicer than the Game Boy GM version and gives me almost the same vibes as the original Strawberry Crisis!!, due to I made the instrument tracks with volumes almost replicating the volume of the instrumental tracks in the original song's audio.

The track remastering process alone bugs me so much that it hindered my progress on my fangame. Even though I finally overcame that bug, another bug still persist, which is my limited musical skills. I mean, I am good in making cover tracks of Touhou / UT / DR music, but I am pretty bad in creating original tracks, due to my music theory is extremely limited (I didn't have time to study music theory further). That's why some of the tracks in Tenkijo will be cover versions of Touhou music that are given a new name as covers. I hope that cover tracks will appear less often in future Acts, as I began to build up my musical knowledge from scratch.

Music for the fangame? I will not rate it right now, because I am still struggling with the music part of the game.

Graphics

For the graphics, it went pretty well. I've already done the basic layout of some of the rooms in the first areas of the game. You can see them here:

TBH, the PC-98 palette alone is pretty too limited for a neo-retro game, so I decided to mix some retro palettes together to create the coloration of the tiles that are used to construct the maps above.

Since I changed the eye shape of Yumemi in the fanart that will be used for the game, then it is time to redesign the game banner and title screen (and maybe the game thumbnail too), this time in a more pixel art-styled aesthetic.

Graphics for the fangame - I would say it is 8.5-9 / 10.

Story

The story concept of Act 1 is almost complete. The settings of each Stage is all determined, but still need second pass. The bosses and midbosses of each area are also defined, but still, it still need second pass. Once both parts are done, I will do the dialogue of the game. Also at the same time, I also will begin to decide which puzzles and random encounter enemies to implement to each area. In fact I have planned for the story of the game up to Act 5, but the details of that will not be revealed until all of Acts 1-5 is released, so as to not spoil the fun.

Gameplay Elements

For gameplay elements such as danmaku patterns in boss battles, I still yet to count on it, as I am making only a demo of the game right now (which only have an example battle with no danmaku attacks), not the full game (which will have fully functional boss battles).

Conclusion

Anyway, that is all for Devlog No. 2!

See you later in the Christmas Devlog No. 3!

P.S. If you have any questions / opinions, PM me via shouts (Game Jolt), or if you guys have Reddit, start a chat with me. Remember, English only when you are chatting with me, as I primarily speaks English online.

Akira Akagi Games