/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Next, features!

Most of the features and ideas I and people on /jp/ have had and discussed are not set in stone yet, so feel free to say you hate things.

1. The game is set to be built from the ground up using C++, using Direct X as the display engine, and compiling in Microsoft Visual C++ for the best windows compatibility available.

2. The game will include a small set of Touhou characters to begin with, but will include others after the game has at least reached a beta version. I made the decision that the original group will be the EoSD girls, the personal favorite of each of the members of the team, and whoever we have doing a special job(for instance Rinnosuke as the general store proprietor and Nitori as the Item upgrader. I'm thinking that they'll be in the game and have dialogue, just not relationship dialogue yet?).

3. The player will be able to choose between 2 characters: a generic male and a generic female character that they can name.

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvX_oNaOWd8 This is the style I'm looking for, for the game world. Making it 3D or shit like that isn't really important to have fun with this, I think. Feel free to disagree, but it'll take a bit of work to change my mind. This seems like the most efficient way to do this.

5. I have lots of ideas from /jp/ers, but I will save those for later after I've thrown them at the lead programmer and my harvest moon expert(yeah I called him a harvest moon expert, deal w/ it).

6. We are going to build this from the ground up, no sprite swaps from a previous Harvest Moon game.

7. Minoriko Aki will be the Harvest Goddess, Yukari will be the Witch Princess.

The site is located at http://www.touhoumoon.net

Oh, and the old thread is here
>>7155035

>>7170088
ALSO ALSO, the image on that site is just a placeholder, it is still under construction.

Is /jp/ actually producing something of value? Impressive.

Person who said he'll help with the music here.

I'm really *really* sorry, but it looks like I probably won't be able to do the music. When I heard about you doing this project, I thought to myself that I would love to be a part of developing this, even just a tiny bit. Problem is that I'm gonna spend less time on my computer and more on my job so I can pay bills and things necessary for living. I'll *still* try to create music for the project, but I'm not too sure. My sincerest apologies.

I've decided on Nitori as the tool upgrader, Minoriko Aki as the Harvest Goddess, Yukari as the Witch Princess, Rinnosuke as the General Store guy, Suika as the builder. None of those characters will be marriable from the beginning(all will be by the end of the project assuming all goes well). So at the moment it seems like I need an innkeeper and an animal worker(sells cows, chickens, sheep, animal food, animal medicine, stuff to make cows pregnant). Did I forget anything? Oh, the mayor person. I like Reimu for that. Or maybe Keine? I think Marisa was suggested as an innkeeper.

The EoSD cast will be the first girls you will be able to marry(yes I know how people feel about it being EoSD, I chose EoSD because that's where most of the staff's favorites are right now). On top of that, the only other two I know for sure at the moment are Nazrin and Reisen.

>>7170160
Oh, damn. It's ok, thanks for offering, anyhow. I know how that is.

Well, alright then, if anyone is interested in that, please do send me a sample. Email me first though, if you don't have a sample ready, so I know what I have for a team. Thanks!

>>7170088
oh, shit, also, remove line one from this post, that's the old way we were doing it.

>>7170166
By the way, is the music style also like Harvest Moon SNES?

>>7170208
Don't have any music yet, so we'll see.

I should probably make a post about this, forgot to change the number of programmers...I have four programmers now, all of them are pretty well experienced, and I know all but one of them fairly well.

We don't need anymore programmers, really(unless you have a LOT of experience in which case I might make an exception). Thank you to anyone that was interested in that!

Ideas for events and characters to fit in certain roles are still very welcome!

So how likely is it that this project will go somewhere?

>DirectX for 2D.

Not interested.

And make sure your "artist" is actually an artist, from an art school, and not some enthusiast that thinks himself as good because... "them folk on dA say I'm good".

Which means he's shit.

Really. It hinges on your artist. Get a good one that _knows his shit_. Not one that looks 'all right' because all right in the art world means all shite.

You want quality shit. Not some squabbled team of people 'interested' in certain things. They need to be fully in their shit, not just interested. Everyone's interested in 'learning'. But you won't make gold with learners.

>>7170287
They switched. see >>7170174

>>7170287
You are just like Bioware- appreciate talentless school graduates, go and play DA2.

Where I can get source?

>>7170321
Huh? What are you looking for?

>>7170294
This.

>>7170287
Uh...thanks for your input I guess. I don't think that going for someone with a degree in art over someone who has already shown me work that I really liked, suited to what I asked from him, in a timely manner, is really a good idea.

>>7170334
I understand that now you have nothing. I would like to have the opportunity in the future.

The artists will become uninterested on lazy the second it gets out of its idea phase and you're ready for implementation. Or they won't be proficient at certain things, because it's outside of the scope of what they know.

The programmers will probably put together a fine engine, especially considering it's 2D, but it won't matter because you probably won't get the content needed to produce this.

;_;

The artists will become uninterested or lazy the second it gets out of its idea phase and you're ready for implementation. Or they won't be proficient at certain things, because it's outside of the scope of what they know.

The programmers will probably put together a fine engine, especially considering it's 2D, but it won't matter because you probably won't get the content needed to produce this.

;_;

>04/01/11
All I had to say.

>>7170351
>project started before the 1st
well that was embarassing

>>7170348
Believe!

>>7170351
>>7170357
Dohoho

This is the banner the artist made for the site. Personally, I really love his artwork, but I'd like to know how you guys feel about it, and so would the artist!

>>7170378
I quite like it. Area of possible improvement: arms and hands. Cheers to the team that's forming.

>>7170378
You have one artist. You don't know if he can do sprite work, or how much work he can pull off (art for an entire game is a huge undertaking).

I got burned in the past by the same thing I just described. It's just a friendly warning.

>>7170393
The sprite artist is someone else entirely, this guy is just going to be doing the closeup art, for with the dialogue boxes. That's what I'm thinking. You know, emotions and stuff.

>Linux compatibility

I like you

>>7170378
Don't really like it, but you can't avoid people not liking art.
I definitely wouldn't say 'It's shit' though, which is probably what you would want to avoid.
GO TEAM GO

>>7170395
If it's like that I'm totally fine with it. I want to see a sample of a sprite

>Capable programmers who know C++ or interested parties capable of learning
what do you mean by interested parties capable of learning?

>Touhou game about gardening (well, growing plants, but still.)
Awwright, that means-
>generic protagonists
What.

>>7170557
Harvest Moon has generic cityboys who inherited their grandfather's farm/ranch in the countryside far away from a city.

This could probably have a generic outsider who tripped into the barrier and decides to work on a farm to provide food to others because Reimu said Yukari is asleep and can't send him back yet, and probably will remain asleep for a year or so.
Then you can have that RF3 type ending about "Oh, I could go back, but I'm too attached to this place now"

Why would you want to be a Touhou?

>>7170557
I'm sorry Youmu. Don't you have someone to do work for anyhow? You don't have time to be running around messing with waifus!

>>7170466
I don't have any sprite artwork related to the game to show you right now, I asked him for a simple sprite to show you guys, I'll update you on that later today. I have other work of his but I don't know if he wants me to show it off, since it's not related to this project.

>>7170552
That has been changed. We don't need more programmers at this point, unless you actually really know your shit. All four of the people I have right now DO know their shit, and they aren't just people that say they want to learn about it. I wasn't really sure what sort of support I was going to get for this at first, so that's why I was ok with people learning as we go at that point, but now that I've got capable and experience people on the team that's not really a good idea.

I still really need someone to do music. I'm pretty much looking at toned down versions of character themes and level themes. For instance, for the winter seasonal music, I was thinking a remix of Deep Mountain. I've always really felt like it's a good wintery theme.

>>7170585
In the indie game dev threads on /v/, there are always a bunch of people that do music, but no one needs it because no one can actually make a game to require it.
..just saying.

>>7170575
ah I see
can I just be an observer then?
a lot of my interest in this is seeing something coded from the ground up,
I mean seeing you guys work as a learning experience
as cheesy as it sounds.

>>7170598
Feel free to come hang out in the IRC, I think that's where most of our discussion is going to be. The programmers have decided that they don't want the code to be open source at least to start with, but I think if you want to watch us work that would be fine. Nothing is happening right now though, they're all asleep or in class or out, it's just me and one of the writers and a couple people from /jp/ in there right now.

>>7170595
I actually thought about saying something in one of those threads yesterday when I was on /v/. I'll see about that today.

>>7170607
I will never forgive you if you cause even more /v/irulents to come to /jp/.

>>7170608
I don't really think that putting a link to this thread in one of those threads would really cause any upset to the normal balance either way. I could just give a short description of what we're doing and what I'm looking for I guess, but linking to this thread would answer most of the questions anyone has. Not like I'm asking them to come raid /jp/ or some shit.

>>7170616
I will never forgive you if you cause even more /v/irulents to come to /jp/.

are there any specifications for the sprites?

like, are there any "hard" dimension limits for each sprite that can't be exceeded, is there a color depth limit etc.

>>7170602

>The programmers have decided that they don't want the code to be open source at least to start with

>>7170575

>All four of the people I have right now DO know their shit

Does not compute.

>>7170627
One of the less-experienced programmers says that as far as he knows, since we're coding in C++, they can be any size or color-range. Does that answer your question?

>>7170637
It's their code.

lead programmer had this to say on the IRC yesterday when I asked him about it:

Exarderalf> Right now probably closed source then when we get done with the foundations we can do whatever
<Exarderalf> Keeping it closed source for now would allow us to make it open source when ready if we want to cause having it open then making it closed is stupid and impossible to do.

>>7170647
more less, yeah.

so, if someone were to make a sprite set that'd fit the rest of the sprites size wise, but have large protrusions like wings on the back, it'd be ok too?

also programmer-related question, how hard would it be to code something to allow the player to choose/alter some things about the mc, such as hair color or length?

>>7170653
It is their code. There is a distinct benefit to open sourcing the game engine, however. The fact that people could submit their own patches and help out without being full-time team members. Hopefully they won't intermarry the engine and the game too much, making it a hassle to add/remove/mod stuff.

>>7170662
It's sprites, so you would probably have to make a separate set of sprites for each of those. Changing between them shouldn't be too hard, at least in terms of getting the concept straight.

>>7170662
I thought about this but didn't bring it up to anyone. I will do so, and let you know about that.

>>7170663
You're right, I know that. I'm just going to let them do what they're comfortable with for now. If you have suggestions for them, they're open to them. They're not in the IRC right now, but I can make a post in the thread later when at least one of them is, if you'd like.

>>7170672
Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking. I'm also not sure if I want to have art for the protagonist as well, which would just be more work there, too. So for now I'd say probably not to that, but it's a possibility? I suppose that close-up art of the protagonist isn't all that important.

The programmer I have to talk with right now had this to say on the subject:

easy, but we would need entirely new sprites for each.
(11:46:49 AM): or, we could overlay the sprites, but that would pose problems with screen resolution changes, cause then, the hair might not line up on their heads, or they may turn and then their hair turns after
(11:47:12 AM): so, I think, hair-color choices, etc are fine, but they'll be added in over time

>>7170681
it could be done with some sort of palette effects if the engine could support 8 bit (256 colors max per spritesheet) format.

a 256 color palette would be more than enough for a character (not to mention it'd take less space and memory), and then it'd be just a simple palette swap.

alternatively, isn't it possible to use pixel shaders to change specific colors on an image?

The board seems to work again

bump

What about making it in Qt? Should be about as easy as it can get.

>>7170953
I've been trying to bump this thread all day. I've forwarded what you said along once again, waiting on a reply.

>>7171109
Qt is a UI framework. What they want is a general 2D graphics library, or a wrapper to a 3D library that's used for 2D.

C++/SFML, C/OpenGL/SDL, Java/Slick, C#/XNA, C++/DirectX etc... will usually be used.

>>7170672
Not if the sprites were properly component-based.

Here's an idea I'm just throwing out:
How about you base the yearly festivals on the game incidents?

TH7: On the last day of winter, there's a festival where you have to collect the most sakura petals.
TH8: Some time in spring there's a contest to stay up all night and party (Cue moe reactions from all the girls as they get sleepy one by one and fail to stay up)
TH9: There are no seas in Gensokyo, so maybe the fishing festival would be the spirit-catching festival.
TH10: Generic religious festival

etc etc

>>7171408
I like that idea

>>7171408
But then certain characters would be only avaible AFTER those events.
Also if OP strictly follows this he will run out of events pretty quickly.

A fishing contest could be held at the Misty Lake though

>>7171474
well those could just be some major events, with smaller, custom ones placed randomly between them.

>>7171408
those are good ideas for festivals, I like them.

I'm still looking for someone or someones that can do music, and someone or someones to work on sprites.

>>7171474

Ah, I wasn't saying 'these festivals are the actual events', it was more of 'these incidents have already happened and these festivals were created to fondly(?) remember them'.

So that way everyone's already there, and there aren't any real worries of the sun getting blocked out or anything

>>7171646
Oh then it would make sense.
But I think it'd be more realistic if they would just get drunk at Reimus place everytime they remember an incident.
Oh yeah I think being able to make alcoholic beverages in this game should be very important

Is this just another VN?
Do you have anywhere where I can look at the specifics of your game?
Will sprites be necessary?
Is there pay?

>>7171663
I agree. And yes, I think most of the 'festivals' are going to be big drinking parties with some point to them at Reimu's.

>>7171683
No.
Yes. Sort of. http://www.touhoumoon.net
Yes. Definitely.
No, sorry.

If you want to know anything else, please join the IRC. I'm in there, one or two of the writers are in there, one of the programmers is in there.

Good luck. I really look forward to this.

Also, how many Touhous do you think are going to be in the game by RC/GA? Not really looking for a number, but a "most notable", "some", "a few", etc. I think that should be one of the main focuses in development.

Thank you very much.

I have a couple people for music picked out!

Still looking for sprite artists!

Another writer would not hurt either.

Shikieiki is also added to the list of marriable characters in the first version of the game.

I think that's all there really is to update on at the moment...there's a little bit more on the forums on the site, but nothing particularly interesting to note.

I will be hammering out the gameplay over this weekend, and should have a list of tracks I plan to include by tomorrow sometime.

>>7172032
>Shikieiki
It keeps getting harder deciding who I'm going to marry.

Why remake a game, and just add Touhou sprites?

Wouldn't it be better to make something that'd have slightly more unique gameplay, or at least wouldn't be a straight-up copy of a game (but TOUHOU!)?

From the sound of this, you could use RPGMaker for the extent you're going to.

RPG Maker would be really convenient to make a game like this

I would be interested in contributing to music,
Im a student though so I'll only be able to work on them during May.
It would be easier if there was a forum discussion dedicated to music developers to discuss what type of music to make (8bit, etc)

>>7172276
>RPG Maker would be really convenient to make a game like this
No.