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Touhou: Hotline Sanzu's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Challenge | #2 | 4.183 | 4.259 |
| Gameplay | #2 | 4.546 | 4.630 |
| Overall | #9 | 4.255 | 4.333 |
| Story / Writing | #11 | 3.819 | 3.889 |
| Audio | #11 | 3.819 | 3.889 |
| Concept | #14 | 4.110 | 4.185 |
| Visuals | #21 | 3.601 | 3.667 |
| Use of LGBT Themes | #27 | 2.400 | 2.444 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
Yal
Streaming Permission
Yes
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Comments
some people say this aint hittin the pride part of the pride jam. they must have forgotten "BE GAY DO CRIMES"
instant ten here, instant ten. look at those shaders. look at those explosions. god damn are there cgs everywhere. bussin
maybe i should try hotline miami again
Yeah I kinda ran out of time to make both levels and cutscenes because I spent too much time on gameplay and effects... totally worth it though... UwU
its fun, challenging and this gets a 10/10 5 starts 100% score only issue with the game is that theres only one brutality [or ive only used one im kinda dumb so theres a high chance i just missed the others] also some fun features for the full realase could be getting the shop owners to like you more for a discount [like do a mission for them or go on a date after or something similar] to help with the LGBTQ themes for the game jam but overall this was really good and I will try more of your work
Yeah I kinda ran out of time to make both levels and cutscenes because I spent too much time on gameplay and effects... I really like the idea to date shopkeepers for better deals though, definitely gonna keep that in mind!
overall, very good has a lot of style, the gameplay is as good as expected and I'm hopeful for the final release.
RIP AND TEAR
Splendid take on the original, art might be a little little bad, yet the designs totally nailed it.
Story is fantastic and full of violence, the curvature of the screen is what upsets me a little, it's a nice detail, but a little less could still look good,
Excellent work so far.
Thanks! Glad you could get into the right murderous mindset ^__^
You can turn off the screen curvature in the options ("Old TV Effect"), it starts at 40% but you can turn it down to 0% for a regular screen (or 100% if you want to play with a fully spherical screen for some reason)
ooooook, I don't think I'll curve it to that extend (why even, lol)
This is probably one of my favourite entries so far, and for good reason! There's a massive amount of content and depth in the gameplay for what is a 3-stage demo, and the story is no slouch either.
There's a lot of flexibility in the strategies you can take for each level - from charging head-on to build combos to using vents to stealthily get past enemies, I had fun selecting and constructing my own methods to deal with each part of the map. Speaking of constructing, I also liked the equipment range you could choose to buy and equip yourself with, even if it's still pretty limited. The baseball bat kicks ass.
Story-wise I'm usually not a fan of these grungy/dystopian plotlines so I can't say I'm 100% hooked, but what I've seen seems pretty cool. I can't judge the LGBTQ+ theming properly since I didn't make it past Sink or Swim (which is where the Reimu/Clownpiece scene is located I believe), but you know, it's a cool rarepair. Deserves some love.
Would love to see what this grows into in the future!
Glad you like it! I'm aiming for 16 stages (12 "real" stages and 4 boss battles), hopefully there's enough ways to keep the core gameplay fresh even when stretched out that far... (there's more equipment in the game than is accessible in the demo, and in the final version I'll throw in a bunch more Touhou references as well, since there not being enough of those was a common complaint)... I finished stage 7 yesterday but there's plenty of side content and polish to do so I'm still far from the actual 50% progress mark... you'll have to stay tuned a bit longer, I'm afraid ^^'
The story is a bit of a last-second addition but I'll try to tackle some interesting themes now when I have time to flesh it out! Capitalism and violence are more relevant than ever right now, sadly...
I decided that Reimu has no business shooting guns around and all that nonsense, so I played this with only melee and occasionally throwing some of those useless firearms around for some range. Tragically I could not beat the third stage this way 'cus you gotta shoot the targets in the pool.
Will be once again eagerly awaiting the finished version
Here I was worried I'm making the game too hard, and you go and do a challenge run immediately... xP
(There's melee weapons that do actual damage instead of just stunning enemies, so it should be possible to melee-only everything since the swimmers go all the way to the edge before they turn around... one of the streams I caugh, the player managed to crash the game by doing an execution on one of the swimmers (I'd forgotten to give them a corpse sprite) so it might even be possible to kill them this way if you just time everything perfectly so you don't knock them back into the pool and out of your range... just not in this version of the game due to the crash....)
I didn't buy any other melee weapons either, there is no need for Reimu to replace her iconic gohei!
Logically speaking though, someone who is stunned or knocked out in a pool would probably just drown, haha
I like what's in there. Except all these crazy visual effects like the TV curve and chromatic aberration things. (Good thing I could turn "em off) That's more of a personal taste so.
Ah yes as I was saying, I quite liked the content. Controls and level designs feel good, and the setting being this cyberpunk dystopia - wow this setting is so detached from the usual Touhou portrayal and yet it's still linked to it. I'm definitely interested in the full version.
Damn... Hecatia making Hell going full Capitalism, huh? Gotta fund her invasion on the Lunar Capital with her wife Junko /s
I really like the old TV effects, but will it be better if it was less curve? It does wrap my seeing a lot (maybe it was intentional). The sheer amount of special effects are so cool but I think an epilepsy warning would be good. I don't have epilepsy myself, but I do feel slight sick after a few rounds ;_;
Pride theme wise, I haven't read much of it in this game. Maybe you will do more in your commercial release (or not!). And yeah, the characters do feel OOC BUT this is them in an capitalistic Hell hole so it make sense everyone going crazy xD
As a Demo made withing 30-days it's very good and I'm interested in your potential comercial release!
The TV effect defaults to 40%, you can lower it / turn it off in the options (or turn it up to 100% if you want the screen to be a perfect circle)
Epilepsy warning is a good idea, I'll replace the demo warning with that in the full release!
Never played Hotline Miami, but this seems like that but Touhou-ified. After a bit of time sucking at the game, I got into the groove of things and it turned out pretty fun.
Ended quickly, but it's got pretty much everything for a full-length game, besides the levels. Weapons and controls feel great to use, and it's got this crazy fast-paced energy to it. The shop and augment systems seem pretty cool too, though I couldn't get enough money to afford much (at least, not without grinding).
The story/setting is basically the total opposite of canon Touhou, and that's really cool. I love all the satire of exploitative labor culture and conservative America's stupidity and capitalism. The writing & characterization was great too, and I particularly enjoyed the whole "everything sucks but i gotta work" vibe with Reimu. Fun for the whole family, innit?
That said, maybe there could be more integration of Touhou stuff? These characters not fitting in is clearly intentional, but I think there could be a few more things like the Shield Doll item-- usage of Touhou objects & powers in gameplay & story. Or maybe some more inclusion of the characters and youkai types as enemies-- there's enough Touhou characters that some of them could easily be used as assassination targets. Dunno, maybe that's already planned for the full game.
The visuals... wow. All the filters are really cool, though they did make it hard to see important things at times, so I toned them down quite a bit. Thanks for making them so customizable in the settings. The cutscene art wasn't the cleanest, but it's got a lotta personality.
One thing I noticed was how easy it is to be relatively stealthy. As long as you aren't shooting a loud gun, you can do pretty much anything. An enemy can be two meters away from their coworker being butchered, and not notice because they're not looking directly at the bloody mess. It's really funny, but maybe makes things too easy? Still not sure, especially considering this is only the first three levels.
In short, 'twas very promising.
I'm glad you like it!
Yeah, having weapons from the Touhou games would help a lot. Even just reskins would go a long way. As for enemies, there can probably be more variation in enemies types than the main series, since everyone just resurrects in this world. You could probably use species like tengu and kappa and regular ol' human.
I think it'd help to integrate more Touhou characters into this world even if they're not plot-relevant or assassination targets. For example, in this universe Alice could be a robotic-soldier manufacturer who sells her creations to various companies & branches, and some levels could have her dolls as generic enemies. Maybe they'd have less health than other enemies (like so weak that even your starter gohei oneshots them?) but be way more sensitive to noise. I think something like that, applied to a handful of characters, would really elevate the worldbuilding.
Robotic killer dolls is an awesome idea, very small enemies in large groups (like the baby skeletons outside Nito's arena in Dark Souls 1) is one of the creepiest things I know and making them make ambient robotic sounds you can hear through the 3D audio (so you can hear them slowly approach) would help really ramp up their perceived threat level...
AMAZING atmosphere. The moment you start the game, with all those crazy visual effects, you are pulled in to another world. For real after playing the game I was seeing a curve in my PC's (flat) LCD screen LOL.
I love the concept, and the genre has a lot to say about modern life, so I'm very intrigued to see where you'll take the story and what roles other Touhou characters will play. Also, the emails have very fun writing.
Combat looks, sounds and feels great. Fantastic job.
can you release the gm code? curious how you did the effects! thanks.
I might go commercial with this when the full game is complete, so I'd rather not. Though maybe an asset pack with the old TV effect could be something for the future...