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Touhou: Heart of the Tiger's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #2 | 4.742 | 4.742 |
| Story / Writing | #2 | 4.645 | 4.645 |
| Overall | #3 | 4.581 | 4.581 |
| Use of LGBT Themes | #3 | 4.548 | 4.548 |
| Audio | #7 | 4.290 | 4.290 |
| Concept | #9 | 4.323 | 4.323 |
| Gameplay | #10 | 3.710 | 3.710 |
| Challenge | #16 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
Megapig9001, IcedLemon, JaCoder23, Quarium, InfiniteDecaf, CYCzen, Kapmin, ThatOneUnknownPebble, Kapmin, DJThunderHeart, InSuccession, Sorasu, Prismriver Orchestra, Danny, Bakaretsu, Dr. Slump, Blue Ribbs, Konbai
Streaming Permission
Yes
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Comments
First impressions: I appreciate the portrait arts being designed with Big Hearts and Big Assets but also clearly not sexualised at the same time
The choice to have multiple artists with wildly different styles on board was a daring one, but in the end all of the artworks showcased were very nice and did not detract from the overall experience.
I really like the writing on this one - it tackles some deep topics while also maintaining a lighthearted and accessible form (writing style? presentation)? I liked the blackjack minigame and how it ties in with the chapter's theme and story, but the rhythm minigame feels less coherent even if the connection is there. Maybe having multiple songs with increasing difficulty as Raiko and Shou learn the power of singing your heart out together? Also, the cutscene at the end of Blackjack didn't emphasize the feeling of "risk" enough. Having Shou pull a 10, and then a 8, and then a 3 would've been much more of a risky and thematically fitting act. (Yes I know I mentioned this in the dev server to people already but just wanted to make it more public)
Also the rhythm game was badly calibrated, to the point that my inputs took an entire second to register and I didn't manage to hit any of the notes at all :(
Complaints aside though I think it's a solid game, wouldn't expect any less from a 18-person team!
Were you playing the rhythm game in windowed or at a non-1080p 16:9 resolution? That’s a bug that’s been fixed but wasn’t a part of the last published build.
Otherwise, you probably ran into a new bug unfortunately.
Edit: We apparently never built the game with the fix, a new version should be up in a bit.
As veterans of this jams, we could only expect high quality games such as this one from you guys, congratulations on this new achievement.
I like so much that stories are told in different art styles, my favourite was the one that looked like the touhou endings, is great to have minigames to have those stories told, those could be a little more complex, but they're great as they are.
I still feel kinda awkward about shou, bishamoten might be a little dissapointed to have an alcoholic and gambling big cat disciple, but yea, the magic of doujin I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Very good and enjoyable read, it never crossed my mind that Shou would hang out at a bar and filling the role of the wise drinker - and yet I think that's something she'd totally do in canon! (come on ZUN, show us a tiger at a bar already) The visual and audio assets are incredible too.
Everything just kept me fully immersed, and the minigames (fun and relevant) added a kind of interactivity I really like in VNs.
Btw, thanks again for taking some time fixing the softlocks, means a lot to me.
Your help was extremely appreciated! Without it, the game would’ve been unplayable in several countries.
Wingman Shou, eh? It's pretty cool. Super good visuals and music that give all the scenes and characters tons of extra personality. And those crazy text effects just might be my favorite part.
Even though I have next to no exposure to most of these characters, they're very well-written and likable here. The endings were all very sweet, and I liked how the minigames played into the characters' dilemmas. The minigames themselves were a mixed bag for me though-- Blackjack was alright, but like some others have said, it was super hard to tell who I was controlling in the Karaoke segment.
Super minor thing that may-or-may-not matter at all: It seems like you swapped Lyrica's personality with Lunasa's? Going off PCB's dialogue and their segments in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, Lunasa manages the ensemble and takes things relatively seriously, while Lyrica simply plays from the heart and jumps at the opportunity to make a friend. But Lyrica in the flashback seems to talk & act just like Lunasa-- it kinda caught me off-guard.
(Aha.... sorry half the review is about a character that shows up for 10 seconds in a flashback)
In short, 'twas heartwarming.
Lyrica's personality is based on her tendency to scheme. She's the one who keeps the sister organized in fights, and plans things out. Her kind of leading the band behind the scenes is a headcanon I actually found in one of LyricaLive's Raiko x Lyrica fanfics, which I integrated into the story. Lunasa meanwhile I view more as a "serious loner" type, who really only opens up to her sisters. My favorite illustration of the sister's personalities is from Aya Azuma in Alternate Facts in Eastern Utopia: Merlin is super into her performance, Lunasa is silently enjoying the concert, and then you have Lyrica: eyes wide open eagerly watching everything play out.
As for where I got their personalities: Perfect Memento in Strict Sense has comprehensive descriptions of the Touhou 6-9 cast.
I liked this a lot, it's always nice to see some Shou love. One thing with the text though was there were a few instances where I tried to advance a text box and couldn't for a few seconds, and wasn't sure if it was an intentional pause for effect or an input issue. The text system overall was really nice though, the presentation/effects are really lively for a VN and it's cool to see. Nice art and music throughout also. I especially liked the card art.
Some were likely pauses, and others were likely Unity's buttons not registering fast enough (I certainly complained about Unity during development lol). Glad you liked it!
This game is very well put together, considering the size of the crew and the amount of time it took to get there. The visuals and music were especially grand, making it worthwhile to go back and play over again. The minigames were also lovely additions from a story-telling perspective, though there were functions which were confusing (i.e. the blackjack rules, which were discovered in a previous comment.). The karaoke was rough, as the keys were all over the place, it wasn't easily apparent which character I was supposed to be, and the "hit" area did not align with the level design. Even if it was a no-fail game, I still felt really bad after it. All said, however, the stories were written in a fashion where I felt compelled to go on, and the game is an aesthetic wonder.
Fairly sure that you ran into a known glitch with the karaoke part. Were you playing in windowed mode or at a resolution other than 1080p, 16:9?
I played in the default windowed mode, not sure what resolution that is, sadly.
Ah well that’s good to know. The karaoke scene only works in fullscreen 1080p right now unfortunately.
fantastic game great art great music cool ending i liked raiko
gotta go through that part fast. so i can ask about. blackjack. what is going on there guys please
call me sheltered but in what world is jack 11 queen 12 king 13 ace only 1
its impossible to lose the rounds when all cards are exposed and its impossible to have any strategy for the later ones since you could pull a 13 and bust from 9 on god on god
and what does joker even do? it just seems like a 0. cards look great though my favorite was the queen
and then the rhythm minigame i couldn't even tell which of the four lanes i was, let alone what the difference was between the two lanes i was given were. at first i thought up and down were the top ones and left and right were the bottom but now i just have no idea
one thing that is great though lemme tell ya
the textbox. now that is a man's textbox. spawn effects on text, shaky text, sized text, italizized text, varying talksounds, and RAINBOW text. i thought i had a good thing going in mine but this guy might just nuke it
Essentially the cards get less exposed as time goes on to replicate increasing risk, matching what Shou and Kasen both had to go through to make progress in their relationships; that's why the final section is just risk (aside from seeing the first card): that's how standard BlackJack is played. Rhythm you play on the bottom as Shou following Raiko's lead. IcedLemon actually pushed for more obvious explanations of stuff like this (mainly the card game explaining the risk super blatantly), but I wanted it to be implied, with the 10 then the jack following after helping to get the point across.
Also just looked it up: Face cards (besides Aces) are generally all worth 10! Whoops! ...Guess we'll call it a "design deviation". Aces are usually worth either 1 or 11.
the risk part: thats cool yeah i don't mind it, it just makes the design deviation there much harder to work with. cool minigame concept and i like the metaphor or symbolism in it
Wow, playing Blackjack in a bar with Shou sets a mood so well. You should print and sell that deck!
I used to be a really big Shou fan (still love UFO a lot) and this takes me back to those times. And coincidentally this game had SO many of my current favorite characters too. Like, almost everyone, heh. The art is lovely. I almost cried at the end.