itch.io

:) Really happy to hear that you enjoyed it. Thank you for playing!

I agree.

So funny thing. I'm developing a final version, and the skip dialog feature is already in it (It's actually in the v2 version too, but it just auto-unlocks after 7 tries).

Resetting levels is something I'll take into consideration.

Happy to see that you tried both versions :)

I know what you mean

We strayed from touhou a lot in this game

Perhaps a bit much

I am sori Aeon

I impossibled it

> Tried both the jam version and the post jam version.

Wow. Thank you for giving them both a try. I had imagined very few people would play both versions.

> Also there is no quit button in the downloadable version so the only way to quit the game is alt tabbing or alt f4-ing.

Yes because I didn't want to let you leave :3

> I played the post jam version first but strangely i found the jam version to be more fun. It's possibly because of the sprites being the actual characters.

I agree wholeheartedly.

For context, we removed the sprites because we got them from spriters-resource, and the original source's developer had not given permission for ripping. So we had to get rid of them.

My artist teammate had other affairs to take care of, so he couldn't work on the project for now, which is why I had to use my (well-developed) art skills, and bring to you the blobs.

(Nevertheless, you have encouraged me into trying my hand at the sprites, and I shall do that :) )

(Also, as a player, I kind of agree with the jam version being more fun, because I thought the Utsuho fight became a little easy in the post-jam version)

> Hugging the bottom of the screen isn't very exciting but if the player was fast enough to dodge out of the bullets if they were at the same height it would make the fight a lot more enjoyable.

I understand. I see what you mean, because the player would get to maneuver around a lot more, rather than stand still and wait. I think I will release another round of balance changes where I try to make the fight more oriented toward this.

> Sagume's fight is a lot better than utsuho since there are actual patterns that you can learn and dodge from.

I'm happy to hear that someone who played the post-jam version actually learnt and dodged the attacks. From other player's feedback, it seemed that all patterns were unfair and players would just cheese the fight.

> Though I immediately died to the jam version, so i cant comment on that one.

Hehe it is, honestly, complete garbage. I pretty much replaced all the patterns from that version.

> One final thing is that i think you should add indicators to the boss' height on the player's side of the screen, similar to how touhou games from 7 onwards show the position of the boss on the bottom of the screen.

I had no idea this existed. This sounds like a very nice QOL change. I will definitely do that.

> Finally, a main menu would be nice that lets you choose which fight to fight after finishing the game.

Haha, perma-death in a bullet hell may not have been the smartest move. I'll take this into account, too

Again, thank you for trying out both versions of the game, and giving such elaborate and extensive feedback on each. It really, really helps me, and I will soon deliver a new version with improvements.

Thank you for the positive words :)

The difficulty is quite high, yes. I play-tested the game so many times that I lost complete sense of balance, haha.

Yes, checkpoints would make sense. It should help mitigate the difficulty, too. I'll write it down.

Again, thanks a LOT for trying out the game, especially the post-jam version. It really made my day.

That was REALLY fun. It was chaotic for a while, I was lost about what was controlling the camera, and there's so much out of your control that I was just praying for most of the playthrough. And yet, I was having fun. It felt like this captured the jam's theme very well. I truly felt like I was flying.

I've never played a game of this art style, it was fun and quite endearing. Although that invulnerability blinking animation on-hit felt a bit misleading, I felt like the player disappeared from the screen for too long.

The way the story was meshed with the gameplay was quite fun. It wasn't too hard, and that's a nice feat to achieve in the given time limit imo.

Well done.

Haha, I can see what you were going for.

It seems like you ran into the same overscoping issue that my team did. I wish it were more fleshed out, it leaves a lot to desire right now.

Nevertheless, I'm happy that it exists.

Hm, it is an enjoyable read and I was definitely hooked. There was direction, basis, and a setup for something good. The ambience is nice, I'm oddly calmed by it. Especially the music.

Also, is it me or do the character portraits feel a bit.. masculine? I don't know if I'm being ignorant or sexist with this so bear with me lmao. Regardless, the art was pretty.

The cutting out you mentioned you had to do is pretty apparent, yes. But such are jams, I think. We learn :)

Yeah, you're being kind with the adjective, I know haha. Thanks for playing :) happy to see you like the story.

P.S. We are working on a second version, which will be released soon (will announce on discord)

I get what you mean. 

I think maybe the story wasn't enjoyable because we didn't really flesh out the idea much. The dialogues are a bit crude and mechanical. Plus it doesn't help that it probably takes an average of 1 hour to beat Utsuho, due to the poor balance.

I agree wholeheartedly with the limited strengths issue you have bought up.

Which is why I'm happy to tell you that we've been working on a 2nd version of the game, addressing all the things you mentioned. There are actual iframes (that was apparently bugged lmao), a Touhou-style hitbox, the classic bomb, and a special passive effect. It will be released soon (Will be announced on discord))

And honestly, man/woman, kudos for even reaching Sagume. Either you put in a shit-ton of time, which I am so happy to think, or you are a god gamer, which is pog.

Thank you very much for your valuable feedback :) I truly appreciate it.

Oh, I don't think the movement was bad in any sense. It fit the gameplay well, I think.

I really liked the undertale-y part. The draggy movement, the forgiving hitbox, it all bought actual difficulty in nearly all fight phases

"You wanna start fighting over something stupid?" was funny

An issue I felt was that the whole vibe of the game was being miscommunicated by all of its individual parts.

1. The music, on its own, gave a very "eerie" vibe to the game. 

2. The art, however, was, well, not-eerie

3. and the the UI being unpolished didn't help

That being said, all these elements were bringing something to the experience

 Cheers!

:) happy to hear you like the story, art and concept.

You're right, I wish we had done the music ourselves too. Sadly, we mismanaged our time a little and had to resort to other sources.

Yes, the difficulty balance is completely messed up.

We're working on a second version (Separate from the jam) which addresses the music and difficulty. I'll notify about it's release in the discord.

Thank you VERY much for trying the game, and the feedback!

This was more than just a game, this was an experience

Extremely fun game. Really cool yet straightforward concept, makes room for a LOT of replayability and competitiveness, and meshes well with the jam theme. The difficulty has been well-managed, too.

I think you could publish this after the jam. All the best!

Thank you for the compliment! It truly makes me happy to hear that you enjoyed it.

Also, I'm pretty sure you are better than you think. This is definitely not a game you can base your skill level off of.

I think Sagume said something along the lines of 'This game is quite easy' during development and hence the difficulty went boom-bam XD

As for the permission from A-One, the tracks used are from Odyssey Eurobeats/Jessa Stebbins. I don't know if the copyright holder is A-One or if it is Odyssey.
It seemed like there is a big gray area when it comes to using toho music for fan games. Some elaborate reddit discussion scourging later, it seemed as if it was alright to use the music with credits to the original creator (done on the game entry page). It might not be okay (in which case, we don't mind removing the audio tracks). And similarly, we also opted out of the audio design category for the jam.
Hope that explains it!

AAAAAAAA!!!! Where is my second day of eating maggots and chilling with Hatate at night TT^TT
Very cute game, I would loveee to see the entire week <3

(side note: would be very kind of you, if you could check out our touhou jam entry too <3)

A nice twist on the concept.

Particularly liked the camera mechanic. I think the whole game could be fleshed out around it. The way it was implemented felt appropriately responsive and fun to use.

The art is so endearing. With the textured background, and the narrative writing, it feels a bit like I'm playing on a prophesized tapestry.

I had quite a bit of trouble getting the hang of what the gameplay was, and probably didn't fully understand it, but it was fun to imagine the events as they unfolded nevertheless.

Possible bug report: The cream-colored-cloth screen, where the events are displayed, went white for me after a while.

Really enjoyed playing the game. Funny narration!

Possible bug report: The timer reached 0 for me in the 3rd level, but it didn't really do anything.

Its fun as hell! Love how the music and the walking sound start vibing together, little detail (intended?). Got hooked quickly.

All the best!

😂, I completely understand, I couldn't playtest past the first fight for a while too. It has some familiar Touhou shmup energy in that regard

Thank you for playing!

Now that the voting period is finished, I've updated the web build, and uploaded a windows desktop build.

The fatal bug is now FIXED.

Cheers!

I've pinged you.

Now that the jam is finished, I've updated the web build, and uploaded a windows desktop build here. 

The fatal bug is now FIXED.

Cheers!

It felt to me like the parry happened quite suddenly and I couldn't really grasp its duration and working very quickly. It also involved all arrow keys.

It could be that there wasn't a very apparent visual indicator on the player.
For example, imagine a offensive style game, where you play as a knight. The knight holds a sword, which, when swung, plays some telegraphed animation, which gives the player feedback about things like the attack's duration. This makes the whole process of aiming the swing of the sword and attacking with it easier to grasp.

Thank you very much, Sir Rhubarb :)

oh, that's awesome :) my discord is:
wordpress_programmer#3978

I can dm you a drive link there 

Okay :) where do I send the link? I don't want to send it here and face suspension from the jam.

If you have an email or a social, I can send you a drive link there.

Felt enjoyable.  My two cents:

The concept is nice. Perhaps a few more elements to explain it? I didn't feel very mad-scientisty while playing, if that makes sense, it just felt like regular tower-defense stuff. Maybe make the little hero-bots look more heroe-y (with capes, or something) or make the player's cursor more villanous.

The gameplay is decent. Perhaps a bit more individuality to the functionality of the rooms? The rooms looks very different, but operate quite  similar. There seem to be subtle differences in the kill-zones of each room, but it isn't made very apparent to the player. I couldn't tell from the beginning that the fans were not that good at killing enemies that turned just around the corner. I'm not sure if that is by design, though. Ultimately, up to you, depends on how you'd execute it.

The intuitiveness of the game  felt ok, too. It mostly just requires a pump of game juice to improve in this area.

Best of luck, fellow game devs. I envy your success :) perhaps someday I will catch up

I'm extremely sorry :(

Shamefully so, this version of the game doesn't work, due to a fatal bug (The one you most likely encountered)

I would love to send you a working version, since I have fixed the bug, if you are interested. 

Again, I'm really, really sorry.

Extremely cool idea. Love the snappy feel, the visuals, juice elements all really drive the point home. 

It's very difficult, even accounting for the fact that one may be used to the polar opposite game setting (of a more offensive style). I like that, personally. 

The overall design felt nice and uncluttered. Kind of reminded me of Smash Hit (a mobile game).

I will say that the tutorial confused me a little in the beginning. Could be attributed to the unusual design, though (as compared to offense). Maybe it's just me, though.

All the best :)

Hey, Matt. 

Because of a series of very unfortunate events, the version of the game submitted has a fatal bug, the one which you encountered, and you can't progress further in it.

Since the jam, I've fixed the bug. If you want, I can send you a build to play personally through a file-sharing medium.

Sadly, the bug cannot be dodged in this build, and I don't think this submission has any hope.
:( I'm really sorry, man.