Posts with ‘TeamShanghaiAlice’ Tag

Double Dealing Character (Touhou 14) on Playism

By: Derek Yu

On: June 14th, 2015

Touhou Kishinjō ~ Double Dealing Character, by ZUN

The fourteenth game in the popular Touhou danmaku shoot ’em up series, Double Dealing Character, is also the first one to receive an official release outside of Japan, through Playism, an indie game distribution platform that focuses on Japanese indie titles. This is also the first Touhou game to get released as a downloadable title – the series is usually released on CD at Tokyo’s Comic Market. “Comiket”, as it’s more commonly known, is the world’s largest convention for doujin works.

The scoring system in DDC is based around the “POC” (point of collection), an invisible line near the top of the screen that appears in all of the modern Touhou games. By crossing this line, any point items dropped by enemies will be sucked in by the player. In DDC, this leads to higher scores as well as bonus items that can grant bombs or extends.

The simple, “back to basics” scoring system and digital download make DDC a decent enough introduction to the Touhou series, although it should be noted that this is not a localized port, just a convenient way to purchase and play the original Japanese game that was released at Comiket in 2013. However, this wiki explains the basic mechanics and screen layout. A three-level demo is also available to try out before purchasing.

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Touhou 13 – Ten Desires Demo

By: Derek Yu

On: April 17th, 2011

Touhou 13 - Ten Desires, by ZUN

Since 2004 ZUN has released trial versions of his games at the Touhou-themed annual conventions called Reitaisai. This year, however, due to the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, Reitaisai was postponed and the three-stage demo for Touhou 13, called “Ten Desires”, was released online for free. Like all the major games in the Touhou series, Ten Desires is a vertical danmaku shoot ’em up set in the fictional world of Gensokyo. According to ZUN, it’s easier than his previous releases and is meant to be more accessible to beginners.

In TD, you have a Trance gauge that fills up as you collect spirits, up to a maximum of three bars. If you have at least one bar filled, you will automatically enter a “trance” upon getting hit, rendering you impervious to bullets until the gauge runs out and you die. If the gauge is maxed out, you can enter the trance voluntarily and you won’t die when it ends. Spirits are worth more points while in a trance and you also do more damage.

Aside from spirits, which come in four different colors and have various properties, enemies also drop the usual red and blue items. Red items increase your firepower and blue point items raise your score. If you head to the top of the screen you can suck all of these power-ups in (point items are also worth more up there). Finally, there are bombs that can be activated at any time.

For more information, check out the game’s manual, in English. You can download the demo either from the game’s homepage (it might be very slow) or from Mediafire.

Hey, It’s ZUN!

By: Derek Yu

On: December 5th, 2008

ZUN

Earlier this year the shmup god ZUN, creator of the incredibly popular Touhou series of doujin shoot ‘em ups, was interviewed (YouTube, 8:30 in) on NHK’s The Net Star, a Japanese television show about internet culture. (NHK is Japan’s big public broadcasting network.) So if you ever wanted to see the face of the man behind “Team” Shanghai Alice, here you go. Nice hat!

And for those who are unfamiliar with the doujin shoot ‘em up scene, check out our Introduction to Doujin Shmups article, written by Shoot the Core’s Postman in ’07.

TIGdb: Entry for Team Shanghai Alice

(Source: Zepy, via Canned Dogs)

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Famicom-style Remake

By: Derek Yu

On: January 17th, 2008

Some enterprising chap has recreated Touhou’s Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in a NES/Famicom style. The game actually works quite well this way and I have to admit that I got into it more than its source material. Unfortunately, at the beginning of stage 2 the game glitches out (in a very NES manner) and forces you to either restart or quit.

The game is only at version 0.11, so perhaps the rest of the levels are forthcoming. Either that, or it was only ever meant to be a short demo.

The game is created with Multimedia Fusion 2.

(Source: Insert Credit)

Touhou Project Rundown

By: Derek Yu

On: November 29th, 2007

Imperishable Night Arcade Cab

Caltrops has a rundown on Touhou Project (aka Shrine Maiden Project), the series popular “bullet hell” shoot ’em ups by Team Shanghai Alice (aka the mysterious Zun)! (So popular, in fact, that people apparently drop big bucks on arcade cabinets to play them in!)

Michief Maker, the author of the article, gives a brief overview of each of the games, which is accompanied by a YouTube video of the game in action. At the end he provides some info on how to obtain full versions of these games online.

See also: Doujin Shmups, an Introduction