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Scher · Apr 25, 2014

cj_iwakura said:
Leaning towards PCB, but I'm open to preference votes.

I figure the winner can decide the next challenge.

I totally think it should be SA. That would be the perfect entry point for any new players that wanted to join in!

Really, though, PCB would probably be the best one to start off with. It's probably one of the friendlier games without too many obtuse mechanics. Also, since upandaway mentioned it, do you intend for score challenges to be by stage? That's probably the best way to do it, and it doesn't require a decent chunk of time out of anyone who wants to improve their score and stuff like that.

cj_iwakura · Apr 26, 2014

Scher said:
I totally think it should be SA. That would be the perfect entry point for any new players that wanted to join in!

Really, though, PCB would probably be the best one to start off with. It's probably one of the friendlier games without too many obtuse mechanics. Also, since upandaway mentioned it, do you intend for score challenges to be by stage? That's probably the best way to do it, and it doesn't require a decent chunk of time out of anyone who wants to improve their score and stuff like that.

Stages sound good to me. Probably 2 or 3.

Barrylocke · Apr 26, 2014

cj_iwakura said:
Leaning towards PCB, but I'm open to preference votes.

I figure the winner can decide the next challenge.

When in doubt, toss it into an RNG and see what pops out.

I'd be willing to give it a shot. Might be a nice way to get back into it a little. I've never done much challenge play besides going for 1'cc's though so this would be new.

cuc · Apr 26, 2014

Evilisk said:
OP you're missing Touhouvania, Touhou Soccer and Danmakufu. I say the latter because The Last Comer/Mystical Power Plant are really great games on Danmakufu and are worth pointing out. I guess there's also Age of Ethanols (though that doesn't seem too popular from what I've seen).

That's pretty much the recommendations I gave at another forum! People say the followup to Age of Ethanols, LotusCraft is a better RTS. But I'm partial to Age of Ethanols' bright sprite art and high number of playable factions.

upandaway said:
So apparently something crazy happened in chapters 14-15 of Forbidden Scrollery? I haven't read any of it yet but I'm super curious.

A lot of spotlight on Nitori the kappa, probably (left panel is Forbidden Scrollery Ch 15, the rest are Wild and Horned Hermit Ch 22).

upandaway said:
And from what I played of SoEW I didn't notice any focusing. Are you sure?

You are right. SoEW has no focusing or grazing bonus. And Mystic Square was the first game with bonus lives based on number of point items. The PC-98 games always blend together in my mind, however many hours I've played them.

Basic source of info on the fighting games:

Touhou 7.5: Immaterial and Missing Power:
English Wiki
A video tutorial
Another video on game mechanics

Touhou 10.5 & 12.3: Scarlet Weather Rhapsody & Touhou Hisoutensoku:
English Wiki

Touhou 13.5: Hopeless Masquerade:
English Wiki

thesaucetastic · Apr 26, 2014

So wait, whose going to be doing the challenge this Sunday and what game? Was that decided?

cj_iwakura · Apr 26, 2014

thesaucetastic said:
So wait, whose going to be doing the challenge this Sunday and what game? Was that decided?

It will be PCB, posting tonight at midnight(EST). I think I know what stage.

thesaucetastic · Apr 26, 2014

Sweet! I'll sit this one out because I want to play EoSD first, but I'll cheer you guys on!

Also if anyone decides to stream it, I'll try to see if I can watch. Doubt I can though because of time zone differences

Barrylocke · Apr 26, 2014

cjiwakura hasn't said what his final choice on the challenge will be, and I imagine it's open for all to try out unless someone has objections to that for whatever reason. Personally I have all the official games (except the fighting games and the StB games) so I can play whatever.

Evilisk · Apr 27, 2014

cuc said:
That's pretty much the recommendations I gave at another forum! People say the followup to Age of Ethanols, LotusCraft is a better RTS. But I'm partial to Age of Ethanols' bright sprite art and high number of playable factions.

What a coincidence lol

Also I've never heard of LotusCraft, I'm going to have to check that out at some point

cj_iwakura said:
It will be PCB, posting tonight at midnight(EST). I think I know what stage.

Is there a specific difficulty for this? (I admit I've never played for score before so I don't really know how this works...)

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Evilisk said:
Is there a specific difficulty for this? (I admit I've never played for score before so I don't really know how this works...)

Normal. I figure dying won't affect it, but it should be a 1cc at least.

Unofficial prize: you can pick the next challenge, and I write a short story about Touhou character/s of your choosing.

(The latter part subject to approval, being within the bounds of reason, and my knowledge of the lore.)

Scher · Apr 27, 2014

cj_iwakura said:
Normal. I figure dying won't affect it, but it should be a 1cc at least.

Just for clarification, I would assume that if we're doing a single stage, then we would be doing it through stage practice. As such, when you expect a 1-cc, do you mean it should be without death, or a certain limit to deaths? Or do you want people to still do the stage through the normal play mode?

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Scher said:
Just for clarification, I would assume that if we're doing a single stage, then we would be doing it through stage practice. As such, when you expect a 1-cc, do you mean it should be without death, or a certain limit to deaths? Or do you want people to still do the stage through the normal play mode?

I figure via stage practice, since normal play will involve breaking out the calculator.

And by 1cc I mean within one continue. (Again, assuming single deaths don't affect scoring.)

upandaway · Apr 27, 2014

Random wallpaper time! Because my wallpapers rotate every day and this one was today's and I like it.

cj_iwakura said:
Normal. I figure dying won't affect it, but it should be a 1cc at least.

Unofficial prize: you can pick the next challenge, and I write a short story about Touhou character/s of your choosing.

(The latter part subject to approval, being within the bounds of reason, and my knowledge of the lore.)

Well dying decreases your max power and you need to maintain max power for power items to change into cherry items, so it should still be an effort to die the least. Also, dying/bombing in the middle of a border can have its own side effects (stopping the border and changing everything to mini cherries). I did witness dying for score before but not in PCB so I'm not sure how viable it is.
I'm expecting to do really bad on the challenge but it's be fun!

For future challenges I don't think it has to be pure score attack either, it can also be like collecting the most time orbs in IN or getting the highest possible power in stage 1 or something.

Scher · Apr 27, 2014

cj_iwakura said:
I figure via stage practice, since normal play will involve breaking out the calculator.

And by 1cc I mean within one continue. (Again, assuming single deaths don't affect scoring.)

Well, I was asking about the 1-cc part because you can't continue in practice mode. You can only restart the level you're practicing if you lose all your lives. That's what I was confused about, and I wasn't sure if you meant to say no deaths or something.

upandaway said:
Well dying decreases your max power and you need to maintain max power for power items to change into cherry items, so it should still be an effort to die the least. Also, dying/bombing in the middle of a border can have its own side effects (stopping the border and changing everything to mini cherries). I did witness dying for score before but not in PCB so I'm not sure how viable it is.
I'm expecting to do really bad on the challenge but it's be fun!

Dying for score is definitely not something you would want to do in PCB, partly for the reason you mention. Also, in PCB, you can't use the auto-collect line unless you're at full power, so that's a lot more points you can lose out on there. Some of the other games involve a lot of dying for points. I know in the case of SA, the people who have the top scores die a lot throughout their run just for points.

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Also, this will run for a week, so replays are encouraged. Get to the top!

Scher said:
Well, I was asking about the 1-cc part because you can't continue in practice mode. You can only restart the level you're practicing if you lose all your lives. That's what I was confused about, and I wasn't sure if you meant to say no deaths or something.

Oh. I haven't used it much. I like to play through the game. So yeah, whatever works then.

Evilisk · Apr 27, 2014

I thought this was pretty funny

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Should have the challenge posted shortly, sorry for the delay.

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Touhou Score Attack Challenge: Week 1

Touhou 07: Perfect Cherry Blossom

Stage 3: The Doll Maker of Bucuresti

I'll take all the high scores.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

I'm gonna take 'em.

I'll let someone else handle it.

Another easy win.

Don't let Marisa steal the precious thing, compete today!

Contest ends at 12AM EST, next Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Evilisk · Apr 27, 2014

First-ish/practice attempt

I mostly ended up prolonging most of Alice's nonspells + purposely dying so I could use more bombs to get as many points as I can. I only really play to 1cc games normally so I'm not exactly sure what to think of this score tbqh

upandaway · Apr 27, 2014

I'll post my first attempt later too. Curious to see how first attempts will compare to the final ones, haha.

cuc said:
A lot of spotlight on Nitori the kappa, probably (left panel is Forbidden Scrollery Ch 15, the rest are Wild and Horned Hermit Ch 22).

Man I really like Nitori. I'll have to read FS sometime.

upandaway · Apr 27, 2014

Geez. I tried to find out why my controller wasn't working for like an hour, so I gave up and tried the keyboard. But I haven't used a keyboard for gaming in years, and it felt like I was playing with my legs. I definitely can't play like that.

First time using practice mode, it's pretty neat. I also forgot that I barely played Touhou on this computer years ago, luckily I somehow had stage 3 unlocked :lol

Any ideas why my controller isn't working? I'm using J2K to map it to the keyboard and I ticked "Don't use DirectInput" in the configs, I swear it worked fine before. This is a bummer.

dumbyugi · Apr 27, 2014

It's been years since I last played PCB so I figured I'd be pretty rusty but holy crap I did way worse then I thought I would. Also turns out that I haven't played PCB much on this computer at all. I don't even have stage 3 unlocked as Sakuya. Anyway here's my shitty first attempt as Marisa.

I'll give it another shot sometime during the week. Going to have to find out if my controller works still so I'm not stuck using keyboard.

TheChaos0 · Apr 27, 2014

Oh..hahah... wow... well, who can get lower than me?

Try 1:

I forgot how tiny TH8 is on this screen. Hmm... let's try it with full screen.

Try 2:

Ok, slightly better, got to Alice without dying then...oh boy.

I keep screwing up early on, soo bad. I think I'll try again later on tonight.

Scher · Apr 27, 2014

Here's the score from my preliminary round of practice:

Not too happy with the score just yet. Was trying to sort out how I wanted to approach the stage since it's been a while from when I last played PCB. I already know where I messed up, though, so I'm looking to hopefully improve on this a bit. Hopefully I can reach my goal by the end of the week!

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Any thoughts on the characters? Should it be split up by player, or is it not that important?

Scher · Apr 27, 2014

cj_iwakura said:
Any thoughts on the characters? Should it be split up by player, or is it not that important?

The character shouldn't have a huge impact on it at lower difficulties. Especially not for a single stage, I would think. I know among world records, there's generally small variation among the characters used.

As a point of reference, these are the current records for PCB Normal according to the wiki:

Reimu-A -- 2,001,369,010
Reimu-B -- 2,167,768,950
Marisa-A -- 2,132,017,710
Marisa-B -- 2,011,470,500
Sakuya-A -- 2,014,928,480
Sakuya-B -- 2,104,019,460

So make of that what you will.

Edit: Guess I'll go ahead and update my score after a little more practice. Still not too happy with it. Had a major screw up on the second to last spell card, and there are still some areas in the stage that I know I can get some more score out of. Going to have to work on it a little more during the week.

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

Botched two spell cards.

I can do better, oh well.

cj_iwakura · Apr 27, 2014

No deaths this time.

Took a hit during the cherry bonus and bombed during the second to last spell card, but I captured Eerily Luminous Shanghai Dolls!

Barrylocke · Apr 28, 2014

Early attempt, Reimu B. Playing like this takes some getting used to compared to 1'cc survival. I feel like I need to get better at timing my bombs as they're a powerful way to collect out of reach points, but I'm so used to saving them for the harder patterns. Also, doing this REALLY makes me miss the visual and audio cues the later game gives you when the enemy is about to die. I hate peeking up at the top of the screen to make sure I'm not about to deplete Alice's healthbar too early.

Scher · Apr 28, 2014

Barrylocke said:
Early attempt, Reimu B. Playing like this takes some getting used to compared to 1'cc survival. I feel like I need to get better at timing my bombs as they're a powerful way to collect out of reach points, but I'm so used to saving them for the harder patterns. Also, doing this REALLY makes me miss the visual and audio cues the later game gives you when the enemy is about to die. I hate peeking up at the top of the screen to make sure I'm not about to deplete Alice's healthbar too early.

Some of the changes made in later games really are nice to have. Change in bullet sound and having the health bar circle around the boss sprite really help a lot. The older games kind of make me hate having a bigger screen since I can't keep the top screen in my periphery view.

Barrylocke · Apr 28, 2014

Scher, if you're also playing on Reimu B, then you're officially my rival, heh.

I decided to actually take the time to read the wikis about how the Cherry system works. I knew the basic mechanics, along with the fact that unfocused shots=faster cherry gain, but understanding penalties especially helps. I'm sure I can improve even more, as I died about three times against Alice, losing 2 spellcards in the process.

upandaway · Apr 28, 2014

I'm the only Sakuya? Ya'll are weird.

Solune · Apr 28, 2014

upandaway said:
Random wallpaper time! Because my wallpapers rotate every day and this one was today's and I like it.

Wow that artist is incredible. Thanks for sharing~

Barrylocke · Apr 28, 2014

Persuasion Needles for life yo. Being the boring shottype makes it special in its own way

Which Sakuya are you playing as, upandaway?

Scher · Apr 28, 2014

Barrylocke said:
Scher, if you're also playing on Reimu B, then you're officially my rival, heh.

I decided to actually take the time to read the wikis about how the Cherry system works. I knew the basic mechanics, along with the fact that unfocused shots=faster cherry gain, but understanding penalties especially helps. I'm sure I can improve even more, as I died about three times against Alice, losing 2 spellcards in the process.

Doing Reimu-A, myself, which means I get stuck with slow cherry gain. Oh well. I've got ideas for hopefully adding a good chunk to my score, although I think I'm going to have to lower the original goal I set for myself. I sorely overestimated the potential point gain for this stage.

I would normally do Reimu-B, but I want to stall spells and stuff for as long as I can, so I decided to go with lower damage so I don't accidentally beat things before I want to.

upandaway · Apr 28, 2014

Barrylocke said:
Persuasion Needles for life yo. Being the boring shottype makes it special in its own way

Which Sakuya are you playing as, upandaway?

I'm a B kinda guy but now I'm thinking A might be better for this challenge. It just makes me more comfortable with grazing.

Are you guys sure it's a good idea to stall out spells? As in, you can get enough graze cherry points per second to make up for the points you lose per second?

Evilisk · Apr 28, 2014

Okay so I decided to play how I would normally play (just trying to survive) and for some reason, I got a way better score lol

upandaway said:
I'm a B kinda guy but now I'm thinking A might be better for this challenge. It just makes me more comfortable with grazing.

Are you guys sure it's a good idea to stall out spells? As in, you can get enough graze cherry points per second to make up for the points you lose per second?

I don't know if the grazing will make up for it, but what I've been doing is hitting Alice with only the unfocused homing shots to stall (since you'll still get the Cherry Points but the homing shots are too weak to kill her by accident) and then going focus shot in the last 10-15 seconds to get kill her and get the bonus.

Scher · Apr 28, 2014

upandaway said:
I'm a B kinda guy but now I'm thinking A might be better for this challenge. It just makes me more comfortable with grazing.

Are you guys sure it's a good idea to stall out spells? As in, you can get enough graze cherry points per second to make up for the points you lose per second?

I generally stall so that I can keep an eye on my cherry points and get supernatural border on spell cards. It's mostly just making sure I can time those since they'll generally give me greater bonuses than spell card captures would, and I don't feel that the difference in bonus points for spell cards is all that significant.

Barrylocke · Apr 28, 2014

It's certainly true that getting a border at the wrong time can really suck. It feels like a waste to get a border right when a spell pattern starts for instance, because by the time the danmaku are in your area, the borders almost done.

Still could improve in a few spots (Foggy London Dolls has always been a nemesis of mine, even in normal play). I'll probably try again in the future.

Scher · Apr 28, 2014

Boo! Decided to try and improve my score before heading out and had such a good run going, but then I choked on the last non spell and it kind of went downhill from there. Oh well. Will have to work on improving it more later.

upandaway said:
Finally got my controller working and after a couple of attempts, it seems 55m is my wall right now. I think I'll somehow hang in there mentally, even if I'm last place, as long as no one here doubles me by the time this is over.

I don't think anyone will manage to double 55 mil. The original goal I had set for myself was 100 mil, and that's already looking to be way overshooting it. I'll probably be happy with 80-85 mil at this point.

upandaway · Apr 28, 2014

Finally got my controller working and after a couple of attempts, it seems 55m is my wall right now. I think I'll somehow hang in there mentally, even if I'm last place, as long as no one here doubles me by the time this is over.

Barrylocke · Apr 28, 2014

Out of curiosity, what are the trouble spots for you guys?

I decided to upload my highest run to Gensokyo Replays (which apperently still doesn't officially support DDC, though uploading a DDC Replay as a Ten Desires replay seems to bypass that)

Here's the link.

Scher · Apr 29, 2014

Barrylocke said:
Out of curiosity, what are the trouble spots for you guys?

I decided to upload my highest run to Gensokyo Replays (which apperently still doesn't officially support DDC, though uploading a DDC Replay as a Ten Desires replay seems to bypass that)

Here's the link.

Right now, my main issues are just getting lucky with point drops and not choking on the final stretch of the boss fight. I feel pretty comfortable with the stage at this point, so it's mostly just starting over either because of bad luck with point drops giving me a lower score than I want, and starting over because I messed up and died towards the end.

I'd link a replay myself, but I kind of didn't save the replay of the run I posted the score for earlier because I was upset with it. Posting one of the older replays I have wouldn't really be representative of how I'm doing at this point. I'll be working on improving my score either tomorrow or later in the week, depending on how busy I am, and I'll probably give a link to a replay after I get another run I'm happy with.

A Huge Battleship · Apr 30, 2014

Don't usually do scoring runs, but if there're no suicide strategies involved then I'll give it a shot.

100 million might be doable, but I'd need to completely and utterly break Dutch Dolls. I'm pretty certain I can't squeeze in any more S.Borders. Most of my failures are coming from the stage, which still feels like an exercise in luck at some points.

Not entirely happy with some parts of this run so I'll post a replay if I get 100 million or whatever my best one is when the week's up.

Barrylocke · Apr 30, 2014

Holy crap, that came out of nowhere. I can see myself MAYBE break 80 million, but I'm not sure where I'd be able to pull 100+ million from. Perhaps I should try other shottypes and see how they fair.

A Huge Battleship · May 1, 2014

Replay

What do Dutch Dolls and me have in common right now? We're both broken. I never want to step foot in Alice's playground again.

Had the stage down much better by the end, so each run largely hinged on whether I screwed up my strategy for Alice's 2nd card. Which I did 80% of the time. It's a surprisingly fun way to tackle it though, but probably too risky to attempt outside of Practice or on a harder difficulty.

Barrylocke · May 1, 2014

Wow, your way of doing her 2nd card is very gutsy, but I guess it takes advantage of all of the graze and point/cherry blocks that you can collect. You also really squeezed as much time as you could out of your spellcards. It really shows that the depleting score of the spellcards doesn't matter all that much as long as you capture it in the end, because you can make up for it with how you play the card. Personally I rushed most of them (albeit unfocused) unless I managed to border during the card.

Great Work, AHB.

A Huge Battleship · May 1, 2014

Barrylocke said:
Wow, your way of doing her 2nd card is very gutsy, but I guess it takes advantage of all of the graze and point/cherry blocks that you can collect. You also really squeezed as much time as you could out of your spellcards. It really shows that the depleting score of the spellcards doesn't matter all that much as long as you capture it in the end, because you can make up for it with how you play the card. Personally I rushed most of them (albeit unfocused) unless I managed to border during the card.

Great Work, AHB.

Yeah, I started thinking early on whether there was a good way to collect all those items the dolls were dropping. Turns out there is, it's just pretty risky!

Getting an extra border is far more valuable than losing part of a card capture bonus, so it's worth tackling a card more slowly / unfocused if it means gaining another 20k cherry or so. The way things worked out I don't think I could've gotten any more borders.

Anyway, thanks! I'm not usually a fan of scoring runs because they often use odd strategies like tactical suicides, but fortunately this one was more traditional.

Evilisk · May 1, 2014

I've been playing some other games since I've been pretty burned out on trying to get a good score.

Also just wondering, does anyone know what conditions you need to play against Flandre in Touhou Dodgeball? I still haven't been able to figure it out

A Huge Battleship said:
Replay

100 million? Man I'm definitely not beating that. I can't even get past the last score I posted (and I got that unintentionally lol) Which shot type did you use?

A Huge Battleship · May 1, 2014

Evilisk said:
100 million? Man I'm definitely not beating that. I can't even get past the last score I posted (and I got that unintentionally lol) Which shot type did you use?

The replay link kinda gives it away, but ReimuB, which is my usual choice for PCB. Not sure how things would've gone if I'd used ReimuA, and I don't really want to go back and try!

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