State of Drillimation: Autumn 2024

With school back and session, as well as Halloween and the holiday season approaching, I figured you want to know what’s going on with our latest projects. First off, let’s start with Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest.

Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest is now playable in the web browser

Did you know you can now play the full version of Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest in your web browser? I can tell you the entire story of how I was able to get the game running in a web browser. Let me get to it. Even months after the game’s official release last December, not very many players were playing it. And so, I came up with the idea of creating an HTML5 port of the game. My goal would be to get the entire game running under JavaScript, which is used on nearly every single website you visit today. Even my own website uses JavaScript. This was an incredible feat I was able to do, but it was an absolute challenge.

To get Touhou Meijinka to run in the web browser via JavaScript, the entire game was compiled using the HTML5 compiler built into GameMaker, the engine Touhou Meijinka runs on. This basically converts all of the GML code into JavaScript. It is important to know that this may never be a simple thing to do. As I said in a previous video, many games today usually require dependencies, which are snippets of other code that a game depends on in order to run. It is very similar to the pieces needed to construct something out of LEGO. For example, if you’re trying to build the minikit from the long-running LEGO movie adaptation series, you will usually need one red and green Part 4073 piece respectively, otherwise, you can’t complete it.

One of those dependencies that Touhou Meijinka needs is Scribble, which is used to render most of the text in the game. Without it, most of the game’s text will not display. Scribble has compatibility issues with HTML5, so I had to rely on a third-party compiler script in order to get the dependency to run on JavaScript. Future Drillimation projects may require more dependencies than just that. You can find dependencies anywhere on the web, including the GameMaker Marketplace.

Because I’m still working on Touhou Kichouden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2, I didn’t want to take a break and spend an entire month or two rewriting the entire dependency to have compatibility with HTML5. This included having to fumble with Scribble to get it to work in HTML5. It was also a challenge trying to get the graphics to work properly and fix lag issues caused by JavaScript. It was my first time making a browser game, and it took a lot of trial and error, but by late July, I was able to get a fully complete web port of Touhou Meijinka out on itch.io.

In the future, I may be able to step up my game and get future games ported to HTML5 and playable in the web browser. However, I don’t know which dependencies may or may not be compatible with web platforms. This dream would end up becoming reality as people started playing the game on the web more than downloading it, which I provide as an option for players who may have difficulty playing the web version. There’s a reason why you may get more traffic for HTML5 games. In the case of Touhou Meijinka, it’s completely free and open source.

Kids in school are gonna be playing it in the computer labs thanks to it being easily accessible unless the school IT department blocks the itch.io website on school Wi-Fi. Because it is open source, you can copy the code to your website and you’ll now be hosting your own instance of it. You can play it on almost any hardware, including Chromebooks that a lot of schools now use. Others may get creative and get the game to run on appliances and even a Tesla car. The only caveat here is you can’t really connect a keyboard or controller to a fridge or a car, meaning there is no way to navigate the menus or even move around.

Next Touhou Project Danmaku Game

Also, I’m planning to make another SNES-style Touhou Project danmaku game after I finish the sequel to Mythos of Phantasmagoria. This new project is intended to be titled Touhou Chouhatsuyou ~ Burgeoning Tresses of Longevity. As the name might suggest, well… a youkai-born ends up putting on this antic where every woman’s hair grows to the height of their body. I had this concept in my mind late in Touhou Meijinka’s development and actually flourished during Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2’s development. But then over the summer, Meijinka director Emiko Hosokawa’s interests took a turn to Gothicism when she launched this canceled VTuber project by the name of Ophelia Rosenkreuz, and the Burgeoning Tresses of Longevity concept started falling out of her favor. She thought that creating a Touhou Project fangame with a concept focusing on hair would be ridiculous. Her distaste for it continued to grow whenever I would post images of characters relating to the project on Twitter, Instagram, and even Pixiv.

Lots of anime feature characters with very long hair, and this trend is nothing new. It dates back to the Heian period of Japan where women would grow their hair out for their entire lives without cutting it. Sometimes they did it so they could be a respectful housewife. The more I talk about it, the more pressure I would receive from Hosokawa. A decent number of users have expressed praise over the artwork I would make for the project, but the general reception for it if completed and released remains a mystery. To compensate over this frustration, it has been decided that we will be making two different experiences. One game where I direct, and another separate project directed by Hosokawa and featuring the current interests she had picked up. And so, expect to see two projects being made in 2025, aside from the post-production of the Mythos of Phantasmagoria sequel.

Erie AnimeFest

With all of the Touhou Meijinka stuff out of the way, let’s move on to what happened in August. In case you forgot, I was at the second Erie Anime Fest, though things were much different compared to my first exhibition in March. I ended up in the back this time instead of being at the entrance like the first time.

I had a lot more challenges I had to face compared to March. I was grateful to be given one of my father’s old moving carts so I could move an entire laundry basket containing the Hewlett-Packard branded monitor you see in this picture, as well as some other stuff I had to display at my booth. Other challenges included the outlet that I was assigned to not working, leading to the staff giving me an extremely long and dirty cable to power my booth. It still worked, but I had to clean the prongs from my spacebar once the convention was over. Also, to add insult to injury, the doujin group left of where I was seated had a baby that threw a tantrum the whole time. As I’ve said, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers ruin events including this one because they have little or no control over their behavior. Also, I’m planning to exhibit again next month, so if you’re going, don’t forget to stop by my booth. I’m also going to be selling my games and albums there, and if you purchase one or two things, you’ll really help Drillimation a lot.

Drillimation Celebrates 10 Years

Additionally, August marked ten years since the founding of Drillimation. Although founded in 2014 to create GoAnimate videos, we didn’t start making games until 2018 with the original Chuhou Joutai. For the entire month of August, we put out only original music with the exception of one. Half of them were PC-98 originals while the other half were EoSD-style originals. I even asked you guys in a Community Tab post about inspirations for the original songs I want to make, but all I got was one comment from someone whose brain dried up. In the end, I ended up arranging tracks that are set to appear in Touhou Kichouden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2 for the PC-98 originals and just spat out whatever I could take inspiration from for the EoSD-style originals. That said, you will definitely hear more EoSD-style originals, even more so if I get brought in as composer for a future Touhou Project fangame. If you’re making a Touhou Project fangame and you would like to bring me in as composer, don’t hesitate to fire me an email. I won’t charge for non-commercial projects, but I will for commercial projects.

Touhou Kichouden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2‘s Main Campaign is Complete

The last part of this post is concerning the sequel to Mythos of Phantasmagoria. As of this video’s filming, the game’s main campaign is nearing completion. You can make that completion faster if you help with the game’s graphics. A dedicated position is available here drillimation.com, given if you go to the Careers page. I thought doing most of the other graphics myself and not E. Enthusiasm was a lot faster and quicker. On average, it takes two hours to create an entire sprite sheet for at least one enemy, including overworld and battle sprites. Creating a single map can take as little as 15-30 minutes, but the size and scope of the map can also make it longer. I even created some assets at night when I’m not sleeping. Of course, since I’m usually tired after a morning or afternoon of work, and most of the things I want to tackle don’t usually come until the next morning when I have a fresh mind.

Of course, since I really love games and other things, I spend a lot of time goofing when I make my games. It is difficult to not procrastinate, unlike Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2’s art director. Other solo devs can express amazement at how I was able to make a Touhou Project danmaku game in four months, or a single demake in a few. It’s also tough to complete a whole game without any interference from external factors.

If you live with your parents, life will all be about interruptions. I know the Angry Video Game Nerd already said this, but they seem to use Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest as the model. Most of the time, they would barge into your room to show you pictures you don’t care about or have already seen. Sometimes, a stupid giant keeps coming in to inform you about things you already know or something you didn’t want to be signed up for. It’s much more convenient with emails and texts. Other times, telemarketers always call you out of the blue. I don’t want to hear about phony vacation offers, annoying election information, shady fundraisers, or fake IRS scams. Everything I make is confidential until unveiling, and I prefer to create everything uninterrupted. This happens all the time, and my main focus is getting either that song, artwork, sprite sheet, or stage programmed into the game.

No matter how frustrating this would get, I can’t be forced to take a long hiatus from a project I started working on, in the middle of, or almost finished with. I may never know what may be thrown at me. Every family you’re under has their own set of rules. Sometimes, you can’t walk around much and you’re trapped inside invisible barriers. If you want me to be fully independent, I expect you to keep the donations going on my Patreon, or by buying the games on Steam or itch.io.

Let’s finish off this year, as well as Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2, strong and smooth. Until then, this game will persevere through autumn leaves, winter snow, and eventually cherry blossoms. The lattermost of which you may be seeing in the Southern Hemisphere.

Information Changes:

• 10/01/2024: Hosokawa has revealed more information on why the Burgeoning Tresses of Longevity project started falling out of her favor. Out of all the characters she’s designed, she wanted them to be action-oriented and very long hair would interfere with their combat operations. Another reason has to relate to her real-world self. Despite wanting to grow her hair to match Pokémon Scarlet and Violet‘s Rika, she has no intent on extending it past waist-length and prefers to keep it bicep length. The only exception to this is if they plan to use it as a weapon of some sort.