The Next Project From Drillimation – Going Back To the Roots?

At least a week and a half has passed since the release of Touhou Chouhatsuyou ~ Burgeoning Tresses of Longevity. If you thought we were planning to make another Touhou Project fangame, you’re looking the wrong way.

The next project from Drillimation Systems will resurrect a failed prototype that was in development in late 2020 and early 2021. The above game goes under the name of White Javelein and was planned to be developed for Whitethorn Digital. However, the prototype was scrapped as Chuhou Joutai 2: Paraided! was in development at the same time as this game.

The source code for it would eventually be lost after the 2024 hard drive failure. Rather than using the original planned concept, the game would have its theming overhauled to a Chuhou Joutai prequel that is set in a dream with stories similar to a Hifuu Club album. These dreams won’t be canon to the Drillimation Danmaku Universe timeline. The gameplay would be tweaked to be similar to Touhou 1: The Highly Responsive to Prayers. Rather than pitching the game to Whitethorn Digital, Drillimation may have plans to pursue a partnership with the Philadelphia-based Screenwave Media in terms of publishing.

Development on this game may not start until this June. May will be focused on bringing Touhou Kichouden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2 to Steam. This will be no easy feat as 2025 will mark the first time Drillimation will release two titles on Steam within a single year. The Steam port will also be no easy feat as Drillimation will need to program in all of the achievements, plus debugging features for quality assurance.

Additionally, this new game will feature a stage editor, a first for a Drillimation game. The decision to create the editor is to reduce the number of rooms in the game. This game is projected to have a whopping 300 stages, with 100 stages for each dream. Each dream is broken down into ten worlds, with a boss on every tenth stage.

Drillimation is also recruiting background and boss artists to work on the project. More info can be found on the Careers page.