I have been a Touhou fan since I first laid hands on Perfect Cherry Blossom back in 2003, and though I'm not quite as rabid a fan of the series as a lot of the fandom can be, I've still fallen in love with a large swath of Touhou fanmade content. It's a fanbase like no other in terms of its passion and creativity. ZUN himself has always been supportive of fanworks and has even made it easier in recent years for fangame creators to create commercial works based on his expansive world.

I've always wanted to make a Touhou fangame of some sort because there's so many characters I like, and Youmu Konpaku lands very near the tippy-top of that list. (Look, my best-of lists are always in flux, but I'm married to Youmu, okay?)

Youmu-Youmu Ball came together in the span of about 24 hours, and then spent the day before release going through the usual polishing phase my games tend to go through. I just wanted to make something, almost as a way to prove to myself that I still could after having gone through a pretty rough depression from the end of the previous year through the start of 2025.

The game initially started as a Breakout-like, where Youmu would bounce a Yin-Yang Orb around the screen to destroy fairies. Since it's Touhou, the fairies were planned to move around a bit and fire bullets at Youmu every now and again. Very simple premise! It's where the ground work was laid for the game initially.

Unfortunately, there is no playable download of this version of the game for me to offer here, and it didn't really feel in the spirit of this site to try and recreate it. I kept working from the same project file while putting this game together. As it evolved into something else, the Breakout elements got removed and the game plays/feels a bit different from how the initial version played. This video is all that remains of that version, and I very specifically remember almost deleting it before showing anyone, so we at least preserved something.

That said, Breakout-Touhou isn't even that original of an idea, because the first Touhou game on PC-98, The Highly Responsive to Prayers, was actually a very cool and interesting Breakout-like that's absolutely worth a play through!

I played with this idea for a bit, just placing the fairies in random configurations around the room to see how it felt, and during one of those tests I actually forgot to place the fairies, leaving Youmu in the room alone with the ball.

I started whacking the ball around a bit and really felt the new direction for this game suddenly take shape. So, I threw two and three and four balls in the room at once and kept batting them around and I had it. Once again, paring things down and going with the simpler idea was the thing that made the game feel right.

I went back and forth on balancing small things like the hitbox of Youmu's sword strike and how long it stayed active. I opted for there to be a little bit of precision involved with the hitbox being a little small, but the swipe itself stays on screen longer. I wanted to kinda capture the idea that Youmu is a swordplay instructor, so I like that there's a little precision involved and you can't just mash it out. You also can't spam sword attacks since there's an 11-frame cooldown after you attack. The only thing missing was something that made the game feel more Touhou.

Enter the dropped orb penalty! Initially, when an Orb fell off the bottom of the screen, Youmu would just die and the game would be over. It worked, but it wasn't original and didn't feel satisfying! So, to add that bit of Touhou back that I lost with removing fairies that shot at you, I made it so that when the Yin-Yang Orbs hit the bottom of the screen, they'd explode in a very simple to dodge bullet pattern whose bullets actually become slower the more times you let it happen.

This created a fun little back and forth where it's totally okay to let Orbs go if you're getting overwhelmed, but you do risk muddying up the play field with slow moving bullets if you let it happen often enough. The back and forth strategy of keeping Orbs alive for maximum scoring potential and letting them go is something I'm very happy feels as good as it does.

The game isn't perfect however. The bounce code can get wonky sometimes when subpixels are involved and can cause balls to get momentarily stuck in walls on very rare occasions. If anyone wants to help me fix my bounce code, I'd happily pay you to!

I also wish I'd done more with the background, like dropping in some clouds that roll by or something. Animated background was a bit too much of an ask for such a small and fast project, unfortunately.

That said, I see a lot of ways that this game's idea could be expanded upon that may or may not make for some kind of follow-up in the future. I like what I've done here, and I feel like I could play with it more, but those are ideas that probably need to settle for a bit to see how I feel about them down the road.

At any rate, Youmu-Youmu Ball is another fun little quick-fix score attacker for the pile that I think turned out a lot cooler than I initially thought it would. It also doubles as me being able to finally put my own little stamp on the Touhou fandom, just as I did with Higurashi, with a silly little game.

The nicest compliment I received for this game that'll stick with me for a while was from a friend that said even if my name wasn't anywhere on this game, they'd know I was the one that made it. It took the better part of ten years in gamedev, but it feels nice to know I've developed a strong gamedev voice of my own.

Back


©Socksmakepeoplesexy.Net