Mid Girls Don’t Cry: Midboss Heroines
Added 2021-05-02 04:33:26 +0000 UTCBefore ZUN started his pattern of stage bosses appearing as the midboss for their own stage, other characters would often make a cameo. Even Reimu and Marisa have shown up as midbosses, so we wanted to try making them into Midboss cards for Danmaku!!.
Usually playable characters and mobs have abilities that are beneficial for themselves, but we wanted to try something different for this cycle of heroines-turned-midbosses. Instead of having something that’s always good for them, we added one-shot effects that affect all players when they’re defeated. You defeated a “good girl” so there are consequences, dammit.
Reimu here is the most basic form of this idea: Without the shrine maiden around, incidents are gonna happen. Besides being very on-the-nose, we felt this pattern of having an incident-like effect happening when you defeat a heroine midboss had potential, so we applied it to the other three cards. These effects may or might not be beneficial to the current player, so players need to consider their current situation before attacking.
Designing cycles can be difficult. Often they are born out of a great idea, but as more cards with the concept are added, quality goes down and complexity goes up. By the end you may find yourself trying to squeeze blood from a stone, whether that rock is the card or the designer. We had more ideas and there are more heroines that show up as a midboss in a Touhou game, but beyond this point a lot of them didn’t work out or didn’t fit.
PS: To those of you who saw our post about Midboss Cirno, she has an implementation and will be released at a later date!
