After nearly two years of development, Drillimation Systems has released the demo of their first role-playing project on Steam. The demo was soft-launched last June and the full game earlier this year on itch.io.
Even though all of Drillimation Systems' titles have been an arcade danmaku game of some sort, Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria is a danmaku role-playing adventure that takes place over the span of thirty years of the lives of Rinnosuke "Kourin" Morichika and Marisa Kirisame, from the latter when she is born to establishing the Federal Kingdom of Gensokyo as its queen. The game was created as a way to broaden the company's portfolio. Director Susumu Takajima has confirmed that Mythos of Phantasmagoria is set on the same timeline as the Chuhou Joutai trilogy, taking place 300 years before those games' events.
The game is the second Touhou Project fangame released by the company on Steam. Development on this title began in the summer of 2022 after Chuhou Joutai 3: Three Nights of Scarlet Abscess wrapped up development, and reportedly lasted a year. During the early stages of development, the game was going to be made in RPG Maker, but the engine's limitations prevented the director from implementing the mechanics he wanted. He switched to GameMaker for more creative freedom, which was used to develop all previous games by the company.
The game was going to be published by Whitethorn Digital, which is incidentally based in the same area as Drillimation. The director visited Whitethorn multiple times to talk about a publishing deal, but the two companies got into an impasse as the guidelines on the Touhou Yomoyama website state that a company can only publish a Touhou Project fangame if they obtain the rights from Team Shanghai Alice. To minimize legal troubles, Drillimation chose to self-publish on Steam instead.
The game combines gameplay from multiple franchises, including Undertale, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon. It features four playable characters with their own stats, alongside over 60 different pieces of equipment and 80 different skills to learn. Its graphical aesthetic resembles games made on the Adventure Game Interpreter by Sierra. The musical score was written on the YM3812 chip to get the same feel as Sierra's games, as well as other Western PC games developed at the time. The score is a mix of remixed Touhou Project and Chuhou Joutaisongs, as well as original tunes. Unlike Drillimation's previous games, the score takes on a classical approach.
Drillimation Systems released the demo for the game on itch.io in June of 2023. After the demo's release, Drillimation teamed up with the Vietnam-based Studio Emiko to develop another Touhou Project fangame titled Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest. Directed by Studio Emiko founder Emiko Hosokawa, the game was developed as a holiday gift for their fans and released on Steam last December. It was the first Touhou Project fangame by Drillimation to release on the platform.
Features
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An epic story divided into six acts.
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Four different playable characters with unique stats.
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Over 60 different pieces of equipment and 80 different skills to learn.
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Additional Information
About Drillimation Systems
Drillimation Systems is an entertainment conglomerate with a main focus on video games and animation. Their products are intended for newcomers to video games and veteran fans of games alike. Drillimation originally began in mid-2014 as a fan project where the Prophet wanted to make GoAnimate videos featuring characters from Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Mr. Driller franchise. The Drillimation domain was formally registered in 2019, shortly after the Chuhou Joutai demo was released.