CUTTING CONTENT [SPOILERS FOR TOUHOU FANTASY INCLUDED]

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So this is a thing that everyone's done at some point or another in their games, and I feel I've brought this topic up a few times before. Recently, I've been talking about my game in a Discord chat, and people are simply saying "Finish the game", which is par for the course (as many people here have probably told me or are thinking). A while back, I cut out 11 dungeons that I deemed as filler dungeons (because...frankly speaking, they WERE filler dungeons), and I felt fine about that as there wasn't any real story being lost there.

However, I'm thinking of cutting out the entirety of beta6 (note: I cut my game into "beta" segments, so I know when to release a beta. There are 7 total, with the 7th being the last of the main storyline. Beta8 is all sidequest and optional stuff). This means that there will be a sudden jump from one point in the game to another, as there are going to be 5-6 dungeons completely missing. Basically, here's what's going on in the story after beta5 (spoilers for story for those that remotely care). This is the original script; Everything after the ** is where it would not happen in the newer version:



"After having defeated Sariel, Hope ends up waking up alone in a forest in Gensokyo. Pondering on how she got there, she stumbles through the forest, only to come across Chaos whom intends on destroying Hope and absorbing her along with the fragments she has. Hope manages to defeat Chaos, and Chaos decides to "help" Hope for just a while. The two manages to find their way through the forest towards the ruined Hakurei Shrine, where they find Reimu who has no recollection of either of them, having been affected by Sariel's final attack and put under her control. The two somehow manages to defeat Reimu and snaps her back to her senses, and Reimu rejoins the party. The rest of the party shows up afterwards, **but find out that Cirno was nowhere to be seen. The party finds clues to Cirno's whereabouts, in a Pandaemonium that had been constructed in a remote region of Gensokyo.

During the events of Pandaemonium-R, Cirno is being used as a catalyst for Rikako's experiment to extract the souls that Cirno has in her. Daiyousei manages to materialize from Cirno and stop the experiment, and the two fend off Yuugi whom Rikako had sent against them to escape. The duo manages to break Yuugi out of Rikako's control, and the trio tries to catch up with Rikako to regain the souls that she managed to steal. They end up fighting and defeating both Flandre and Suika whom were also under Rikako's control (Flandre's mind breaks and she vanishes elsewhere, Suika escapes), and they manage to catch up to Rikako in her lab before she is able to use the teleporter to escape. They battle and defeat Rikako, whom ends up being absorbed by the Void from trying to use its power. They escape the crumbling Pandaemonium-R and rejoin with Reimu and company. Yuugi returns to the Remains of Hell.

The party stumbles upon Yorihime by the ruins of Eientei, who alerts the party to Kaguya's actions on the moon. They manage to find a route to the moon through the ruins of Eientei, and they join with the remaining resistance there against Kaguya. Fighting their way through the Lunarian Palace, they battle with Kaguya only to not stand a chance against her immense power. Kaguya takes control of Yorihime, and sends both her and her sister after Reimu and co. who are forced to flee from the palace. On the outskirts of the Lunarian Capital, the party are forced to battle with the sisters and are overwhelmed. As Kaguya begins destroying the Lunarian Capital with the Void's power, Reimu and co. manages to narrowly escape through a dimensional crack.

It is here that the discover that many dimensional distortions and cracks are happening due to Gengetsu's loss of her own power due to her sister's death earlier in the game. The party forces their way through the rift to stop Gengetsu, whom they manage to calm down. Afterwards, they are notified by Gengetsu of Konngara's final course of action to use the Void's power against Sariel and rebuild everything in her own image. The party sets out for Youkai Mountain.

Here, they meet with Tenshi who joins the party and helps them through the Sea of Clouds up to her home, Bhava-Agra. However, Bhava-Agra had been ravaged by Konngara and the monsters from the Box, and Tenshi leaves on her own to find Konngara. The group runs into Sanae along the way, who had been alerted to Kanako's presence on Bhava-Agra, and the party splits up to find both Kanako and Konngara. Tenshi meanwhile finds Ultima and is attacked by her, only to be overwhelmed. Momiji and Aya show up to give her a hand, and finally Mima, and together they manage to defeat Ultima. Meanwhile, Sanae and her group encounters Kanako and does battle with her, finally breaking her free of Sariel's/Pandora's control. Lastly, Reimu and her group confronts Konngara, Rika, and Meira at the center of Bhava-Agra, defeating both Rika and Meira who are absorbed by the Void, following defeating Konngara. Konngara, dying, gives Reimu her own power to fight against Pandora, and the group decides on their next course of action. Finding out that Rinnosuke, the carrier of Pandora, had opened a large rift to the Void in a remote region of Gensokyo, the party decides it's finally time to lead one final assault against him to defeat Pandora for good. The party laments on Byakuren's death and all the events that have transpired up to this point."


That's just that part of the game. After that is the final 3 dungeons of the game. I'm not sure if I should cut all of that out since I don't know if that'll leave a hole in the story or if it'll be fine?

But outside of that, where do you say is good to cut content like this, especially if it's a massive chunk? How much have you cut from your own game, whether it's a part that you thought needed to go or if you thought didn't need to go but did it anyways?
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Cut as much as you need to finish the damn game.
sinn
the original sinn
1092
Wow, it's hard to decide especially the game is not yours to begin with.

Questions like that is best asked inside the development team.
@Sinnelius: Huh?? I don't quite understand what you're saying here with your first sentence.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I honestly think that using ATB hurts the game more than anything else. Like, I'm sure I wrote about this before, but, if a character becomes active at the same time as an enemy (or enemies) gets an action, the best thing to do is to let the action go through. Attempting to do anything while the action is occurring, even if it's trying to select another option, will just cause frustration, as the input fails to respond.

I'm not asking you switch engines from TsuK3. That's a recipe for disaster/cancellation with how long you've been working on this. I'm tending to agree that the best thing you can do is to finish this game (if that means cutting content, so be it), and learn from the mistakes this game has taught you.
By failing to respond, do you mean the delay between inputs or that it just doesn't work at all? Because I think I know what's causing the delay, it's that massive Weapon/Armor Bless system I have (which I posted in the What're you working on thread. You can see all of the battle events that run every turn in there). It's not coded very well at all, though there's no good way of coding Weapon Bless (I have an alternate to Armor Elemental Bless, though that'll take time for me to put in). Not sure if I should keep Weapon Bless or not right now...
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I mean that it didn't respond at all. Though, I vaguely recall seeing that post in the "What are you working on now" thread. For the most part, I thought to myself "Is all that necessary?" Like, what is the concept behind Weapon Bless? My best guess is that it's some kind of STR-buff, but, it can't be a simple buff that lasts until the end of battle. Since there's four generic Weapon Bless events, my guess is that whatever it does changes according to who's in the party. Maybe it gets even more specific, and goes by what weapon they have equipped? That there's events for specific characters is definitely throwing me for a loop!
Weapon Bless is a buff that lasts 30 turns to give that element to the character's regular physical attack. I had to split it up between several events because of how massive it all was, because yeah, I had to duplicate each weapon that each character could equip for each element (meaning about 11 different weapons for one character for each element). That doesn't include the multiple armors for the elements/statuses too, which again, I can reduce the amount of coding for the armors maybe. The 4 generic Weapon Bless events are just the coding for all the characters that DON'T dual-wield weapons. The ones for specific characters are the ones that dual-wield weapons, and thusly requires a lot more coding so they had to be split apart from the other events. It's kinda blargh.

Armor Elemental Bless increases resistance levels by 1 for 30 turns. Armor Status Bless prevents the chosen status(es) for the next 30 turns.

But yeah, that's more than likely due to the Bless systems. But yes, all of that is necessary for all of the various things that I have in the game. ^^;
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