Big Box Big Update - Incident Deck

Hello dear Patrons, and Merry Christmas!! Thank you for all of your support this year.

On this festive day, we bring gifts of incidents!!

Incident Deck

The incident deck, blood red and dangerous, was the first “expansion” to Danmaku!!. We originally designed it to be optional like later expansions, but quickly discovered that players loved incidents and would not play without them. Popular as they are, we are increasing the number of incidents from 24 to 40. That’s 16 base incidents, 4 from Lunatic Extra, 4 from Mutiny of Belittled Spirits, and 16 brand new incidents.

In Danmaku!! 1.0, there were several incidents that we thought were a good idea but in practice did…nothing. Not only that, some incidents did nothing for a very long time. For Big Box we wanted to fix both of these problems. We did this by refactoring some incidents to be more fun and do more, and also introduced incidents with different durations by splitting incidents into three types.

Ongoing incidents are the incident format everyone is used to. They have an ongoing effect and a resolution condition. The half of the incidents in Big Box are ongoing incidents,

Immediate incidents perform their effects and then immediately resolve. Incidents like Worldly Desires have become immediate incidents.

Major incidents hang around for the rest of the game. In addition you can only have one major incident active at a time. This means your chance of manifesting a particular major incident in a game is roughly 1 in 10.. For example, Crisis of Faith is now a major incident.

You’ll notice the incidents have new symbols in the upper left. These denote the type of incident, and are placeholders. In case you don’t know, https://game-icons.net/ is a great resource for rapid development. We are making our own icons to be more Danmaku!! aesthetic, as well as adding some more visual distinction to the different incident types.

Improved Ongoing Incidents

These incidents were fine in theory but could use some improvement. They are the same concept just tweaked a little.

Dream World used to just negate all players’ abilities. We discovered this was simply not fun. The improved Dream World still negates abilities, but allows players to activate an additional Spell Card in exchange.

Lily White has been a controversial figure in Danmaku!! since the game’s beta. To make a long story short, I (Moogs) finally relented and agreed to reduce the damage from 3 to 2. This is still a significant hit, but it does not bring players to one hit away from defeat anymore.

Overdrive was an incident that ended up doing nothing the majority of the time. A life is simply too costly a price for a Spell Card activation. To encourage its use we’ve bumped the benefit a little, Spell Cards paid for in blood now cannot be canceled.

Spring Snow was another incident that negated players’ options. This time it shut down all Spell Cards. The revised version allows a backup option for those extra invocation cards. You can cycle them for an attack and a draw. It’s not the best, but those attacks are not cancelable and don’t count as Danmaku cards so you can bypass some defenses.

Completely Remade Ongoing Incidents

Crossing to Higan previously made distance irrelevant. We decided there were too many effects that did this, so now instead it gives everyone Nemuno’s ability of slow and powerful attacks.

Reverse Hierarchy is a remade Shining Needle Castle. It turns out uninstalling the lunatic deck was an unpopular mechanic. We still wanted an incident to upend the power balance in a game, and really we stumbled upon this implementation. The new incident gives all players with no items the equivalent of an artifact in bonuses. If you have only one item, you’re actually incentivized to dump it while this incident is out to get the incident bonus.

New Ongoing Incidents

Barroom Brawl is a simple incident. Punching the alcohol out of each other is a tradition celebrated world wide.

Black Gold Rush is a minigame incident. It’s a rush to strike it rich by digging through the collected cards. Everyone is encouraged to resolve the incident, with the lucky winner striking it rich.

Free Market increases the value of all your cards during exchanges. That’s it really. We love a simple card.

True to its name, Memento Mori doesn’t kill you but reminds you that you aren’t invincible. It blocks Healing cards, but that would be contrary to our goal of reducing dead draws, so instead it converts them to extra draw power. Just remember you can’t take it with you.

Scarlet Mist has always been an incident we struggled with. In Touhou lore all it did was darken the skies enough so that Remilia could go outside. How do you translate that to a card game? In the end we decided that since the scarlet mist encouraged the monsters to come out, Scarlet Mist the card rewards you for being active in the game.

Immediate Incidents

In review and testing, we found that some incidents were better if they were shorter. These incidents had long, uneventful tails that didn’t really improve the game. So we cut the tail off.

Great Fairy Wars, Rekindle Blazing Hell, and Worldly Desires all had their ongoing effects removed. Particularly in the case of Worldly Desires, these incidents benefit by just doing their thing and getting out of the way.

New Immediate Incidents

Some of my favorite new cards from the Patreon are here!

After Party, once called Dubious Mushrooms, is the very final card in the Party series. The party has gone on way too long and Reimu is gonna exterminate someone. Make sure you’re out before 6am rolls around.

Dragon Gem Motherlode is an incident version of Extra Stage, the current player picks a deck and everyone draws. Nice.

Hell Invasion causes all beast spirits to spread out. If it shows up early it can really speed up a game.

Kappa Games is a gambling incident with excellent odds. You can opt out if your hand is just perfect, but otherwise you’ve only got a ¼ chance of something bad happening.

Seasonal Flux is an immediate version of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Everyone gets the same flip and same result just once.

Out of nowhere the Treasure Ship crashes into the main deck and dumps items everywhere like a giant pinata. That or everyone just pulled a heist on the buddhists.

World of Doors is a democratic version of Urban Legend Outbreak. Ties result in multiple incidents manifesting, which we think is pure fun. There’s always that one player who is gonna vote to have even more incidents. Is it you?

Major Incidents

We’ve long had the notion of big or major incidents that we wanted to put into Danmaku!!. These incidents have game changing effects that add a little bit of variance between Danmaku!! Games, but not showing up so often that they wear out their welcome. We posted a couple ideas here on the patreon before, but with Big Box we’re bringing the total number of Major Incidents to 10.

Crisis of Faith is one of the big name incidents in Danmaku!!. Still, we got reports of some groups encountering it almost all the time. We thought about making it an immediate incident, but decided it was better both being rare and resolvable.

Double Spoiler gives all players a dramatic role reveal ability. Unlike the Extra Bosses though, the reveal ability is Action speed. It’s the kind of reveal that everyone sees coming.

Easy Mode makes activating your Spell Card easier. Go figure. You can Master Plan this incident away right after you use it. That’s just smart, right?

Five Impossible Requests is a minigame incident that goes on for most of a game. If you complete the bingo you get a huge bonus, but it’s entirely possible you could just forget about it. One of you will play cards out of their bingo hand only to realize a moment later your mistake.

Great Barrier Weakening no longer draws from the discard pile, thank goodness. Damage to the barrier makes everyone on edge, drawing more power the closer they are to defeat. This incident makes the game feel more high stakes.

Guerilla Live was one of the first major incidents we conceived. This incident gives everyone the same extra character. Whether you play that character’s theme on loop for the entire game is up to you.

Hyakki Yagyou is by far the simplest major incident. Big hands!

Perfect Possession turns Danmaku!! into a hero-collector gatcha game. Except there’s only one of each character. Jealousy is sure to abound.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody is all upside. At the end of each player’s incident step they get a bonus based on a flip. Nice.

Voyage to Makai allows players to come back from defeat, hobbling around like zombies in the meantime. Though defeated players still play, remember that they cannot declare victory.

Expansion Specific Incidents

Quick word about incidents like 100% Psycho Mob and Lunar Wars. We decided to keep these incidents but make it clear they depend on optional content. You'll notice only these incidents have a non-base expansion symbol on them. 

That's all for now. I don't think I will be able to get tomorrow's post out as I will be traveling to visit family. Expect newly updated Lunatic and Market decks before new year's though. Thank you all once again for your support.