You could try modules. They are easy (most of the time) but time comsuming. A good one to start out with is the isosohedron.
I just read a little about the game and I am intrigued. Could you guys recommend your favorite one. Thanks. By the way do the games have english versions? If not I know kanji but english might easier.
There are fan-made translation patches.Ā I would also recommend using the vsync patches, at least for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and Imperishable Night, because they can have some input lag on some computers and the vsync patch fixes that:
https://thpatch.net/wiki/Touhou_Patch_Center
If you donāt have much experience with shmups/danmaku games, I would recommend starting out with either Perfect Cherry Blossom or Imperishable Night, or maybe Ten Desires, because they tend to be more forgiving and less difficult than the other games.Ā I havenāt played Ten Desires, but of the other two, I would say I prefer the music and atmosphere of Imperishable Night, but Perfect Cherry Blossom is a bit easier to beat if you play on Normal mode or higher.Ā If you want some more detailed comparisons:
Perfect Cherry Blossom
-There is a shield mechanic where if you collect enough cherry points (by collecting pink cherry blossom items or shooting enemies), you get a temporary shield.Ā If you get hit or bomb with the shield active, you donāt lose a life (or bomb) and all the bullets get cleared off the screen.Ā Once the shield expires or you get hit/bomb, your cherry points reset and you start collecting points to get a new one.Ā It wonāt help everywhere, but it can help escape tight spots without losing resources if you get a shield in the right place.
-Sakuya A is a really good beginner shot type:Ā she has homing damage with decent power when focused and a wide spread that covers most of the screen when unfocused; and she gets four bombs per life (three is typical for the series, and sometimes you only get two).
Imperishable Night
-Touhou games have a deathbomb mechanic where you have a handful of frames after getting hit to press the bomb button, and if you are fast enough (and have a bomb in stock), you use the bomb and save yourself from losing a life.Ā Typically the window to deathbomb is too short to wait until after you realize youāve been hit to bomb, and you still have to anticipate that you will get hit to react fast enough, but IN is the one exception to this.Ā IN has a unique bombing system where deathbombs cost two bombs instead of one, but in return you get a significantly bigger window to deathbomb.Ā It is still a good idea to anticipate getting hit and bomb sooner rather than later, but you get noticeably more leeway in IN than in any other game.
-IN also has a great beginner shot type with the Border team (Reimu/Yukari).Ā They have a slightly smaller hitbox than the other teams, have a slower movement speed which makes precision dodging a bit easier, and they also have homing damage with decent power.Ā The one caveat with the homing is that if you focus, you have to start underneath the target so that your homing damage locks onto the target before it works.
-IN has spell practice mode.Ā Normally you can practice any single stage after you have gotten through it in the game, but IN lets you practice any individual boss spell card that you have seen in the game by itself.Ā This makes learning how to beat spell cards much easier.
-If you want to ease into the games as gently as possible, IN has by far the easiest easy mode of any game in the series.
Ten Desires
I havenāt actually played Ten Desires, so I donāt know that much about its gameplay, but it has a reputation for being one of the easier ones.Ā You get a chargeable trance mode that makes you invincible for several seconds and greatly increases your power, so you can essentially skip difficult sections of the game if you plan your trance mode usage.Ā It takes a while to charge, though, so you have to pick and choose when to use it.Ā This game also has spell practice mode.Ā The game (and in general any game from Mountain of Faith onward) is more visually polished than the earlier games.Ā One downside is that collecting extra lives is more complicated in this game than in PCB or IN, so until you learn what you are doing, you might end up with fewer resources.
Other games
Some people think Mountain of Faith is actually the easiest game in the series, but that is because you can stock up and use a ton of bombs.Ā Learning how to use your bombs properly is actually a fairly difficult skill, so the gameās difficulty being tied to how well you can use your bombs isnāt necessarily the most beginner friendly.Ā If youāre using all your bombs in other games but finding you just donāt have enough resources to get through the game, you might give MoF a try.
Subterranean Animism is a lot of peopleās favourite, but it is also one of the hardest games.Ā If you are already familiar with shmups or arcade difficulty, SA might be more your thing.
Trace will probably suggest Embodiment of Scarlet Devil since itās the first Windows game and thereās something to be said for starting at the beginning, especially if you eventually plan to work your way through the whole series.Ā It definitely has the least polish of any game in the Windows era of the series, though.
If you prefer other types of games, there are fan-games in virtually every genre, but they tend to be on the difficult side.Ā My personal favourites are Fantasy Explorer Nitroid (an exploration Metroidvania style puzzle platformer) and Marisa and Aliceās Trap Tower (a puzzle platformer), both by a group called Desunoya.Ā They both get really demanding toward the end, especially in the āextraā stages, but the earlier stages arenāt that bad.
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Yeah the white dress made it a lot easier since I had less to colour. I agree that the IN looks better.
Good to hear you got a working setup for touhou. Iāve not really tried any of the newer games in WINE, but I could see it being problematic. I can also see not wanting to get a mechanical keyboard if you donāt have your laptop at a desk all the time.
I took a look at those modules and they reminded me of something I saw when I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.
Itās just a simple crane stacked but I think it looks really cool.
^^Yep, it looks pretty cool. Thousand cranes bring good luck or was it wish come true? Canāt remember.
Yosarian thanks! Do you need to buy the games though? Because that might be the only thing that will prevent me from playing it.
Those stacks of cranes look really cool. I counseled at a camp once that did that, where they had the kids folding cranes throughout the week to try to get to 1,000, and then at the end of the week they strung them up like that. Probably not as cool as seeing them in a Japanese shrine, but there is something about seeing so many of them stacked together that is pretty nice.
The games arenāt freeware, though the demos are available as legally free downloads if you want to try them out. I think the demos typically have the first three stages (out of six total, not counting the extra stage), and if I recall correctly some of them might have not have the final versions of all graphics/music tracks, but it is generally pretty close. There are links to the demos buried a ways back in this thread.
Actually, I should have mentioned Double Dealing Character as a recommendation just because itās by far the easiest to legally buy since itās available as a download purchase and doesnāt have to be physically ordered from Japan. There is also a new game scheduled for release later this month that might end up also being released as a download purchase eventually, but I havenāt heard anything specific about that. Some of the fan-games can also be found as digital download purchases on Japanese sites (I got the Desunoya games from a site called Melonbooks, for example).
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Built this one a while ago when school was first starting up, but I couldnāt find my camera charger.
http://i.imgur.com/WwWNslq.jpg
Iām going to have to make smaller figurines or slow down 'cause Iām running low on places to put them. =P
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Nice. It goes well with the Mokou one. Keineās actually grown on me quite a bit since I was practicing IN a lot a while back, and one of my favourite Touhou arrangements is of her stage theme.
This ended up somehow being not that far off from one of the characters in the new game.
Where do you get the teplates for this stuff? I what to make some awsomeness, too. 
artist:6
Yeah I quite enjoy Clownpiece. Hopefully thereās a papercraft template for her coming out soon. (Fingers crossed)
You can actually find tons of different templates. Though you sort of have to hunt around since every website has different templates
Hereās the sites I find myself using most of the time.
papercraftsquare
papercraftparadise
paperkraft
The particular templates Iām using are made by Lili.
One more thing note worthy. If you come across a .pdo file youāll need Pepakura Viewer to open it. You can get it here.
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Happy Hanukkah to any Jewish Touhou fans out there:
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Hard to believe itās almost winter with the weather weāve had lately. Itās like the inverse of Perfect Cherry Blossom.
http://i.imgur.com/mJqGilW.jpg
Artist:Setz
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Weāve had a few cold days but then it always seems to warm back up. I think weāve had a few record highs this month already, or at least close enough to them that it was being talked about in the forecasts.
Iāve been watching Hikaru no Go lately, which doesnāt have anything to do with Touhou, but at the end of each episode, they have a lady named Yukari teaching two kids how to play go, which I thought was kind of a fun coincidence. But then I finally noticed what the two kidsā names are:
(Granted, itās not the exact same, but itās still pretty close)
Keep up the hard work, Yukari-sensei, and one of these days youāll beat Ran!
artists: Vima (Yuki and Mai), Sakino Shingetsu (Yukari and Ran)
If you like go animes then this might be for you āWeiqi Shaonian (Go Youngsters)ā. I dunno if there is a dubbed or subbed version but if you can find it I truly recommend it.
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Thanks, Iāll check it out once I finish with Hikaru no Go.
Thoughts on LoLK anyone?
I didnāt play it because I play on easy mode although the theme songs are great
I havenāt played it either, but the checkpoint system looks like an interesting gameplay gimmick. It looks like it makes the game itself feel more like spell practice mode, or like the photography games, which are things I like playing. Some of the patterns look a bit ridiculous (especially Junkoās attacks that are just micro-dodging into tiny gaps), but itās also cool to see ZUN approach the game by designing around the checkpoint system and making patterns that are suited to that rather than just making a normal Touhou game meant to be cleared in one shot and then just putting the gimmick on top of that.