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The Perfect Maid/Gameplay

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Gameplay

Controls

The game may be played using either a keyboard or a gamepad.

Keyboard controls are as follows:

  • The Arrow Keys move the character around
  • Z causes a short barrage of shots to be fired; it may be held down for rapid fire
  • X releases a bomb, also known as a Spell Card (presuming you have bombs left)
  • C activates the Luna Dial, temporarily slowing down gameplay in exchange for a portion of the Luna Dial gauge
  • Shift slows the character's movement, and changes the nature of the character's shot; it generally makes your attacks more focused.
  • Esc pauses the game and brings you to the in-game menu
  • Ctrl fast-forwards through any dialogue and replays

Basic Gameplay

The Perfect Maid plays like a fairly typical vertically-scrolling danmaku shooting game, in which the player's character is always facing towards the top of the screen, shooting at anything that moves, avoiding and weaving between enemy bullets, and confronting difficult bosses at the end of a stage.

There are 4 levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Each difficulty level features differences in the number of bullets fired by each enemy, rate of fire, variations in the bullets' pattern of movement, and the number and type of enemy Spell Cards used.

Shot

A character's "shot" is the player's primary method of attacking enemies. The shot's attack area and behavior varies depending on the character the player has chosen, as well as whether the player is focused or unfocused. It becomes more powerful over several increments as the player collects red power items, with increments occuring at Power Levels of 8, 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, and 128 (MAX). When the player reaches MAX power, all bullets on the screen are converted into star items which are automatically collected.

Point of Collection

Like most official Touhou games, there is a line most of the way up the screen known as the point of collection. If you move your character at or above this line, all items on the screen will be drawn to your character. As with official games from Mountain of Faith onward, the POC can be used even if the player is not at full power.

Bomb

A character's "bomb" is the player's limited-use method of getting out of difficult situations. A bomb's attack area, duration, and power varies depending on the character type the player has chosen, but it typically deals heavy damage to every enemy it touches, in addition to canceling out any bullets in the bomb's way. The player's character becomes invincible during and for a short time after the bomb's effect wears off.

At the beginning of the game and any time your character respawns, you will start off with 3 bombs. Bomb items will increase your current stock by one. You can carry up to a maximum of 9 bombs at a time. If you receive a bomb when you already have the maximum, that bomb will be lost.

As usual, it is possible to 'deathbomb'. After being hit by a bullet, the player is given a very brief window of time to use a bomb and negate their death. The "death" sound effect will play, and a stronger version of the player's regular bomb will then activate. The window in which to use the bomb is 4 frames long (8 frames for Sakuya-D), plus an additional 1 frame for every 10 minutes on the Luna Dial gauge (up to 10F max).

Lives

You start off the game with 3 lives (that is, 2 extra lives). You can lose a life by getting "hit" by an enemy attack.

The hit box for your character is quite small in comparison to your on-screen sprite, approximately only 5 pixels by 5 pixels in size. If you hold Shift, a colored dot will appear, showing the hitbox precisely. If the hit box of your character's sprite comes into contact with the hit box of an enemy bullet, laser, or the enemy itself, then you have been hit.

The player is awarded extra lives upon reaching certain point item totals or by collecting 1-up items. In the case of point items, extra lives are awarded at 100, 250, 500, 800, 1100, and 1400 items collected, and a 1-up item is dropped after defeating the midboss in stage 3. You can carry up to a maximum of 9 extra lives at a time; if you receive an extra life when you already have the maximum, you will receive a bomb instead.

When you lose a life, you also lose 16 Power points (though the player can recoup 13 points via the 5 small items and 1 large item that are scattered upon death); however, your power cannot decrease below 1. Also, all the bullets on the screen are cleared, and you become invulnerable for a short period of time.

Upon losing all their lives, the player is given the choice to continue from the beginning of the current stage. However, if you do continue, your current score will be reset back to 0, and you will reach the "Bad Ending" if you finish the game. (Unlike official Touhou games, it's still possible to save a replay after continuing, but it will only include the stages played following the most recent continue.)

Boss Battles

The main challenge and the main attraction. Each boss has multiple lives, which are represented by stars shown at the upper left of the screen. Bosses usually alternate between attacking normally and attacking with Spell Cards, switching once with each health bar. Markers on the health bar indicate the start of a Spell Card attack when the boss' health is depleted that far.

Normal attacks are typically incrementally stronger versions of the boss character's basic attack. Spell Card attacks bedazzle the player with combinations of complex patterns that often involve the use of projectiles and obstacles crafted especially for use with that Spell Card. If the player manages to defeat a Spell Card attack without getting hit or using any bombs, a substantial score bonus is rewarded for the feat.

Each attack is accompanied by a timer. When time runs out, the boss will switch to their next attack pattern even if their health bar isn't empty. Waiting for a boss character's attack pattern to self-destruct may be enough to beat them, but mere survival won't earn the player any score bonuses. The exception is when the boss is invulnerable for the duration of the spell card; in this case the player will receive the bonus on survival.

When fighting a boss, a position marker shows up on the bottom margin of the screen, indicating where the boss is on the horizontal axis. Since your target can be completely obscured by bullets or darkness at times, use this marker to help you aim your shots. The marker will dim when the boss is being hit, and will flash red when her health bar gets sufficiently depleted. The "Enemy" text displayed on the marker will also vanish while certain bosses enter an invulnerable state.

Characters

The single playable character in The Perfect Maid is Sakuya Izayoi, with 5 shot types to choose from. Each shot type has a different speed, attack power, shot behaviour, and unique gameplay perk.

  • Type A (Illusion Sign) - Homing type with average speed and power, similar to Sakuya-A in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Small hitbox.
  • Type B (Wound Sign) - Forward focus type with average speed and high power, similar to Reimu-B in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Starts with 1 extra bomb for a total of 4, and can warp from one horizontal edge of the screen to the other similarly to Reimu-A in Subterranean Animism.
  • Type C (Light Sign) - Piercing forward lasers with high speed and power, similar to Marisa-B in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Has a lower point of collection than other shot types.
  • Type D (Time Sign) - Forward-facing shot similar to Remilia in Imperishable Night, where Sakuya spawns a clone that continues shooting in place as long as the focus key is held. Deathbomb window is 4F longer than other shot types.
  • Type E (Silver Sign) - Shot with an adjustable angle that fixes in place upon focusing, similar to Sakuya-B from Perfect Cherry Blossom. Has the fastest focused speed of any shot type, and the Luna Dial gauge increases at a faster rate.

Screen Layout

Screen layout
  1. Your character
  2. Player Score
    • High Score: your highest score for the current character, type, and difficulty
    • Score: your current score
  3. The number of remaining lives and bombs / The approximate location of the point of collection
  4. Player Status
    • Power: your shot power level, maxing out at 128
    • Graze: the number of enemy shots that have grazed your hitbox during the game
    • Point: the number of point items you have collected during the game, and the amount needed for the next extra life
  5. Enemy Status
    • Left bars: the number of health bars the enemy has left in reserve
    • Right number: the amount of time left before the enemy's attack spell fails (self-destructs)
    • Middle bar: the current health bar of the enemy
  6. Luna Dial gauge
    • Number: the current Luna Dial Rate
  7. Spell Card Status
    • Title: the name of the Spell Card being used
    • Bonus: the constantly-updating value of the Spell Card Bonus
    • History: the number of times you have "collected" the Spell Card currently being used, and the number of times you have faced it.

Scoring

Enemies

Any damage you deal to any enemy, whether it be caused by your shots or your bombs, will cause your score and Luna Dial Rate to increase very slightly. Actually destroying enemies will award you slightly more points, but the points earned from this are around the range of hundreds to thousands of points per enemy. This is not a significant amount at all. However, destroyed enemies release items for you to collect, and those are very important for scoring as covered below.

Grazing

"Grazing a bullet" means to have a bullet or laser come dangerously close to your hitbox. Each graze will add [500 x the current Luna Dial rate] to your score, and will increase your "Graze number" by 1. You can only graze a bullet once, so you won't gain any additional points or graze by following a bullet. Lasers can be continually grazed throughout their duration, but once again, moving around will not gain you any additional points or graze.

During Spell Cards, grazing will also increase the Spell Card bonus by 5000 points per graze.

Point Items

As its name implies, point items are a major source of points in the game. Unlike all official Touhou games, their value is not affected by their height on the screen; combined with the game's relatively dense danmaku and the mechanics of the Luna Dial system (see below), this often makes it more beneficial to collect items one-by-one at the bottom of the screen than to risk a trip to the point of collection.

One point item is worth [100 points x graze count when the item was spawned] + [3000 points x Luna Dial rate when the item was spawned], rounded down to an increment of 10. While the Luna Dial is active, an item's value will be calculated as if the Luna Dial rate was at its maximum of 10.000, and collecting 1 item will count as 3 towards the extra life quota (though the item's point value is not multiplied by 3).

Power Items

While your shot is not fully powered up, power items are worth only 10 points. Once fully powered up, all power items currently on the screen become Luna Dial items. While the character is at max power, power items no longer appear, and Luna Dial items appear instead.

Large power items are worth 8 regular power items. There is also a yellow Full Power item, which appears when the player loses their last extra life in reserve. It brings you to full power, and is worth 1000 points if you are already at full power.

Luna Dial Items

One Luna Dial item will increase the player's Luna Dial rate by 0.034, as well as being worth worth [6000 points x Luna Dial rate when the item was spawned], rounded down to an increment of 10. Much like point items, their point value while the Luna Dial is active will be calculated as if the rate was at its maximum of 10.000.

Luna Dial

The Luna Dial gauge consists of a clock face in the corner of the screen, with a decimal number displayed below it. Pressing the 'C' key when the number is over 2.000 (two "hours" on the clock face) will slow down all gameplay elements for approximately 5 seconds, as the gauge steadily decreases by 2.000. Slowing down time allows the player to more effectively weave through bullets and collect items, though it offers no actual protection from getting hit. The Luna Dial can be used during Spell Cards with no penalty, and using it whenever necessary is particularly encouraged on higher difficulties.

While the Luna Dial is active, it also affects several score-related values: the point values of items will be calculated as if the Dial's decimal rate was at its maximum of 10.000, point items will count for 3 when it comes to the player's extra life quota, and increases to the graze counter will likewise be multiplied by 3.

The Luna Dial gauge starts at 0.500, and increases via collecting Luna Dial items, grazing bullets, and hitting enemies with the player's shot. An afterimage will appear from the clock face when the Dial becomes usable at 2.000.

Star Items

These items appear any time an enemy bullet is cancelled out, and are automatically collected. Bullets can be cancelled when you defeat an attack pattern of a boss (by depleting their current healthbar), at the moment you gain maximum shot power, when you destroy particular enemies, or when you erase enemy bullets with a bomb. Each star item is worth [100 points x the current Luna Dial rate], for a maximum of 1000 per item.

Spell Card Bonus

Occasionally, a boss will attack using a Spell Card. You will know this is happening when the background changes and the Spell Card's name appears in the upper right corner of the screen. If the boss's health bar is depleted within the time limit and without getting hit or using a bomb, the Spell Card bonus will be added to your score. (Use of the Luna Dial does not affect the bonus.)

The starting value of the bonus depends on the Spell Card used:

Stage 1 midboss spells 2,000,000
Stage 1 boss spells 2,500,000
Stage 2 spells 3,000,000
Stage 3 midboss spells 3,000,000
Stage 3 boss spells 3,500,000
Stage 4 spells 4,000,000
Stage 5, most spells 5,000,000
New Danmaku Barrier 4,500,000*
Stage 6 midboss spells 5,000,000
Stage 6, most boss spells 6,000,000
Scarlet World 7,000,000
Extra stage midboss spells 7,000,000
Extra stage, most boss spells 8,000,000
Danmaku Insomnia 7,000,000*

Overdrive Spell Cards all have the same bonus value as their regular counterparts.

As the time remaining decreases, the bonus decreases in value as well, at a constant rate of (initial value) / (time limit in seconds + 10) per second. However, it increases by 5000 for every graze during the spell.

Certain Spell Cards (Reimu's final spell on all difficulties, Eirin's ninth spell) are considered survival spells. For these Spell Cards, the boss is invulnerable, but you can receive the Spell Card bonus by surviving until time runs out without getting hit or using a bomb. The bonus also does not decrease over time.

Clear Bonus

At the end of each stage, the player is awarded a point bonus based on their performance throughout the stage. The bonus is calculated as follows:

Stage     x 1,000,000 (stage number, Extra = 7)
Luna Dial x 1,000,000 (current Luna Dial value)
Point     x    10,000 (point items collected in the stage)
Graze     x     1,000 (graze count for that stage)

In addition, if the stage happened to be the last stage, the following is added:

Player x 250,000 (lives in stock)
Bomb   x  50,000 (bombs in stock)

The end result is then added on to your score.

Bugs