The Adventures of Ayaka
Touhou Puppet Play ~ The Adventures of Ayaka is a series of short Touhou fangames developed using the Essentials Game Development Engine for RPG Maker XP. It tells the story of a human from the village, Ayaka, as she travels across Gensokyo on various adventures, ranging from the Misty Lake, to Youkai Mountain, even so far as The Moon. Each game is designed to be short, and take no more than 5 hours to beat on average. The three episodes covered in this game are The Mansion of Mystery, The Festival of Curses, and The Kingdom of Lunacy. There is also a small, final chapter after all three episodes have been finished. The sections below contain untiltered spoilers for the entirety of the game
The Mansion of Mystery
The Mansion of Mystery was developed as part of the Pokecommunity "Blinded by the Fright" Game Jam. It revolves around Ayaka and her friends, Kota, Shinji, and Maya, as they attempt to break out of the Human Village and investigate the rumor about music coming from an abandoned mansion near the Misty Lake. Their journey has them stumbling through the Forest of Magic, then being led to the Misty Lake, where they eventually enter the Ruined Western Mansion and encounter the Prismriver Sisters, the ones responsible for the music.
This game was initially developed with a Good End and two Bad Ends. The bad ends are triggered if the player loses too many times in battle, to emulate official Touhou games. To preserve the content, but make it much more forgiving, the amount of losses required to trigger the bad end has been increased dramatically from its initial value of 5. There is no inherent penalty for getting the bad end, as it will still count the story as cleared for the purposes of the greater story, especially as the player can revisit episodes later on.
The Festival of Curses
The Festival of Curses was developed as part of the Relic Castle Winter Game Jam, where the challenge was to use per-determined assets in the game somehow. It revolves around the Village Harvest Festival, where Ayaka and her friends are currently partaking in the activities of it, when they suddenly receive grim news- the entire Village's crops are cursed and withering away. Ayaka is sent to locate the Curse Goddess, Hina Kagiyama, to try and reverse the curse on the Village, and also to find the perpetrator. Thanks to help from an unexpected source, it is revealed that the caster of the curse was Medicine Melancholy, enraged after the events of Touhoumon Asteria, and believing that Humans are just manipulating and abusing her kin.
This game makes heavy use of mid-battle scripting, especially in the battle against Medicine. This provides a more cinematic, challenging experience. The game also has a plethora of minigames and shops as part of the Harvest Festival attractions; Shizuha's Leaf Collection, Keine's Quiz Hall, Minoriko's Delicacy Stand, Alices Puppet Boutique, Prismriver Haunted Mansion, and the primary attraction, the Human Village Tournament.
The Kingdom of Lunacy
The Kingdom of Lunacy is a reinterpretation of Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, but it puts Ayaka in the seat as primary protagonist. Puppets have been disappearing all over Gensokyo, and the land around Youkai Mountain has been purified- nobody knows what's going on, and people are concerned. After taking part in a special exhibition match, she encounters Reisen Udongein Inaba, who implores her to come to Eientei because of a situation. Upon arriving at the clinic, Eirin and Reisen challenge Ayaka to test how capable she is, and after emerging victorious, Eirin informs them that Gensokyo is under invasion by the Lunar Capital, and reveals that the Capital is the one that has been abducting Puppets for some unknown end.
The game follows the standard plot of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom up until they reach the Lunar Capital, which is currently being besieged by Fairies on all fronts, causing Ayaka to sneak through until she eventually finds the Lunar Goddess, Sagume Kishin. Before Ayaka can get answers out of Sagume, the Hell Fairies launch a full scale attack on the Capital, attemptng to break through the baricade to the Palace. Sagume and Ayaka team up to drive off the fairies, and then meet Clownpiece, before dispatching her aftr a mentally taxing battle. At long last, Ayaka travels to the Sea of Tranquility, where she battles against and defeats Junko. After that, Hecatia Lapislazuli, a Goddess of Hell, shows up, and the two retreat to Hecatia's Lunar Palace at the Sea of the Edge, where they are met up with one of the four primary protagonists of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom to make the battle be a 12 on 12 double battle.
This game is considerably more challenging than the other two games, and does make some use of mid-battle scripting for more cinematic battles.
The Last Adventure
The Last Adventure is the final episode of The Adventures of Ayaka, intended to be considerably short, with the equivalent of only one "stage" in the parlance of the game. After finishing all three episodes, the game prompts the player to interact with a new object at the Tower of Adventure, where they'll discover that the sky of the World of Fantasies is warping and distorting. She is informed by Doremy Sweet, Ruler of the Dream World, that Ayaka is at the center of this incident somehow, and that she is the only one who can resolve it. Ayaka then travels down the Tower of Adventure, battling against phantasm deplicates of the Prismriver Sisters, Medicine Melancholy, Junko, and Hecatia Lapislazuli. After exiting the tower and navigating the World of Fantasies, they reach Reimaden and encounter the Five Magic Stones and Mima having an argument, only for that argument to get interupted when Ayaka tries to get answers and Mima charges at Ayaka demanding she pay for what she's done, and forces Ayaka into a battle. After the battle, Mima admits that she and the Stones were testing Ayaka's metle to see if she truly could handle the situation at hand, a situation which Mima begins to explain in full detail.
Mima encountered an entity of great power within Reimaden and begun training it as her apprentice as part of her plans to overtake Reimu Hakurei and obtain the power of the Hakurei Clan. This entity is one that managed to will itself into existence, and had control over the manipulation of Reality and Fantasy. One day, the entity had managed to give itself a form, one resembling that of Reimu, as a result of all the stories that Mima told her. The entity's powers kept growing and growing, and soon they were able to enter people's dreams and observe them, which is how she learned of Puppets, and begun to manifest Puppets never seen before into reality. Eventually she stumbled into Ayaka's dreams and grew enthralled by them, wanting to become just like her and go on adventures like her, which doubled her resolve to get stronger and become truly real, and able to manifest herself outside of the World of Fantasies. However, Mima explains that her power grew to rapidly, and as a result of the rapid growth, it begun going haywire and rebounding, with the risk of completely destroying all of Reality as a whole, leaving Ayaka, the entity's idol, to be the only one who can resolve the incident. It is at this time that Mima mentions the name of the entity- Meimu, The Girl Who Seeks Reality Through Dreams.
After being led to where Meimu is, Mima departs and leaves Ayaka to face the rapidly destabilizing girl who is trying to close the rift that is in the sky. Meimu is taken aback by the fact that Ayaka is there and, after conversing with her, realizes that she, her idol, is here to stop her from achieving her goals of becoming real. In an instant she materializes a plethora of Puppets surrounding Ayaka and battles against her with all of them at once. After defeating all of the Puppets, the final showdown between Ayaka and her Puppets against Meimu herself begins.
This game, being an incredibly short, cinematic one, makes extremely heavy use of mid-battle scripting, especially in the fight against Meimu. It is intended for the player to be at Level 100 by the time they finish all three episodes, and so there is no wild Puppets to battle or capture at all. Going through grass will have the player battling against "anomalies", which are basically trainers that will use familiar teams of Puppets.
Connections to Asteria
After the player finishes The Last Adventure, an internal flag will be triggered that will allow the player to transfer certain rewards to Touhoumon Asteria, specifically the Puppet variant of Meimu, as well as certain items.