A Guide to Touhou Mobile Apps

[Pinky Cat]

There are four domains that Touhou mobile apps can fall under: Gacha, Collaboration, Derivative Games, and Indie/Doujin Game Development. This is to describe the differences in development styles for Touhou apps and the purposes these apps are created for. Depending on what one looks for in a Touhou mobile app, there may be traits given by a domain that a Touhou app are undesirable, thus the need to categorize Touhou apps under domains.

1. Gacha

These are Touhou apps created with approval by Team Shanghai Alice (TSA) for their use of monetization methods supported by elements of gacha games. Since these games can earn revenue monetize the game, the development team can afford the budget to create high-quality art/music for the game. It is thanks to this quality that it can serve as a gateway to Touhou for those on mobile devices.

Examples

Active Games:

• Touhou LostWord - Released 2020, developed by Good Smile Company and Next Ninja.
   
• 东方ArcadiaRecord - Released 2022, developed by KLab and DAMO GAMES.
   
• Gensou Eclipse - Released 2023, developed by CAVE.
  

Dead Games:

• Touhou Cannonball - Active from 2019 - 2020, developed by Aniplex.
   
• Touhou Danmaku Kagura - Active from 2021 - 2022, developed by Unknown X whose organization included AQUASTYLE, DeNA, and xeen. This game would be later remade as Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost.
   
• Touhou Dungeon Dive - Active from 2020 - 2024, developed by STAR FACTORY and SEVEN VOLT.
  

2. Collaboration

Mobile collaborations of Touhou are technically not a form of a Touhou app, but any mention of Touhou on mobile is rare, so these collaborations shall be mentioned. Most of these collaborations are rhythm games thanks to their licensing of Touhou music, but there are two notable exceptions to the rhythm game Touhou collabs.
They would be Dandy Dungeon and Rakugaki Kingdom, who both got the collab due to the development team’s close connections with ZUN.

Examples

• Dandy Dungeon – A roguelike RPG game developed by Onion Games. It has since been rereleased on Steam/Switch with the Touhou collab brought over to the Steam/Switch version, so this odd collab is still playable today. For the original mobile version, the collab was ran from November 2016.
   
• Rakugaki Kingdom - A RPG gacha game that features a character creator based on Taito’s Graffiti Kingdom, though the game was only active during 2021. During the launch of the game, a Reimu model was given out to all players. Then, from April 2021, a full Touhou collab was ran.
   
• Muse Dash
   
• Taiko no Tatsujin Pop Tap Beat
   
• Rhythmically Danmaku: Gensokyo’s (un)Official Guide to Music Games - A 2018 Reddit post about where else can Touhou be found on rhythm games.
  

3. Derivative Games

Derivative Games refer to games that are based on another game, usually being a reskin due to their ease of effort. However, there are some games that try to change the mechanics to fit with the Touhou themes, which will be mentioned under “Examples” to award their efforts.

Examples

• Touhou Pixel Dungeon: Reloaded – Based on Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
   
• Sweeper Of Suika – Based on Soukoban. This app can no longer be found on the app store, but the apk has been archived on IA.
   
• Touhou ThousandNightAnamnesis – A mobile attempt at the Touhou danmaku games.
  

4. Indie/Doujin Game Development

These are the apps that either are original game concepts, are artistic doujin works, or are ports of Touhou fangames on PC. This is the most interesting domain of Touhou apps as it helps bring quality genres to the mobile space and push the boundaries on what mobile phones can do.
Note, that not all apps are on the app store. Some of them are only on Itch.io or on the app creator’s website.

Examples
Recent Apps

• Cirno’s Bomb-Tastic Adventure – A puzzle game that can become challenging to solve. This has been translated into English and is available on iOS and Android.
   
• Touhou Dreamer Runner – A rhythm game that features Youmu beating her enemies on the beat. This game was developed for and won Touhou Fan Game Jam 8.
   
• Minecraft vs. Zombies II – It’s a PvZ game that happens to include Touhou as a part of its plot. Still, this in-development game offers a fresh spin on the PvZ formula.
   
• 雛ちゃんブレイカー2ndBreak - Basically competitive Angry Birds.
   
• Ar Awoo - An augmented reality app featuring Momiji.
   
• 东方夏夜祭 ~ Shining Shooting Star – The real mobile port of a Touhou danmaku game. This app is a port of 东方夏夜祭 ~ Shining Shooting Star from PC, sometimes considered one of the best Touhou fangames of the danmaku genre.
  

Artistic Doujin Creations

• 幻想酒宴 – A Touhou art collab for C79.
   
• KagekiApp – A Touhou art collab for a Yuuka-themed Touhou event.
   
• 幻想紅魔画報+α ScarletFiles#2.5 - A collection of Live2D animated art of Remilia Scarlet and Flandre Scarlet.
  

Old Apps

• ISY’s Android Apps – From 2013 – 2021, ISY created quite a lot of Touhou apps for Android. Despite these apps being Japanese only, his sense of humor that one may recognize coming off of a game like 雛ちゃんブレイカー2ndBreak can still be felt in these mobile apps.
   
• Touhou Maglev Car – About driving a car with the use of magnets, hence the name “Maglev Car”. It’s a bit unbalanced for the player, but at least the game was translated into English.
   
• -東方- 霊夢無双・弐 – A quickdraw game featuring the PCB cast. It tries to mess with the player’s ability to tap the targets by using the character’s abilities on the target.
  

Lost Apps

• 東方知霊奏 – A Touhou parody of QMA, a fast-paced multiplayer quiz show game. There was once an iOS port of 東方知霊奏 being developed and tested, but was never published on the official app store.
  

Overall, there are a lot more to Touhou mobile apps than just gacha games and is frankly an untouched space for Touhou to spread into. The development of indie Touhou apps as few and obscure as they are, show the potential of high quality Touhou apps, offering the Touhou experience on a device that everyone has, the mobile phone.

[Branneg Xy]

!  !
A wholesome appreciated,   laudable and helpful Initiative with" Service" of  analytics&warnings*, of resuming. and organized descriptions,  for the Touhou Mobile(/cross-to-Mobile-) (apps).

Without meaning to be or foster  presumptuousness, which is the among the top-worst among the bad...  consequences... ... nor confusion, boredom, any bad etc.  but on the complete good anc better opposites...  this really nice and interesting Effort plus "Service" and more importantly the Hopefully future to come could keep becoming even better, by also being constant through neutral,well-meant, free, willing helpful choices, works..

Better by keep becoming a Thread Reference/Caller/" ".
It would be enough alike but likely on a single or fewer threads basis, than the "The (東方 Touhou)MMD Videos. Announced release( on this nice sub-board on our dear MotK(V3)Forums & Discord rel. " ... variety to be expanded-sustained  on languages, cultures,  society, experience within or "outsourcing "people&rel. ..in the Mobile(/cross-to-Mobile) (apps) aspects.
*In the instances of "hacked, vulnerable, nonetheless still security-related/violations"" through * legal-justice-coscientiousness troubles -alas still unresolved and"uncompensated" "- *东方ArcadiaRecord – A illegal Touhou gacha game that breaks the rules of TSA(Team coShangai Alice), thus this game should not be played"
-... sundry  ambiguities, clarifications, important-ish statuses o be discerning about.... they could more or less simply be resulting also around "temporary" discontinuity, hiatus, replacements,   "cross-regional,alter.validationslimits,  availability, early-accessing, play-testing"and so foth
! !

[Pinky Cat]

Apologies, I can't tell what exactly you are trying to say, but I should of given a source for why I marked 东方ArcadiaRecord as "illegal". Basically, what that article stated on the game the issue with this game is that the company behind its development has a history of plagiarism with other gacha games, and this is no different with 东方ArcadiaRecord. Art was stolen, they lied about getting permission from TSA, etc.

https://mimidoshima.wordpress.com/2021/04/27/did-i-just-read-ip-laws-for-the-sake-of-touhou/

[Suspicious person]

Ain't all that "illegal" talk old news, though? The issues you bring there are ones that were identified and brought up during announcement and pre-registration period (even complaints from people whose arts were used without permission for their promo), not to mention the post being from 2021, and the issues the game was criticized for are not found in it currently. So a bit of an outdated talking point imo, tbh.

Unless you're referring to more actual issues, in which case further clarification would be appreciated (haven't followed this game for a bit, so not exactly sure if there are additionnal issues post release)

Besides there's little reason for ZUN and friends to not take action or shut the whole thing down if it didn't have their approval (it's a gacha game ( with visibility and monetization scheme) that claims to have had their ok, you generally don't get off scott free with such claim if there wasn't some truth to it)

The truth of the matter to me is pretty simple : ZUN gave his green light to a group that's done suspicious practices (their previous game had chara designs that are essentially Touhou-OC-please-don't-steal for example) in the past & during the announcement, but that's in the past and has little bearing with the current state of the game, and I haven't heard of similar scummy practices popping out these days.

[Pinky Cat]

Following up research into Arcadia Record post launch, there doesn't appear to be any more issues related to copyright. So, I can't reasonably believe that the game itself is "illegal" in the point that the game itself is breaking any guidelines at this point.