Touhou 19.5 Theorisation

[HartWurst]

Now that Touhou 19 has been out for a while, what do you think Touhou 19.5 will be like? Who will be playable? What genre will it be? What will the mechanics be?

[williewillus]

Judging from past history, now would be the time for tasofro to make a .5 game, but given how long 17.5 spent in dev hell and the lack of clarity of whether they're even making games anymore, I wouldn't expect anything. Hopefully ZUN takes a break and can give th20 more love and care and thought than usual given it's the 20th game of the series.

[HartWurst]

Judging from past history, now would be the time for tasofro to make a .5 game, but given how long 17.5 spent in dev hell and the lack of clarity of whether they're even making games anymore, I wouldn't expect anything.

Yeah, with the development hell 17.5 went through its hard to say if tasofro would be willing to make a new subgame. And if they don't, then I'm unsure if ZUN would be willing to get a group to replace them. Ideally they could make an expansion to AoCF as 19.5 like how AoCF was an expansion of ULiL, but there isn't a connection between AoCF and the events of the 17 onwards.

[degradingwindow]

Lets look at the possibilities:

- Fighting game: I'm personally betting my money on this one. I don't believe that it would be a sequel or expansion to AoCF, Tasofro probably has burnout from making basically the same thing. This is a golden opportunity for them to wipe the slate clean and make a whole new game with new mechanics and fighting style. 
- Unique STG: I highly doubt 19.5 will be this as ZUN already did 100 Black Market and because the 20th entry will likely be very important to the series, he will probably be too busy working on it to have the time to make a spin-off which is another reason why I believe that this year Tasofro is more likely to make a comeback.
- Camera game: Same problem as above. But, I think this option is more probable because ZUN hasn't done one of these in a long while.
- Platformer STG: More SFW type games is also a likely option. An expansion sequel is more likely considering how Tasofro works but id prefer something that's more different than just adding on to already existing gameplay. Honestly, I'm just hoping for a Marisa Land 3.
- Something Wild: ZUN proved with SFW that he is willing to publish something that is just a complete 180 degree (or should I say... 90 degree) turn. He might just replace Tasofro with a whole other team and make a Touhou first-person shooter or even a Touhou visual novel. But I don't think ZUN would throw Tasofro under the bus at a moment's notice considering he's been working with them for 21 years at this point.
- Nothing: Probable but I doubt ZUN will break the 15 year pattern of releasing at least 1 spin-off.


What I wish it would be:
- Castlevania-style Remilia game

[WitheringFlowerCrown]

The Most probable in my opinion might be either another Fighting Game or an Action-Platformer ala Sunken Fossil World.
The 20th game in the series (or 20th year, game, etc. in anything ever) is often special with no explanation, so ZUN is probably going to try and one-up himself like he tried in the past. So with ZUN spending effort on that, the other option is Twilight Frontier (TasoFro), I have slight doubts that they would continue at their current pace given the infamous Development Hell-adjacent that was Sunken Fossil World, but they might decide to just continue marching on and if they do then I'm going to be worried for their health.
This is all assuming that we get a 19.5 game spin-off in the first place. They could skip it and this becomes the "Touhou 20.5 Theorisation" Thread. But more chances to see novel takes on bullet dodging probably keeps those folks alive. I know it keeps me alive.

[HartWurst]

- Something Wild: ZUN proved with SFW that he is willing to publish something that is just a complete 180 degree (or should I say... 90 degree) turn. He might just replace Tasofro with a whole other team and make a Touhou first-person shooter or even a Touhou visual novel. But I don't think ZUN would throw Tasofro under the bus at a moment's notice considering he's been working with them for 21 years at this point.

I don't think ZUN would be willing to throw Tasofro under the bus, but I'm unsure of Tasofro would be willing to work on another Touhou subgame so soon after the trouble they had with Gouyoku Ibun

[degradingwindow]

I'd rather want Tasofto to make Super Marisa Land 3 than to work on 19.5, that series needs a revival.

[Goomba98]

This is all assuming that we get a 19.5 game spin-off in the first place. They could skip it and this becomes the "Touhou 20.5 Theorisation" Thread.

Or they could end up releasing 19.5 after 20. I mean, that's happened three times before - IaMP, AoCF, and SFW were all released after IN, HSiFS, and UM respectively!

I'm up for the possibility that the next spinoff might be something like Great Fairy Wars, where it introduces a new mechanic to the standard danmaku gameplay and happens to be related to one of the print works. Of course, the only reason I'm saying this is because that game came out all the way back in 2010 and we haven't had anything comparable since, but that's still a valid reason to make another game along these lines!