Finding Imperishable Night

[Regdren]

Hi. I've been a fan of shmups since...does Centipede count? Recently I found out about Imperishable night but can't seem to find it for sale anywhere. With a search I found the IM high score thread with store links but those were out of stock. Any tips on finding this game?

[MX7]

Seconded. There's quite a few Touhou games i'd like to track down.

[KennyMan666]

http://www.paletweb.com is probably the very best site for buying the Touhou games, and other doujin software in general. I have shopped from there myself, and I can only praise them.

Also, their support is fantastic. Once I mailed them and asked if they had any plans on getting a certain game, and just a few hours later they had it up and for sale.

Edit: Ah, I see they're sold out on IN.

But like I said, their support wins - just send them an e-mail asking if they are going to restock it soon.

[Danny]

Yeah Kenny is right, brought pretty much all of the PC (not PC98) ToHo games from that shop other than the fighting game.

Saying that there is always himeyashop which is a little more exspensive but might also have the games your looking for in stock when Palletweb does not.

EDIT: Holy cow HS are also out of stock... oh dear...

[Regdren]

I sent an e-mail to Palletweb about IN and I got this response:

There is not stock of this item in Shanghai Alice.
We cannot get this item until Shanghai Alice press again this item.

IN is out of print! It's not even on e-bay. What can be done now?

[Danny]

I sent an e-mail to Palletweb about IN and I got this response:

There is not stock of this item in Shanghai Alice.
We cannot get this item until Shanghai Alice press again this item.

IN is out of print! It's not even on e-bay. What can be done now?

Not much can be done (legaly) if it's out of print it's out of print. Oh man this means that perhaps in the future that there might be a price hike on Yahoo Japan/Ebay.

[system11]

I think Himeya still have it.

[Never_Scurred]

I think Himeya still have it.

Nope, just checked.....

[kong]

I'm pretty sure the Touhou series usually gets extra print runs. Maybe we'll see more around the next Comiket in August.

[Icarus]

Oh man this means that perhaps in the future that there might be a price hike on Yahoo Japan/Ebay.

I smell a business opportunity.

[Danny]

Oh man this means that perhaps in the future that there might be a price hike on Yahoo Japan/Ebay.

I smell a business opportunity.

Yeah I can see people already buying more than one copy of that title in the future when it becomes avliable. Fortunatley for me though I already own it but maybe if there is no reprint people might be more willing to part with there copies knowing that they might make some extra profit out of it. I won't be selling mine though, I like the game way to much to part with it.

[captain ahar]

bike banditz is also fun, alls you have to do is crank it up to hardest.

[neorichieb1971]

What are the technical requirements for this game? Just XP?

Also, if anyone finds out this game has been restocked can someone shout loud and hard..

[MX7]

Sigh. I'm downloading a shitload of th stuff as I type. I feel dirty, but rest assured, if I ever do find any physical copies floating around that are not ridiculously priced, i'll be snapping them up.

[Ceph]

The Touhou games are reprinted regularily, afaik. So it's unlikely this will become rare. Just wait a while for the next print to show up.

[Ozymandiaz1260]

Sigh. I'm downloading a shitload of th stuff as I type. I feel dirty, but rest assured, if I ever do find any physical copies floating around that are not ridiculously priced, i'll be snapping them up.

[dai jou bu]

I know the guys at hendane! had some copies of the Touhou games running around, (they even had the super-rare IaMP OST for only 4 dollars over the price on Paletweb when they still had it) although they probably aren't listing much of their stuff on their website right now since it's anime convention season.

[SFKhoa]

Well, I just happened to have found a copy of $20 CND. Yay anime conventions.

Guess what, it was hendane that set up a shop in the convention and started selling Touhou games for really cheap.

[Twiddle]

Sigh. I'm downloading a shitload of th stuff as I type. I feel dirty, but rest assured, if I ever do find any physical copies floating around that are not ridiculously priced, i'll be snapping them up.

[PROMETHEUS]

I'm surprised Imperishable Nights and the other touhou games are actually even sold :/ I hope they're really cheap, I mean their patterns are funky but they got really cheap art and music and level design and everything :/

[Motorherp]

I'm surprised Imperishable Nights and the other touhou games are actually even sold :/ I hope they're really cheap, I mean their patterns are funky but they got really cheap art and music and level design and everything :/

We're talking about one guy on his own doing it all which is just incredibly awesome. These are really fun games and the guy definately deserves some returns for his efforts. Dont ever let production values overshadow your opinions of gameplay and worth. That's what is so wrong with the general games buying public at the moment and it really hurts the industry.

[PROMETHEUS]

Of course I'm impressed that this guy is doing this all alone and I do think he deserves compensation, but I'd feel weird if I saw his games for sale for more than 20$. Game companies put a lot more effort and money into their games, in the form of a team working on it for a very long time, and I do think the games they produce most often have more value than the touhou stuff, meaning they're more interesting and worthy of investing some money into.

I don't understand how thinking like that hurts the industry.

Then again it's fine if some people are willing to give money to the creator of the touhou games, I'm only surprised that it is happening in the form of a burned copy. I'd have no reluctance donating like 5$ to this guy via paypal or something myself.

[Motorherp]

Of course I'm impressed that this guy is doing this all alone and I do think he deserves compensation, but I'd feel weird if I saw his games for sale for more than 20$. Game companies put a lot more effort and money into their games, in the form of a team working on it for a very long time, and I do think the games they produce most often have more value than the touhou stuff, meaning they're more interesting and worthy of investing some money into.

I don't understand how thinking like that hurts the industry.

Then again it's fine if some people are willing to give money to the creator of the touhou games, I'm only surprised that it is happening in the form of a burned copy. I'd have no reluctance donating like 5$ to this guy via paypal or something myself.

Of course you cant expect to pay the same amount as for a proper commercial title since less has been invested, however there definately shouldn't be a linear relationship between team size and cost of game. Remember that for indy developers they aren't being payed a wage buy a company for their time and investment, all their returns are loaded at the end of the project. Also they cant expect to sell even a small fraction of what commercial games do simply because they dont have the marketting and are fighting against the current holywood blockbuster film style attitude of the games buying public. As such they have to charge something reasonable to make it worth their time and effort.

The reason this attitude hurts the industry is because the game buying masses are becoming increasingly unwilling to splash cash on something they cant consider to be a safe bet after looking at the back of the box and screen shots for a few minutes. Because of this games have to be absolutely loaded with high production values and hence the price of games creation is shooting through the roof to the point where for any company to even consider making a competing game they need financial support. However the people who give financial support will only back games that have a good chance of success according to their market analysis which is based on the games buyers. Therefore games developers are forced into avenues of development where they are unable to experiment with new and risky gameplay ideas, and small studios and indies are pushed out all together. This is all strangling the creativity of the scene and is creating a stale environment which wont change until the games buying masses change their opinions about what they're willing to spend money on.

[Regdren]

I guess I'll buy the next one when it comes out. I'm not too big on importing most of the time and don't have modded game systems so the Touhou series is about all I can get when it comes to moderrn shmups. Not that I'm complaining. From the vids I've seen the Touhou games have some of the more creative patterns out there, and I don't care too much about big explosions. For those I can just play Ikaruga or Gradius V again.

[PROMETHEUS]

Of course you cant expect to pay the same amount as for a proper commercial title since less has been invested, however there definately shouldn't be a linear relationship between team size and cost of game. Remember that for indy developers they aren't being payed a wage buy a company for their time and investment, all their returns are loaded at the end of the project. Also they cant expect to sell even a small fraction of what commercial games do simply because they dont have the marketting and are fighting against the current holywood blockbuster film style attitude of the games buying public. As such they have to charge something reasonable to make it worth their time and effort.

The reason this attitude hurts the industry is because the game buying masses are becoming increasingly unwilling to splash cash on something they cant consider to be a safe bet after looking at the back of the box and screen shots for a few minutes. Because of this games have to be absolutely loaded with high production values and hence the price of games creation is shooting through the roof to the point where for any company to even consider making a competing game they need financial support. However the people who give financial support will only back games that have a good chance of success according to their market analysis which is based on the games buyers. Therefore games developers are forced into avenues of development where they are unable to experiment with new and risky gameplay ideas, and small studios and indies are pushed out all together. This is all strangling the creativity of the scene and is creating a stale environment which wont change until the games buying masses change their opinions about what they're willing to spend money on.

Mmmh, I'm not sure I really understand how it strangles creativity. Can't large companies be very creative too ? Look at Gas Powered Games releasing Supreme Commander : that's a pretty creative RTS trying to explore new horizons (more or less successfully ;p) (although I did hear in an interview that they had trouble finding a producer). And what about games like Darwinia ? This was developped by a really really small company (it's not really even a company if I recall well), and it's definitely an extremely creative game. It seems those guys somehow did find the means to release the game to a large audience. I don't really know why and how, though.

I see the point you're making, but if that's how the things are going, it means that right now the video game industry is sacrificing part of its creativity in favor of large productions, in favor of games developped with very large means. So even if we're losing in creativity, maybe we're gaining in polish / refinement ?

My attitude with buying games is that I try a lot of different games and only buy the ones I liked best (a few of them each year). So this could include small production games if one attracts me as much as a larger production game. But it's rarely the case :[ (I find myself buying stuff like UT2003, DOOM3, Painkiller, Supreme commander.... not darwinia or touhou games :O)

[Motorherp]

Supreme Commander is hardly creative. They've just taken the standard RTS formula thats been flogged to death since 1992 and just made it more so. I'm not saying that developers dont try and be creative, of course developers want to be, its just that most that try end up suffering for it. Darwinia really didn't sell after all, and most games that differ from the formulas dont either. The industry is getting really unstable due to costs and nature of the market and studios are going under all the time. And just to rub salt in wound I'm constantly coming across people moaning about the lack of creativiy but who are the same people who refuse to support the struggling end of the industry with cold hard cash.

Of course I'm not saying that all these non-creative blockbuster style games are bad, I can understand why people want to buy them. They certainly have there place, but I just wish there was more room for the more innovative games to do well and its this lack that is making the scene stale and hurting the small studios and the industry as a whole in turn. In my opinion there's only so long you can polish the same turd till the smell becomes unbearable .

[SamIAm]

Of course you cant expect to pay the same amount as for a proper commercial title since less has been invested, however there definately shouldn't be a linear relationship between team size and cost of game. Remember that for indy developers they aren't being payed a wage buy a company for their time and investment, all their returns are loaded at the end of the project. Also they cant expect to sell even a small fraction of what commercial games do simply because they dont have the marketting and are fighting against the current holywood blockbuster film style attitude of the games buying public. As such they have to charge something reasonable to make it worth their time and effort.

The reason this attitude hurts the industry is because the game buying masses are becoming increasingly unwilling to splash cash on something they cant consider to be a safe bet after looking at the back of the box and screen shots for a few minutes. Because of this games have to be absolutely loaded with high production values and hence the price of games creation is shooting through the roof to the point where for any company to even consider making a competing game they need financial support. However the people who give financial support will only back games that have a good chance of success according to their market analysis which is based on the games buyers. Therefore games developers are forced into avenues of development where they are unable to experiment with new and risky gameplay ideas, and small studios and indies are pushed out all together. This is all strangling the creativity of the scene and is creating a stale environment which wont change until the games buying masses change their opinions about what they're willing to spend money on.

That was maybe the best summary of what is wrong with the game industry, or at least this particular facet of the problem, that I have ever read. Well put.

[Kamakazie]

Its funny you mention Darwinia. The company responsible for that game, Introversion, is probably the only indie software company that gets any press these days. Be sure to check out their other games, Uplink and Defcon.

Also, Supreme Commander certainly isn't innovative, but its still a fantastic RTS. Its a bit of a change from other recent RTS offerings, but it feels somewhat oldschool (especially if you're familiar with Total Annihilation) and at the same time modern due to the immense scale of the game and overall polish. Its well-balanced, has a high learning curve, is constantly stressful and due to sheer variety of possible assaults, no two games are the same.

But back onto innovation - its not only that many games are being made alike simply to appeal to the masses, its also true that many developers simply lack the vision to create something new or different. A company like Relic seems to understand what it takes to make something awesome; they are responsible for games like Homeworld, Dawn of War and Company of Heroes, all of which do something different for the RTS formula and are generally well-recieved (Company of Heroes won several PC GotY titles), proving that even if you're working with a well-versed genre, you can still introduce some new gameplay ideas that completely change the way you view the game (in relation to other strategy games) and still make lots of sales.

[PROMETHEUS]

Do you play on GPGNet Kamakazie ?
I like Supreme Commander but like every single RTS that came out since 1998, it's failing to be anywhere as deep as Starcraft is. When you've played this one competitively, all other RTS seem pretty shallow.

Anyway, I like stuff like Homeworld or Darwinia for example, but I do think they have certain flaws that you won't find in more standard games (for example, 3D gameplay in Homeworld makes for nice views and interesting gameplay, but it totally destroys readability of situations and accurate control. It also seem to prevent any possibilities of making interesting maps with various objects and space configuration that interact with each other to create variety and depth in gameplay.).

Now, maybe if more developers tried to make stuff like Homeworld, they would discover that you can make a game of that sort while keeping good control and making nice maps... or maybe it's really not possible and it was only a step in the "wrong" direction in term of gameplay.

The same could be said of Darwinia, although it's not really a RTS and it's only meaning to be a nice little game to enjoy casually. When it comes down to RTS or FPS, most of the time we're talking about competition between players, so a RTS or FPS that is made for competition does indeed need to be extremely polished and needs to deny any frivolous new ideas.

Anyway, what I mean is : while the game industry may be hurt by the process you're mentioning, it should not be forgotten that there are good reasons for developers to avoid being too creative and stay on familiar grounds : because those familiar genres that have been built over the years really are the best that was discovered. They represent the most optimized interface between the player and the virtual environment they're interacting with. And that's just what you need to fully enjoy skilled competitive games or artistic games alike.

By the way, we're talking on a forum dedicated to shmups and I do believe it is one of the genres that changed the less over the year. Modern shmups have extremely similar gameplay to old school shmups dating from the 80s. Polishing this gameplay type over the years lead to manic, which I believe is 1000 times more refined and interesting than the old school stuff, and games that tried breaking rules ended up being not as good. Look how almost every single shmup is broken down into stages, with a boss at the end of each. Even homebrew shmups that have no obligation to follow any rule follow the same model. There might be some exceptions, but you know what I mean. So maybe we're missing opportunities to create new 3D gameplay shmups or something, but at the same time I don't believe in "there's only so long you can polish the same turd till the smell becomes unbearable" !

[PROMETHEUS]

Actually writing all this stuff made me think a lot : maybe that's why Starcraft is still the best even though it came out in 1998, maybe there's not much more room for RTS to get better. In that case "there's only so long you can polish the same turd till the smell becomes unbearable" holds more truth @_@

The same is happening with stuff like Quake 3. For the first time I believe, progamers said when leaving quake 3 for quake 4 that they weren't very happy with it because they think quake 3 is the best, but they have to play quake 4 for money and fame now.