Gameplay basics

The game is a 2D action platformer roguelite with RPG elements (possibility to have upgrades at the end of each floor). 

A scene is started by the player having 3 HP and 3 jewels (top left) and in front of a red door.

Special abilities and dashes can be used at the cost of a jewel, which can be recharged by punching ennemies (even mid air) or by standing on the ground. 
Dash grants invincibility frames to the player up until the recovery time, with dash attack going further but having a longer recovery time. 

There's also a special bar, below the jewel counter, when charged that can be used to get invincibility frames.
Bonus time is granted if both lines are fully charged. That special gives max stats on jewel consumable abilities. Using the special button a second time invokes a big Gungnir Spear that can deal massive damage, it can be used at anytime before the gauge is fully depleted and ends the special time as well.

Fairies and kedamas, with 2 sizes, are the two main species present in scene 1, each color having a unique attack. Scene 2 adds books and scene 3 yin yang ornaments, both having less health than the rest and having 3 sizes.

Fairies will shoot different sets of bullets targetting the player, some have a bigger spread than others. Same goes for the size 2 fairies. However, bullets from size 1 fairies can be cancelled by punching and not the ones from size 2.

Kedamas will lunge in different ways, having a full hitbox around them:
- White and Blue are straight with the latter being the fastest. 
- Yellow bounce linearly in a random direction. 
- Purple are homing and may curve depending on the player's movement, but stops instantly when touching a wall. 
- Greens initially target as well but have a gravity like motion and bounce on the ground, walls and ceilings.

Books shoot a laser directly targetting the player's position. 

Yin-yang ornaments will mostly shoot in a spiral like pattern. If they are damaged by an ability other than a dash or punching, they will shoot revenge bullets toward Remilia.

Each room can have from 1 to 4 doors which will grant access to a unique room, so a room can be connected up to 4 different ones.
Up + attack to enter a door

Meiling can be found in one room as well, "complaining that she's slacking off" sufficiently enough will grant 3HP and 100 bonus points. 
Vases also give a bunch of points and 20% of 1HP, thus collecting 5 giving back 1HP.
Be aware that the bonuses will disappear if a door is entered before collecting them.

Each floor has a gatekeeper to defeat, which is a size 3 version of the kedamas or fairies. 
The green door on the map and the compass appearing on top inside the room both indicate the boss location. The first one indicates the room the boss is in while the latter indicates that Remilia is in the boss room and her position relative to it.

There is also a dangerous room that can spawn with a different bgm indicating that it will be harder than the rest of the floor by having more ennemies in it.

At the end of each floor, stats, number of jewels, their recharging time, abilities and health can be upgraded / restored before transitioning. 

Ennemies will also have higher health when going in higher floors.

At the end of the 10th floor on scene 1, 15th on 2 and 20th on 3, a boss will appear in a unique room before being able to go to a new scene.

Dying during a floor sets Remilia back one floor randomly generated again with 10HP. If it happens on floor 1 it is a new floor 1 that is generated.

Room Navigation

Unlike most roguelite / roguelike games the layout used in the game does not use a board aspect with rooms directly connected to the side but instead uses a graph like pattern.

The only connections shown in a floor are from door to door, which can lead to confusion when two of them are on top of each other or on an unrelated door.
The number of doors in a room can greatly influence the routing with the probability to get all rooms open quickly or not.
The main rule is that two doors in one room have to lead to different rooms.

Scene 1 and 2 have 6 rooms per floor. 

It is possible to get 5 of them uncovered pretty quickly.

By having a starter room (1) connected to 3 rooms (2, 3, 4), one of them having 4 doors. 
If room 2 has four doors for example; it will have to be connected to 1, 3, 4 and 5 so if the worst happens, the location of room 6 will be known quickly without too much travelling.

On the other hand it's possible to get loops and rooms that lead to nowhere (1 door rooms) thus backtrack needed.

In most cases player will have to rely on how the doors connect and how many there are to give themselves higher probabilities to reach the gatekeeper room in a short time, although plot twists can happen.

Scene 3 has 9 rooms per floor, so it will more often rely on 50/50s to move around and find the gatekeeper room, which can be next door in the starting room but not after going through the wrong path all the way through. This is also where time can be wasted the most.

It can happen in Scene 2 since it also has bigger rooms than in Scene 1 but will usually be less costly.

Run notes and ressources management

Aside from the navigation aspect, here are some basics to help for runs.

Dashes are used to move around quickly, especially useful in later scenes having much bigger rooms and avoiding projectiles with invincibility frames. 
Hence the first upgrades going for extra dashes (5 ideally for scene 1) and jewel recovery time on 4th and 5th line. 

It is very important for Scene 3 since the start will always be 3 HP and 3 jewel charges for each Scene, so getting past floor 1 quickly is often crucial there.

One would want at least 6-7 jewels overall for Scene 2 and 7-8 for 3. Dash attacks are often avoided because the recovery is much longer and often gets Remilia hit. Each hit will cost at least 1 or 2 second depending on the positioning.

There is also a dash and dash attack upgrade that make them go quicker and have less recovery time.

Upgrades on floor 2 is used for downward shuriken and upward spear upgrade (penultimate lines) to make them last longer and deal more damage and can be used for protection to cancel small rounded bullets. 
A more efficient upgrade would be to go for raw damage on 1st line but is more dangerous.
Then it's mostly focusing on upgrading the 2 abilities and stats to gain efficiency on the end scene bosses with the jewel count.

Meiling is useful to avoid spending points on health (last line), if possible maintaining at most 5HP before entering a new floor. Getting back to 2-3HP costs 50 per HP and 100 back to 4-5HP. Going higher will cost at least 500 each.

Ideally a run would want the gatekeeper to spawn in the starting room and be a fairy since they don't move a lot.
Unlike kedama bosses they can take damage at any time and have safe spots to damage them freely.

Entering doors back and forth will change the layout of the spawns, useful to try to get a boss near the green exit door.
There is a small possibility that a boss spawns inside a wall or floor, so entering a door is also useful to avoid softlocks.

Because Scene 3 can have higher enemy density rooms, special gauge can be used midway through the scene to get invincibility or to clear the gatekeeper quickly without taking big damage and still have it full for the boss.

Scene 1 boss:
Rumia can be dealt in one Special Charge cycle, but depending on the efficiency from the earlier floors, the gauge might not be fully charged upon entering Floor 10.

Scene 2 Boss:
Cirno can also be one cycled in one special charge if she stays on the ceiling with the dash attacks, requires luck otherwise it will be a lengthy fight usually.

Scene 3 Boss:
Marisa will avoid Remilia during most attacks, thus starting to the right to get her near Reimu is ideal. Both have hitboxes and on good condition can be one cycled sith the special while dealing double damage (Boss health shared).

Nome	Autore
Gameplay basics	UnPigeonVoyageur 4 years ago
Room Navigation	UnPigeonVoyageur 4 years ago
Run notes and ressources management	UnPigeonVoyageur 4 years ago