New variant I've found: 変愚蛮怒東方勝手版, Touhou Project themed Hengband variant (Japanese)

[Cryomaniac]

I haven't seen this variant mentioned at all in roguelike community; it's my favourite Heng variant and it has tons of new content, so I've decided to make a post to hopefully draw more attention (registered here mainly to post this).

First of all: This variant is in Japanese, and unlike Hengband, there's no official translation. Source code is available on author's page (and considering that Heng already has framework for translation, translating it should be theoretically possible), but its version tends to be a bit behind the latest release. I also didn't see the author leave their contact info, so working together with them might not be an option.

This variant is based on the Japanese indie bullet hell shmup series Touhou Project. The world map now represents Gensoukyou (setting of the said series), several of traditional Heng race/classes/magic schools/monsters/items/quests got replaced by more setting appropriate ones, several of them are still here, and there's also a fair amount of brand new content from the new setting. The main dungeon is still the 100-level Angband, though.

It's a minor flavor detail, but instead of being 'killed' monsters and player now get 'defeated'.

Instead of good/evil, monsters are now divided into 'lawful' and 'chaotic'.

Instead of Oberon at level 99 and Serpent at level 100, now you have to defeat Yukari Yakumo (Touhou Project character) at level 50 and Oberon at level 100; Serpent is now a postgame boss at level 127 in a postgame dungeon.

Player resistances also got changed; nexus is now unresistable, but is strictly an endgame element; equipment can grant water/time resistance; "holy" is a new resistable element

Difficulty levels are present. Easy significantly reduces the difficulty, but the game ends when you defeat Yukari (and you cannot go below level 50); Normal is easier than usual, you become *WINNER* upon defeating Yukari, but you can progress further and defeat Oberon/Serpent; Hard is regular difficulty; Lunatic is nightmare mode.

'Extra' difficulty is a separate gameplay mode similar to ironman - you start at dungeon level 1, you have to go down to level 100 and can't go back. Every 10th level is a copy of a quest level with better rewards than usual. You can find 'spellcard' items in this mode which allow you to use the special abilities of the Touhou Project characters.

Perhaps the most notable feature is the ability to play as one of the characters from the Touhou Project instead of picking race/class; each of them has their own stats modifiers, magic/melee proficiency and unique abilities. Game difficulty in this mode varies a lot - some of characters are super strong, some are a challenge even for expert players. Difficulty generally corresponds to the said character's strength in the setting.

Also, for any Touhou fans that might be here: No, this game doesn't have content from the PC-98 games. There are references to the supplementary manga works, though.

Links:

http://www.miyamasa.net/heng_th_katte.html - Author's webpage, has links to game download, source code and score servers
https://w.atwiki.jp/hengtouhou/ - Unofficial wiki (has detailed guides, both for newcomers and more experienced players; in Japanese)

[Nick]

I am aware of two possibly related variants.

The first is actually called Touhou Angband; as far as I can see it never got very far. My understanding was that it forked from Angband 3.0.9; the source is here.

The second is called TOband, and is a fork from Hengband 1.3.1. When I put it on the Variant Repository it had had several versions; I don't know whether it has progressed since (I probably should look for it some time). It's in Japanese, source is here.

I'd be interested to hear whether there is any relationship with these two. I'll aim to put this one in the repository some time.

[Cryomaniac]

From what I know, TOBand is based on Tactics Ogre and isn't related to Touhou. Touhouband is more of a parody than a variant based on the setting (it's closer to Angband with Touhou references than a Touhou fangame based on Angband).

[Nick]

Yep, that makes sense; I think I knew TO was Tactics Ogre at some point.

[smbhax]

Oh, this is interesting. Before yesterday I hadn't even been aware that there were Hengband variants, although of course I should have guessed. Does anyone have a sense as to how popular Hengband and variants are in Japan, vs how popular Angband and its more English-oriented variants (except that Hengband is back to providing English versions now, but never mind that for the sake of this question) are in the west?

For instance, I've followed Japanese console games for a while, and had certainly heard of many Touhou games, especially in the past few years, but had never heard of Hengband until I came to it through Angband; but then again I don't really know anything about Japanese non-console games so I guess that explains it, and is why I'm asking the question. : )

It was yesterday that, looking up the four current Hengband project developers listed on their Github, I found that one of them, sibakane-works aka Deskull, has made a number of Hengband variants over the years. One of them mentions Touhou. I haven't tried any of them (not sure all are playable) but reading about them is fascinating. Their home page is (these are all Google Translate links):

https://sikabane--works-net.translat..._x_tr_hl=en-US


GeorgePits (Hengband 1_7_2 variant)
https://sikabane--works-net.translat..._x_tr_sch=http
2012. 'The room generated by the "(for iron man) always generate an unusual room" config that exists in Hengband 1.7.2 is not a large vault (ROOM_T_GREATER_VAULT) but a pit room (ROOM_T_PIT or ROOM_T_NEST).

The corresponding config is turned on, but please note that if you turn it off, it will be the same as the conventional generation.'


D'angband (*)
https://deeangband-osdn-jp.translate..._x_tr_hl=en-US
2013. Lots of features listed, here are just a few:
- 'directly derived from Hengband. Other series of systems and flavors such as Nethack have also been incorporated to some extent.
The player's goal is to get the Amulet of Jender on the 50th floor of the Great Labyrinth of Destiny and join the throne of the gods, but there will be more challenges and challenges after that.'
- 'It has become possible to select a mixed race by selecting two races.'
- "Added "Chaotic Royals", "Avari", "Urk", "Olog", "Jural Alien", and "Ewok' to the new race.'


Bakabakaband (aka 'stupid stupid savagery')
https://sikabane--works-github-io.tr..._x_tr_hl=en-US
https://github-com.translate.goog/si...l=en-US#readme
Current.
(Moved to the bakabakaband thread.)



* Not to be confused with Dangband, aka "Dan's Angband," a "defunct" roguelike being worked on 15 years ago by R. Dan Henry, who left some intriguing hints in archived usegroup posts:

"there are Daleks in Dangband" - https://rec.games.roguelike.angband....l-web-presence

"Nazi tyrannosaurs with guns"- https://rec.games.roguelike.angband....-graphic-tiles

[Cryomaniac]

I'm not that familiar with what is familiar in Japanese community (I have some knowledge of Japanese language, but far from great - still enough to play this variant), but from what I've seen, Hengband is one of better known roguelikes (Heng threads are popular on their roguelike BBS, and it has separate thread from this variant as well). Other variants aren't as well known - previously mentioned TOband is also being discussed, but I haven't seen many mentions of Western variants aside from original ToME.

[smbhax]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

I'm not that familiar with what is familiar in Japanese community (I have some knowledge of Japanese language, but far from great - still enough to play this variant), but from what I've seen, Hengband is one of better known roguelikes (Heng threads are popular on their roguelike BBS, and it has separate thread from this variant as well). Other variants aren't as well known - previously mentioned TOband is also being discussed, but I haven't seen many mentions of Western variants aside from original ToME.

Is there still a Japanese roguelike BBS? All the English ones seem to have pretty much dried up as far as I can tell, so that would be impressive in its own right.

The one possible anecdote I can relate regarding relative Hengband/Angband popularity is that among the Angband gameplay videos I've made, the most popular by a factor of 2 is the one in which I mentioned Hengband in passing. (Unfortunately, YouTube is not providing detailed analytics on it so I can't tell where the viewers have come from--could just be coincidence somehow.)

[Cryomaniac]

I think this is the most active JP roguelike BBS:

https://jbbs.shitaraba.net/game/9358/

[Nick]

See this thread for .. some of the same information

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Nick

See this thread for .. some of the same information

I've made a post there with more info on that variant. It looks more of a meme/joke variant, while this one I've made this thread about (transliterated, it would be 'Hengband Touhou Katteban' - you can call it that instead of using the kanji version) is more of a faithful adaptation of Touhou Project setting as a Hengband variant (there are some minor memes, though, like playing as Yuyuko requiring a lot of food)