Bomber Maiden
I suffer from insomnia. Even when I take my pills, I still struggle to fall asleep.
So it was around 1 AM, and I was watching some music videos of a creepy-looking russian old lady singing about stuff I didn't understand very well. That was when I came up with a brilliant idea: I want to play a game on my computer!
A friend of mine told me the PC version of Elden Ring got some amazing mods. I'm currently playing it on console, but I also like mods very much. My computer is too crappy to run Elden Ring, I'm afraid... So I ask, what is the next best thing? Oh, I know! A poorly made unofficial Touhou game! Everybody likes Touhou, right? It has cool characters, cool music, cool armpits. Yes, very nice.
So I decide to go to the website where they post those Doujin games, or "Anime Shovelware", as I like to call them. The most recently posted game I see on the front page is something called "Bomber Maiden". What a lovely name.
The thumbnail image depicts the protagonist of the Touhou franchise, Reimu, holding a bomb, with a jolly expression, and a fairy girl chasing her. A pretty image, to be sure. It wasn't poorly drawn, like most independent Doujin projects I've seen in the past. The visuals of the characters reminded me of box arts for old NES games. Those types of pictures that barely had anything to do with the games themselves. The description of the game was... interesting, to say the least. It was written: "It's funny game."
I presume the bloke didn't even bother testing the game, and wrote this just based on the picture alone. Understandable. But anyway, without even looking at the screenshots, I started downloading the game right away. With a description like that, how could I not? I am certainly in the mood for some roly-poly right now.
In a few seconds, the download finishes, and after extracting it, I run the executable file, which interestingly enough, was called "chiruno2d". Yeah, sure, that was the name I saw on the website. The game window opens, I am greeted by the developers' logo, and the title screen appears afterwards. I switch to fullscreen, and the image was the same as the one on the website, but there were a few differences. The resolution was lower, they also apparently left a few fragments of the image on the border of the screen, and instead of "Story Mode", the first option of the main menu was "Story Moe". Oh, yes... I get the reference. That's the kind of quality I live for, but no matter, I've definitely seen worse. I mean, have you seen those poor excuses of entertainment the kids are using on their portable devices nowadays? Blimey, I do feel sorry for the poor bastards...
Oh well, I click "Story Moe" and after selecting the difficulty, the gameplay starts. Just as I thought, it's Bomberman, but with Touhou characters. However, I don't remember Bomberman being so empty and gloomy. It was very pixelated. There were only two characters on the screen: Reimu on the right side of the map, and a green fairy on the left side. The map itself was very devoid of colours. A few greyish flowers moving with the wind, wooden pillars, no walls to blow up, and the sky was pitch black. The background music was quite relaxing. It sounded like an orchestrated version of a track from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. I would say the name of the song if I could, but the titles of the Touhou songs make no bloody sense! So I have a hard time remembering them.
After figuring out the controls, and placing some bombs for no reason, I start moving Reimu to the left, since that one green fairy was the only relevant thing on the screen, other than my character. And she was, for some reason, standing still. This is unlike any enemy from Touhou. Or even Bomberman. I get close to her, ready to place a bomb, and a dialogue line appears on the bottom of the screen, saying:
"Should of stayed there"
Nice Engrish there, mate. So, while I was looking at the phrase, the fairy vanished. I wonder what this is all about. Perhaps they are trying to be cryptic about this game's lore? Yes, I see... This is the Dark Souls of Doujin games! Before I notice it, the message "Level Completed" appears on the screen. Well, I've seen harder games before. Maybe I should have chosen the hard difficulty instead? I chose the normal one because Touhou games are usually harder than they are supposed to be, and I'm not an expert player or anything, so I'm not willing to subject myself to any unnecessary torture.
But anyway, it's clear that the difficulty doesn't matter here. That would be giving this game too much credit. It's just poorly designed. The screen then fades to black, and a new level appears. Very similar to the first one, but the edges of the screen are darker, the ground is grey, with a few candles here and there, and there is fog covering some areas of the level. The music is still calming, but less audible than before. My character spawned at the center, and there are two green fairies now. One is at a short distance from me, and the other is in a corner. I approach the fairy nearby. While I stand next to her, a new dialogue line appears:
"U want play"
What now? Do I? Do I really want play? What is this character saying? Is she asking me if I want to play with her? Or is she asking if I want a play? Like a Playstation? Or a Playmobil? Is she even asking anything at all? So many questions... I want to know!
Or not. I place a bomb next to the fairy, and she is blown away. Looks like I wasn't meant to do that, though. The other fairy has turned red, and started moving in my direction. Slowly but surely. Cautiously, maybe? That is certainly unnerving. But the worst part is that the audio has completely stopped. No music and no sound effects. Have you ever played a game on mute? It's awful. Enough to make a man sick. Or a woman. At this point, I was getting upset too, so I paused the game, browsed through my music folder and played "Resonance", by HOME, because that song is capable of cheering anyone up, right?
Ah, life is good...
I came back to the game, and the fairy is really taking her time to approach me, so I did myself a favour and moved in her direction as well. I stood next to her, kind of curious about what she would do. Nothing at all. She did say some incoherent rubbish, though:
"U angry"
I started to see a pattern here. So I casually blew her up and hanged about for a moment. The dark fog slowly started covering the entire screen, until everything was black. I still could see Reimu amidst the darkness, very faintly, with a different-coloured fairy behind her. Reimu kept looking forward, without noticing the fairy's presence, and I couldn't control her anymore.
All of a sudden, the game crashes, and so does my music player, leaving only the game folder open. But then I see it. A new text file next to the game executable. It had no file name.
I open it...
Those words... I shiver when I remember those words...
"Your awesome even when u angry"
...
Invertebrates.
I mean, illiterates.
Illiterates everywhere.
Written by Ghost With Glasses
Content is available under CC BY-SA
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