Rainbow Cave Raid

HISTORY

Rainbow Cave Raid is a vertically-scrolling Touhou shoot'em up fangame made by kobito in 2022. It consists of only one stage, with a large emphasis on scoring over simply making it to the end and intending to provide a faster pace than usually seen in Touhou games. It can be downloaded for free here.

Rainbow Cave Raid

Title screen

Gameplay Overview

Rainbow Cave Raid uses three buttons, and only features a single playable character (Reimu Hakurei) with no alternate shot types.

The game features 3 difficulty levels: Novice, Arcade and Extended. Novice reduces the number of enemy bullets, while Extended adds a harder second and third loop.

There are also game modes: Original and Arrange. These feature different versions of the Burst system and different scoring systems.

Controls

Z: Fires the player's shot.

X: Uses a Burst if one is available.

Shift: Activates focus mode while held, reducing movement speed and condensing the player's shot.

Shot

The unfocused shot spreads out and covers a large portion of the screen. It's also slightly more powerful than the focused shot (at 272 damage per second as opposed to the focused shot's 264), but the player must get very close to enemies for all four option shots to hit.

The focused shot only fires directly in front, but still covers a little over a fourth of the screen width.

Burst

The Burst system is this game's equivalent to bombs. A Burst may be used when the gauge in the bottom left corner of the screen is full. Additional Bursts cannot be stocked, so it's a good idea to use them frequently and let the next one start charging. The gauge simply fills over time (0.2% per frame, about 8.33 seconds for a full charge).

Bursts cancel all bullets in their area of effect on the frame they're used, and will deal damage to all enemies in their radius for half a second after that.

In Arrange mode, Bursts charge slower over time (0.16% per frame, about 10.42 seconds for a full charge), have a larger area of effect and deal increased damage (5 damage per frame instead of 2.2). It's worth noting that Bursts can be charged via certain actions in this mode (explained later), allowing them to be used more frequently overall.

Items

Original Mode

Note: "Item rate" refers to the amount each collected pickup increases the corresponding item counter.

Arrange Mode

Both modes also feature extend items that award the player an extra life. These only appear under specific conditions.

Loops

Extended mode features three loops. The first loop is the same as Arcade difficulty, but the second and third loops have higher bullet density and new boss patterns. Loop 3 also ends with a mandatory alternate TLB, which cannot be accessed in the first two loops. There are no requirements to access the later loops.

In Original mode only, the speed at which the Burst gauge fills is increased by 15% on Loop 2, and by 30% on Loop 3.

Extends

Original Mode

Extends in this mode are earned by reaching certain total item counts (that is, the sum of all 7 individual item counts).

In Novice mode, extends are awarded at 100, 250, 450, 700, 950, 1250, 1600 and 2000 total items.

In Arcade mode, extends are awarded at 100, 300, 500, 750, 1050, 1400, 1800 and 2300 total items.

In Extended mode, extends are awarded every 200 total items, with no upper limit.

Arrange Mode

Extends in this mode are earned by reaching certain multiplier thresholds.

In Novice and Arcade mode, the first extend is awarded at x1000, with the threshold increasing increasing by 1000 + (number of extends gained so far) * 100 every time it's reached. (x1000, x2100, x3300, x4600 etc.)

In Extended mode, extends are awarded every x2000.

In Special, extends are awarded every x1500.

Secret Extends

Both game modes also have hidden extend items. These appear under certain conditions:

Novice/Arcade/Extended Loop 1: Destroy all of the first midboss's options, then destroy the main body.

Extended Loop 2: Destroy the second midbosses at the same time (within 35 frames of each other in Original mode, or 25 frames in Arrange).

Extended Loop 3: Destroy all eight yin-yang enemies during the third midboss.

Special: Destroy both large fairies at the end of the stage.

Scoring

Original Mode

Score in this mode is only calculated at the end of the game, and is equal to all 7 item counts multiplied together, plus an extra +0.1 multiplier for each life remaining.

Therefore, scoring primarily consists of losing as few lives as possible and collecting lots of items. Because of how score is calculated, it's also sometimes worth trying to keep a decent balance of all seven colors (particularly with purple and pink items). This also means that a 0-score run is possible if any of the item counts is 0.

Arrange Mode

This mode features a more traditional scoring system, with score being gained from destroying enemies and collecting items. There is also a multiplier that's increased by collecting items, which affects all score gained.

Thus, speedkilling and pointblanking enemies is essential for a high score, while using Bursts to take out enemies for gold items. There is also a life bonus at the end, which awards a base 50,000 points per remaining life.

Achievements

From 1.10a onwards, Rainbow Cave Raid features 15 different achievements with requirements ranging from clearing the game on any difficulty to getting high scores on different modes. Note that checks for most achievements are disabled on Extended difficulty - for example, you cannot obtain the scoring achievements for any mode in Extended.

After obtaining all achievements, a secret Special Stage can be accessed (see the Special Stage section in Secrets below).

Secrets

True Last Boss

The TLB on Arcade difficulty if the player fulfills the requirements.

The TLB on Extended difficulty's third and final loop.

Rainbow Cave Raid features a True Last Boss, which can be fought on both modes if the following conditions are met:

Play on Arcade difficulty.

Do not time out the stage boss.

Have at least 2000 total items on Original mode, or a multiplier of at least x9500 on Arrange mode.

Destroy the special enemy that appears if the above conditions are fulfilled.

On Extended difficulty, a different True Last Boss is introduced at the end of the third loop. This True Last Boss is mandatory regardless of the player's performance, and contains entirely unique patterns compared to the regular True Last Boss.

Special Stage

The Special Stage.

Kobiko, the Special Stage boss. Her second phase requires the player to charge and use their Bursts to get past the laser walls.

The Special Stage is a hidden bonus stage, accessed separately from the main game. It can be played by highlighting the final achievement in the Achievements screen and pressing the shot button, but only once all achievements have been unlocked. This stage can only be played in Arrange Mode and is designed around its particular version of the Burst mechanic, requiring aggressive charging and usage of Bursts to get through difficult and dense enemy attacks.

The boss of the Special Stage is Kobiko, an original character from the game's developer (Kobito). Her first phase contains multiple different attacks that she cycles through at a predetermined pattern. Her second phase contains laser walls that require the player to use Bursts to pass through - they and Kobiko herself will shoot bullets that can be grazed to charge the Bursts. Finally, the third phase is described as an incredibly difficult "resource wall", with a very fast and dense spiral pattern that requires precise dodging.

The Special Stage's tracks are unlocked in the Music Room and can be listened to after the player plays through it once.

Version Differences

v1.00a: Initial release

v1.10a: Adds Arrange mode, the Special stage, slight stage design changes and some new features including achievements

v1.20a: Adds Extended mode, some bugfixes

v1.20b: Very slight visual tweaks and a bugfix

v1.20c: Fixed some replays crashing the game

v1.20d: Fixed replays potentially incorrectly displaying "Extended" as the in-game difficulty, added colored lifebars for the second midboss

v1.20e: Small bugfix

Trivia

The game was originally being made for Touhou Game Jam 2021 with the theme "Rainbow", which inspired the scoring system in Original mode. The developer missed the deadline though, and the project was revived several months later.

The jam version also had horizontal screen panning as the player moved left or right, but it was removed before the actual release due to negative feedback and because the stage design worked perfectly fine without it anyway.

The v1.10a update was originally planned to have an endless mode that loops infinitely, but the idea was ultimately scrapped and later fleshed out into Extended mode.

Arrange mode was originally supposed to have a unique True Last Boss in the form of Momoyo Himemushi, but the idea was rejected. The music for the fight was completed and planned to included with the soundtrack, but that idea was also rejected last-minute due to mixing issues and lost project files.

The music that plays on the title screen is a very slightly edited version of a track originally made for an unfinished joke game.

One of the achievements was originally awarded for getting a TLB ALL clear on Arcade mode, while finishing with a final score of 0. This also meant that the TLB's item drops had to be disabled if the player defeated it while at least one of the item counts was still 0. The achievement was ultimately replaced for being far too difficult, but the changed item drop behavior was kept and introduced in v1.10a.

References & Contributors

Page Contributors

Page created and primarily written by the developer, kobito.

Additional information and images provided by Kevinmonitor.

Gameplay Videos

Original Mode Playthrough by Toimine. This scorerun achieves 2 quintillion points and can serve as a guide for obtaining Original Mode's scoring achievements (100 quadrillion, 500 quadrillion, and 1 quintillion respectively).

Arrange Mode Playthrough by Kevinmonitor. This scorerun, which achieves over 53 billion points and the hidden extend, serves as a commentated guide for obtaining Arrange Mode's scoring achievements (20 billion, 30 billion, and 50 billion respectively).

Special Stage Playthrough by Kevinmonitor. This run achieves the stage's hidden extend.