State of Decay #16 (January 2026): Small updates + Overview of Trinket system.

Another new year, this makes it the second new year since I started this blog doesn’t it? Hmm, I suppose this is the bit where I look over the past year and all the things I’ve done, but I haven’t really done too much or had anything happen; at the very least, it seems that 2025 was the last year before the first actual release of anything Toparo related (ignoring the website and stories *on* said website). So yes, I fully expect that there will be *some* kind of actual release this year, it should be the first demo for the Forgotten Rotting Technology and/or Memory of Wistful Spire! Of course neither of those are guaranteed, but they *should* probably happen~ Especially tFRT’s first demo as it’s pretty close to done in terms of assets and there honestly won't be much in it to begin with beyond that.

Hmm… speaking of MoWS, why hasn’t that come out yet? Basically… Priorities changed and it got put on the backburner, that’s all (^^; I’m sort of taking my time with it and sort of procrastinating it - A bit of both but mostly the latter. Once I realised how close tFRT’s first demo was to being done in terms of assets is when said priorities changed.

Over the last month I was mostly cleaning up little things here and there as well as just continuing on with the sprites as normal, even if they’re now for the second demo; which honestly doesn't require much extra compared to the first one. In terms of my “New Year’s Resolution?” I’d say it’s working harder on Toparo than I ever have before, ideally getting a demo out sooner rather than later - in other words, I copy pasted the same text from last year!

Anyway last month’s SoD I said I knew what I’d be nattering on about for this one, and I do, obviously! Funnily enough it’s something I mentioned scrapping in an older SoD that I really wanted to add but decided against for the sake of avoiding feature creep; now it’s back in a significantly less feature creep-ish way (because it’s 90% dressing up some options that would've gotten in anyway as a cool feature). What is it?

Trinkets!

The original idea that I scrapped was (for all intents and purposes) the card and shop system from Touhou 18, slightly different, sure, but at the end of the day it was the same. You’d choose a couple at the beginning of a playthrough; you’d get a freebie choice from two items depending on who you’re playing as and the rest would be sort of like the starting cards in 18.5 where they’re weighted depending on what they do. Anyway, once you beat a boss (or midboss!) you’d buy 0-3 from a shop where the currency was derived from your score; the idea was to make everyone care about scoreplay. Other than that it’s the same overall idea, cut for what should be obvious reasons, although I did come up with the ideas for a bunch of them - Maybe in a future game, if I ever get that far :P

Anyway, as they currently stand, there are twelve different categories of trinkets, in each category you can pick one of them from said category to activate before you start the playthrough. Their effects are mostly pretty minor and just options really. It’ll all make sense once I explain all of them individually. I guess I’ll mention that they’re purely a for fun bonus, the game won't be designed *for* them - Most of them disable score saving as a way to say ‘This isn’t how you’re supposed to play, this is just for fun.’

Category 1:

Red String of Fate: Activates ‘Simple Mode’ which replaces life loss with a hit counter, effectively an infinite lives mode. This is added for that one person I’ve mentioned once or twice who’ll play the game despite not playing shmups at all; might as well make it a feature instead of a special version of the game with -1 lives or something. I guess you can use it to check out the harder difficulty if it’s too hard for you?

Category 2:

Low Rank Angel's Feather: Makes any shot use the slow movement speed (Doesn’t disable score saving). This is just if you’re the kind of person where movement being too fast is a dealbreaker for the enjoyment of a shot. It’s pretty slow though, so I wouldn’t recommend taking it into routes designed for the fastest speed.

Standard Rank Angel's Feather: Makes any shot use the medium movement speed (Doesn’t disable score saving). This is just if you’re the kind of person where movement being too fast or too slow is a dealbreaker for the enjoyment of a shot. The middle of the road one, generally my preferred speed.

High Rank Angel's Feather: Makes any shot use the fast movement speed (Doesn’t disable score saving). This is just if you’re the kind of person where movement being too slow is a dealbreaker for the enjoyment of a shot. This is probably the way most people will choose to play, the focus speed is a touch fast though, it might make some patterns a decent bit harder if you’re not good at really quick key presses.

Category 3:

Strange Pearl: Disables a shot’s ‘Extra skill’ (Doesn’t disable score saving). Some shots have an extra skill that either uses the ‘Extra’ button or has a passive effect, this turns it off so you can play that shot like a normal one; that’s all.

Maligant Crystal: Gives any shot the screen wrap Extra skill. Think the Impossible Spell Card umbrella basically; I’m still not sure if it should cost something like power or a bomb to activate, but this is only naturally on one freeplay exclusive shot in the whole game, so it’s probably fine without any cost (also, no, it’s not misspelt).

Forgotten Screw: Give any shot the overdrive Extra skill. Sort of a hyper mode that makes your shots do extra damage for a limited time - Again, not too sure about the cost as of right now, I was thinking originally a bomb or two, but then you’d be able to use it constantly; maybe a full power bar? I’d have to have one of the stories done before figuring out what feels good I guess… It’s only naturally on five freeplay exclusive shots, so I can sit on that one (^^;

Danger Chime: Give any shot the damage bomb skill. Instead of clearing bullets, bombs will deal damage; I was looking at the trinkets in this category and noticed not only that there wasn’t a passive one, but all but one of them were basically exclusive to final bosses, which seemed a bit boring, so I made an obvious idea and *then* reverse engineered which characters should get it. Otherwise I suppose this is a preemptive response to people complaining that bombs don’t do damage - What, you want them to do *both* clear and damage? Hmm… Now that I’m writing that joke I’m tempted to make an extra trinket, two or three bombs for both effects at once?

Lost Idol: Give any shot the clear and damage skill. Alright, since I’m writing this SoD quite a bit in advance, I’m slotting this in here after the fact; the list is out of order now but whatever… I caved because it sounded fun, even if it’s probably quite powerful on some shots even with a double bomb cost (^^; Hey, I guess if anyone has any ideas for some more Trinkets I’d be open to listening haha… Most things wouldn’t be very hard to add after all considering it’s still quite early~

Treasured Scroll: Give any shot bullet reflect skill. For the cost of a full power gauge, activate a slightly longer than normal period of invincibility that causes touched bullets to become your own and fly into the closest enemy. Again, the full power bar cost might be too much; although sacrificing some dps for a sudden (potentially huge) burst of damage sounds fine on paper; I can also sit on this one to see what feels good later.

Category 4:

Spirit Bottle: Set starting power. Considering power is only a small damage increase, some people might want to just start at 100. (This actually only exists because I wanted consistency with the upcoming categories, and more options never hurt anyone).

Category 5:

Stale Peach: Prevent power gain or loss. Mostly exists so you can do a min power challenge run of sorts, you could also just force max power constantly using the Spirit Bottle I suppose.

Category 6:

Spirit Jar: Set starting lives. Who else remembers when Touhou games let you do this? I have no idea why it ever got removed other than the trophy system (but that was a decent few games *after* it was already gone); it was pretty handy to let people experience the higher difficulties - Might as well add the option even with Simple mode already being a thing.

Category 7:

Somewhat Cursed Necklace: Prevents life gain from collecting point items. Extends are gotten from collecting increasing thresholds of point items like Touhou 7; this disables that for a challenge run of sorts.

Vaguely Cursed Necklace: Prevents life gain from collecting extend items. Again a challenge run sort of thing, kind of pointless since there’ll only be one per story, but whatever.

Cursed Necklace: Prevents all life gain. The two prior Trinkets combined for no extends at all - Again, just for fun, someone might get a kick out of these one day…

Category 8:

Spirit Container: Set starting bombs. Category 8 and 9 are just the bomb versions of the prior two. It’s worth noting that the starting bombs amount is the same as the number of bombs you’re given on death. Max out both starting lives and bombs if the guaranteed win of simple mode isn’t quite your style :P

Category 9:

Somewhat Cursed Ring: Prevents bomb gain from grazing. I wouldn't be surprised if some people prefer to play the game with this one while giving themself an extra bomb or two per life using the Spirit Container.

Vaguely Cursed Ring: Prevents bomb gain from collecting bomb items. Once again kind of pointless as there’s only one freebie per story.

Cursed Ring: Prevents all bomb gain. Again, both prior effects combined if that one free bomb after the stage two midboss is just ruining the game for you or something~

Category 10:

Whispering Homunculus: Prevents point of collection movement. The PoC moves down a little with each action that increases the combo counter and moves back up slowly if there isn’t a combo happening; I could see some people disliking this so this Trinket keeps it at it’s starting position.

Screaming Homunculus: Removes point of collection. Another ‘just for fun’ thing, it’s already pretty easy to collect stuff without the PoC, so this is just a way to kill any and all runs in terms of score haha. If you’re a PC-98 purist like me, you might enjoy playing like this a bit more.

Category 11:

Sun Demon's Urn: Set starting rank. Exactly what it says on the tin, this one was already just an option but now it feels like a *feature.* Or something like that…

Category 12:

Moon Demon's Urn: Prevent rank gain or loss. Exists entirely so you can turn off the rank system by setting the starting rank to 0 and using this *or* to set it to max and keep it there as a slight bit of extra difficulty. Again, it was already going to be in the game anyway.

There you go, a lengthy but simple blog post; a nice start to the new year! If you’re wondering, yes, these will be visible on the HUD in the bottom right so people can’t get away with anything silly (although for most of them it would be pretty obvious that they’re on or not, also it’d be really easy to just edit a video to make it look like you do or don’t have specific ones on…) Also, this SoD is probably going to take the cake in terms of most images for a *long* time (^^;

Again, hopefully there’s some kind of actual release this year! (don’t count on it though).

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This month’s crystal ball grazing: New beginnings can spark new vigor, but don’t be fooled, said vigor is probably already well used.