Touhou Koumakyou: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Touhou Koumakyou: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Promo Images#

The official website for the game features a few promotional images at the bottom, some of which containing certain oddities. Some where also used in ZUN's BBS at thetime.

The images on this page will be sorted based on their most-accurate date.

April 3rd, 2002#

th6_10s.jpg#

Prototype

An early version of ReimuA's bomb 霊符「夢想封印」 (Spirit Sign "Fantasy Seal")

Although this is the earliest confirmed image of the game, only the thumbnail of this image is available. Which is why the quality is so poor.

• The original name for this spellcard was 霊の御札「夢想封印」 (Ofuda of Spirits "Fantasy Seal"), when spellcards were referred to as "ofuda" (御札) instead of "sign"/"talisman"/"charm" (符).
• This version lacks any support of work-in-progress text

April 15th 2002#

The first images of the game where shown on April 15th, 2002 when ZUN announced the game on his website. Since this version of the game is extremely early, it hosts many differences from even the first trial version.

The filedata supports

A note about these versions is that the bottom left corner has text reading "Graphics are a work in progress" (✽ 画面は開発中のものです (c)ZUN). Which seem to have been added in manually by ZUN, due to their position changing through each image.

This version of the game will be refereed to as the v0.01 Prototype.

th06_00.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

The earliest image of the title screen.

• The background is completely different. Consisting of a tree (ORIENTAL011.JPG), a shelf drawer background and a window on the front.
• The font used for the FPS counter looks considerably worse and lacks the gradient it has on later versions.
• Both the title graphics and the copyright notice are the exact same as in the final game. So much for "work in progress".

th6_01.jpg#

v0.01 Proto	v1.02f

An early version of the character select screen. Showing Marisa Kirisame (Who was only added to the game a week earlier)

• The background image consists of Bamboo Cyllanders (TEXTURE-177.jpg). The overlayed photo is still TEXTURE-144.jpg
• The selected rank graphic is positioned very slightly off.
• The text at the top of the prototype reads プレイヤーを選択してね。 (Select a player.) while the final reads プレイヤーを選択して下さい。(Please select a player)
• The text at the top lacks glow, and is a slightly lighter shade of red

th6_02.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

The start of Stage 1

• The forest is green instead of blue
• Reimu's Squares are different from the final. Her Yin-Yang orbs are also not the same color.
• All of the numbers lack a light-dark gradient.
• Other text, as well as the Life/Bomb icons have a light shadow instead of a dark one

As for UI,

• The score counter only supports 8 Digits instead of 9
• The power bar does not store the number of power
• The power bar is more transparent

th6_03.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

Rumia's mid-boss Non-spell

• The shadow in the background is green instead of blue
• The enemy text on top lacks the 0
• The spellcard timer is missing for this non
• Her third attack consists of lime and yellow bullets, while the final version uses seafoam and yellow bullets
• Her fourth attack consists of more rice bullets and less pellets
• She lacks a spellcard at the end of this attack despite the difficulty being on Lunatic

th6_04.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

An early version of 闇符「ディマーケイション」 (Darkness Sign 「Demarcation」)

• The original name for this spellcard was 闇の御札 「ディマーケイション」 (Ofuda of Darkness 「Demarcation」)
• Rumia's spellcard background was completely different. Consisting of red clouds
• The spellcard name was rendered instead of using an in-game font
• Judging by screenshot names, This would be her first spelllcard after her non, while in the final game, it is her second spellcard (Night Sign 「Night Bird」 being first)
• Although the game is in Lunatic difficulty. The spellcard resembles Hard difficulty the closest. (Lacking two sets of spinning rice per-color)

th6_05.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

An early version of 月符「ムーンライトレイ」 (Moon charm 「Moonlight Ray」)

• The original name for this spellcard was 月の御札「ムーンライトレイ」 (Ofuda of the Moon 「Moonlight Ray」)

th6_06.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

Another early version of ReimuA's bomb 霊符「夢想封印」 (Talisman 「Fantasy Seal」)

• The original name for this spellcard was 霊の御札「夢想封印」 (Ofuda of Spirits 「Fantasy Seal」)
• Her orbs seem to be much more of a basic color
• The box where her spellcard name is located is positioned lower on the screen. It is also wider and lacks shading.

th6_07.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

Another early image of 月の御札「ムーンライトレイ」 (Ofuda of the Moon 「Moonlight Ray」)

• The lazers have a different texture. They are also way closer to the player.

th6_08.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

An early image of Rumia's Dialogue

• The runtime text is very simple compared to the final game

th6_09.jpg#

v0.01 Proto

An early image of the end of Stage 1

• The font for the Bonus and the Spellcard bonus both lack any shading

May 2002#

th06_011.jpg#

Prototype

An image of Meiling's first Non-spell. Being played by MarisaA

• The rice bullets she shoots are green as opposed to red
• Her spell-timer says 32 seconds, But this non-spell only gives 29 seconds in the final.
• The rice bullets are in a very different pattern. Possibly suggesting that this Non-spell was changed on release of Trial.

th06_12.jpg and th06_13.jpg#

Prototype
Prototype

Two early images of Stage 4.

The stage was in very early development when these two images were taken. Hence why Stage 3's bullet pattern can be seen.

• Proper shading has finally been added to fonts
• The bookshelves lack their usual path opening. Making the shelves have one straight hallway in the middle, while in the final game, the openings can be placed on the left/right or blocked off too.

th06_14.jpg and th06_15.jpg#

Prototype
Prototype

Two early images of spellcards and their titles during Stage 2.

The first spellcard being MarisaB's bomb 恋符「マスタースパーク」 (Love sign「Master Spark」)

The second spellcard being Cirno's last spell 雪符「ダイアモンドブリザード」 (Snow Sign 「Diamond Blizzard」) 雪札「ダイアモンドブリザード」

It should be noted that ZUN was intending on showing different spell card naming formats on his BBS with these two images

• The original name for Cirno's spellcard was 雪札「ダイアモンドブリザード」 (Snow Ofuda 「Diamond Blizzard」)
• The section of Stage 2 bullets shown in the first image consist of green rice bullets which were recolored to gray in the final.
• Some of the characters for the Bonus/Spellcard Bonus as well as some numbers have openings at the bottom for some strange reason.

th6_16.jpg#

Prototype

An early image of the starting section of Stage 3. With MarisaA's bomb 虎符「スターダストレヴァリエ」(Magic Sign 「Stardust Reverie」)

• The original name for MarisaA's bomb was 願符「スターダストレヴァリエ」 (Wism Charm 「Stardust Reverie」)
• The Kunai bullets being shot by the top fairies have a much lighter blue tone

th6_17.jpg#

Prototype

Another early image of the starting section of Stage 3. This time, the Kunai bullets are more clear

th6_18.jpg#

Prototype

An early image of Meiling's Mid-boss spellcard 華符「セラギネラ９」 (Flower Sign 「Selaginella 9」)

• Her spellcard background is red instead of blue
• The shard bullets are in a smaller circle around meiling.

th6_19.jpg#

Prototype

An early image of Meiling's second Non-spell

• Her spell-timer says 43 seconds, But this non-spell only gives 39 seconds in the final.
• Some of the ball bullets have a slightly lighter outline

th6_20.jpg#

Prototype

An early image of Meiling's first spellcard 虹符「彩虹の風鈴」 (Rainbow Sign 「Colorful Rainbow Wind Chime」)

• The only difference is some of the colors being different.

th6_21.jpg#

Prototype

A near-final image of the character selct screen featuring Reimu.

• The only difference being that the "Hard" difficulty text is purple rather than blue. This Purple text still exists in the files, it is unknown why it was scrapped.

th6_22.jpg#

v0.01 Development Build	v1.02f

An early image of the menu screen. Which looked drastically different from the final version

Some development-related numbers are shown in the bottom-left corner. At this point in time, it is currently unknown what these numbers stood for, although they weirdly never appear in any other image.

• While the base image is the same, the filters and effects applied to the background image with Reimu sitting at a shrine entrance are completely different. Featuring a ripped paper like background rather than the watercolor one.
• The version text is positioned a bit higher, and the overlay is slightly different.
• The selected menu item graphics are slightly different, with a bright red outline and shadow as opposed to the black in the final version.
• There is no practice mode in this version, which made the menu buttons more spread out.

July 2002#

Unused Promo Images#

It is quite easy to realize that many more images were uploaded to the website than are displayed, due to the weird filenames. There are two sets of images still available on the website but unused. The first one, from early versions of the game, always starts with "th6_XX.jpg" where XX is the image number (there are over twenty), while the second set starts with "th06_705_XX.jpg", with "705" possibly being a timestamp for July 5th.

th06_705_01.jpg#

An image of Flandre's "Kagome-Kagome" spellcard, with Rumia's spell background.

Concept Art / Development Information#

Note: This section includes mockups and recreations of the concept art seen at the Touhou Project Exhibition in 2022. They are only to serve as mockups to what was seen.

These notes depict the full sketches and/or concept art for characters.

Rumia#

• Her right hand faces upwards in a clenched fist, and her left hand is is horizontally sideways.
• In the original sketch, she is seen with a belt, which isn't in the final art.

Sketch from Touhou Exhibition 2022	Recreation by KonngaraFan	Recreation by MiracleVoltage

Daiyousei#

• An uncolored version of "Daiyousei's" sprite was shown at Touhou Exhibition 2024. Pictures were not allowed, but an accurate recreation of the drawing was created by BakeBake, who visited the exhibition at the time.

Remade Sketch by BakeBake	In-Game sprite.

Cirno#

• Two alternate poses of Cirno were created and made into her two different sprites. It's possible that the original art for these was present in an earlier version of the game, but they have yet to be found.
• Cirno's full character art appears on an image ZUN posted on his old website to commemorate 30,000 pageviews (or clicks, as he called them). It displays different shading resembling ZUN's other art from around the same time (late 2001/early 2002).
• Cirno's character art in the full version of PCB seems to have the same shading as her EoSD art, but her wings lack transparency, as in the website art. This may be because said transparency appeared messy and incomplete around her hair. It's currently unclear whether Cirno's pose in that game's trial originates from EoSD's development or not.

Concept Art	Website Art	In-Game Art (EoSD)	In-Game Art (PCB)

Meiling#

• There is a deformed alternate pose of her on the right, used for her in-game sprite.
• On her left arm, there is some sort of bracelet.
• Meiling's other thumb is barely visible in her official portrait.

Remade sketches from the event	Mockup of full portrait	Remade full variant (Based on mockup)	Remade boss portrait (Based on remade sketch	Official Portrait

Koakuma#

• Not much is know other than this art existed at one point. Koakuma came before Patchouli.

Recreation by Ceci	Recreation by 桜木李杏	In-Game sprite.

Patchouli#

• She has a somewhat slender figure of her art. This is reminiscent of Yuyuko's portrait from PCB.
• Notably, her embarrassed (Book covering face) portrait has an airbrushed in arm, and distortion to the book, since it was removed from the original drawing.

Recreation by MiracleVoltage	In-Game sprite.

Sakuya#

Was made in mid-late May 2002. v0.01 image from ZUN with the text in the bottom left had a near-finalized Stage 5 or WIP Stage 6.

Remilia#

• Her original sketch had no eyes drawn; her eyes were completely done in Adobe Photoshop (hence why they look different).

Recreation by MiracleVoltage	In-Game sprite.

Flandre#

• Her sketch was drawn around the same time as the first trial. Her theme and stage still wasn't finished. This left ZUN finishing and ironing out Flandre's stage with no extra time for Rin Satsuki.
• This becomes more notable, but we would only know if we had the prototype box art for this version.
• Currently the earliest EoSD Box art we have is for trial v0.08. Compiled on 06/22/2002, about 12 days after trial 0.01.

• Her original sketch includes a mysterious circle on her hat.
• She had a belt-like object on the seams of her clothes.
• The shape of the frill on her right arm is slightly different.
• The clips on her skirt can be clearly seen on the skirt, which is a major factor in confirming the theory that Flandre's skirt is a wrap-around skirt that Noriro speculated about a long time ago.

Concept Art	Full sprite extracted from spell card backgrounds

Cancelled character#

• Excluding the unused stage 1 midboss, Its rumored that there was an unused character for a stage. It would definitely not be Rumia or Cirno. We also already know that cancelled themes existed for EoSD.

Music#

Dolls in Pseudo Paradise includes the original version of Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17

• The album was originally intended to be released as a mail-exclusive album released in January 2002. This version was originally going to have 12 themes (the arrangement of U.N. Owen was her? was added after this). All themes also are mentioned as being composed in 2001 via ZUN's Music CD Page.

• The song was originally titled Shanghai Alice of 1884. PCB's first trial mentions this original name from the musicmmt.txt file since ZUN mentioned that the PCB project was forked from a verison of EoSD.

• The song notably uses the GM2 mode on the SD-90. It is the only song ever made by ZUN to use GM2 sounds.
• Trial versions of EoSD had a different comment describing how ZUN based this off of an old song. It is unknown why the comment was changed.

Timeline#

This timeline features relevant items related to the development of EoSD.

To do: Sort the timeline into its own table (and add more sources)

2001

• November 25th - ZUN purchases his Edirol SD-90, using it to finish off Kioh Gyoku and eventually remix EoSD's soundtrack on it. (source)

• December - ZUN makes a song titled "Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17", an earlier version of Meiling's theme. (source)

2002

• January 1st - For New Year 2001, ZUN announces that he is going to begin development of a new Touhou game. (source)

• January - ZUN develops Stage 1 as a Test Stage. Rumia has her unused sprite made around this time.

• January/February- ZUN names the game Touhou Kouchakan ~ Eastern Scarlet Teahouse (東方紅茶館〜 Eastern Scarlet Teahouse).

• < March 14th - The game name is changed to Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (東方紅魔郷〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil).

• March 22nd. - The website's main page is updated with a portrait of Cirno. (source)

• March 27th - ZUN finishes work on Stage 3. (source)

• April 5th - ZUN starts developing Marisa Kirisame's character. She originally wasn't meant to playable. Her portraits were made after her menu sprite.

• April 15th - ZUN publicly announces the game, releasing the first images of it. (source)

• April - Koakuma and Daiyousei are cut from development (Face04 and Face07) due to time constraints. ZUN focused on finishing the main staged, then seeing if he would come back to these characters. (he did)

• May - Rin Satsuki is cut from development (Face02) due to time constraints. An unknown character (Face11) was also scrapped, supposedly being the original Stage 6 boss. Two themes are also scrapped.

• May/June - Flandre Scarlet's portrait is finished. It is unknown if Remilia Scarlet's was made before of after.

• June 10th - Trial Version v0.01 is released, along with a Day 1 patch (v0.02)

• June 22nd - Trial Version v0.08 is released.

• July 2nd - Trial Version v0.08+ is created, and later released on the September issue of the DOS/V Power Report. This version is supposedly identical to v0.08.

• August 11th - Version v1.00 is released at Comiket 62.

• October - A special edition of EoSD with a special version of the Extra Stage is released to certain shops in Japan.

• November - Version 1.02f is released, being the last updated version of EoSD.

Notes

1. [01] File02 In the case it would have been Rin. It wasn't even early in development. The faces numbers would have been bumped up 1 in late May. That makes no sense on why there is a stage 2 boss missing. Likely Daiyousei. Marisa was added on April 5th 2002, confirmed by Zun's blog. There was no plan for Rin early or even in the middle of development. Even if she was thought of in this stage, it would make not much sense why ZUN would never bring her up in March; he said the game only had Reimu in it at that time and there were no plans for Marisa. So, it's possible he bumped up the numbers. Don't expect her concept art to be at the Touhou Exhibition. It's possible, but not plausible.

::# ^ File04 is very well believed to be Daiyousei.

:::# ^ File07 likely was Koakuma. Sprite will likely appear sometime soon at the Touhou Exhibition.

::::# ^ File11 is unknown. Assuming they would have been related to the final theme, it could be possible she was the girl who's theme was remade to The Centennial Festival for Magical Girls. Might be an unused Stage 6 boss. Likely isnt the Lyrica prototype from 2002.

Cut Spellcards#

Stage 2#

"Daiyousei" was originally going to have spellcards.

An uncolored version of "Daiyousei's" sprite was shown at Touhou Exhibition 2024. Pictures were not allowed, but an accurate recreation of the drawing was created by BakeBake, who visited the exhibition at the time.

Remade Sketch by BakeBake	In-game sprite

Stage 4#

Just like "Daiyousei", "Koakuma" was also originally going to have spellcards.

It is unknown if ZUN still has her uncolored sprite, as it has not been shown to anybody.

Recreation by Ceci	In-game sprite