Chrysanthemum Remake vs Original

When I set out to remake Chrysanthemum, I sought to make the gameplay as similar as possible to the original, because I found the original’s gameplay to be quite watertight, especially considering the era in which it was released. However, I did make some changes to the formula - a few voluntarily, and many incidentally as I needed to estimate many things about how the game works (I did not go out of my way to emulate nor decompile the original).

This devlog will cover the differences between the original and my remake – in the form of estimations or changes – for the curious! It may also reveal deeper gameplay opportunities for current players.

ESTIMATION: Special flowers’ starting level

In the original Chrysanthemum, the instructions stated, “on later levels, special flowers will appear”. In the gameplay footage I used as reference for much of my development, I ascertained this to be around level 8. In playing my version of Chrysanthemum thusly, you will find that wildflowers and chrysanthemums do not spawn in levels 1-7.

CHANGE: Wildflowers’ default behavior

Wildflowers in the original Chrysanthemum would not change their form to another flower unless a manual “cycle wildflower” key was pressed. Seeking to make the wildflower’s use more intuitive in my version, like a wildcard might behave in a card game, I changed them to automatically conform to an arrangement of flowers rather than manually do so. I did leave the option to cycle the wildflower manually by pressing the backward directional arrow, but in the event that this isn’t performed by the player, wildflowers will attempt to fulfill the following criteria in priority order from top to bottom when they come to rest:

• Complete an arrangement of bonus flowers
• Complete an arrangement of flowers
• If there is no arrangement to complete, transform into an adjacent bonus flower
• If there is no arrangement to complete, transform into an adjacent flower
• If there are no adjacent flowers, transform into a bonus flower

I also added a visual feature to the wildflower where it will appear to fade back and forth from its original appearance to the “target” flower determined by the priority order above.

CHANGE: Wildflowers’ new behavior

Compelled by some inspiration that struck me during early design phases, I added a new behavior to wildflowers which may be of interest to advanced players of my version of Chrysanthemum. 

First, the behavior of normal flowers should be briefly explained. When they come to rest, they check a number of spaces and patterns around them to look for other flowers of the same type with which to transform into a completed arrangement. This search rules out flowers of the same type which have already been arranged. However, wildflowers, by my new design, do not rule out already-arranged flowers. In other words, they can complete arrangements with already-existing yin-yangs included in the arrangement!

This new ability for wildflowers to complete arrangements using already-arranged flowers gives an additional boon: It “reactivates” all the flowers of the same type that were part of already-completed arrangements touching the new arrangement, causing them to glow, and allowing normal flowers to complete arrangements with those reactivated yin-yang flowers. 

If this sounds too complicated to understand without seeing it, there is some footage at here at 11:00 (reactivating an arrangement of roses), at 11:59 (reactivating a arrangement of violets), and at 14:12 (reactivating an arrangement of violets).

CHANGE: Chrysanthemum’s new behavior

A minor change was made to chrysanthemums to allow them to activate upon being placed against a yin-yang (an already-arranged flower). Unlike the original, a chrysanthemum placed in this way in my remake will arrange all the other flowers of that type.

ESTIMATION: Special flowers’ spawn rate

In my remake, wildflowers spawn with a chance of 2 in 78. Chrysanthemums spawn with a chance of 1 in 78. I attempted to have the spawn rate match the feeling of the reference footage, where these special flowers are rare but not too rare, appearing just often enough to be exciting and not too rarely to be frustrating.

ESTIMATION: Game speed and change of speed

The speed of the game and the rate at which the speed increases every level was also a complete estimation based on game footage. I believe I got the feeling close. The result is – like the original – the game still being pretty hard for new players. This is just how oldschool arcade games are - and my personal preference. I didn't feel the need to change it.

ESTIMATION: High score distribution

The scores that are in the high score table by default, specifically for "Tasteful" mode, have their highest score capped at around where players who completed the game reached in the reference footage I used. For both "Tasteful" and "Prolific", the scores are capped around 100,000 points fewer than my own median score for that mode at the time of this writing. I did this with the assumption that my own scores skew too high.

CHANGE: Cobwebs instead of bugs

For no special reason, I replaced bugs with cobwebs as the object that appear on the stage when a flower is sent out-of-bounds or the time runs out.

CHANGE: Number of cobwebs that spawn after time-out

If the timer runs out, in the original game, 12 bugs will appear on each subsequent round (a round being when a flower is released from its spawn point). In my remake, 4-12 cobwebs appear each round. This could be considered a slight nerf to the game itself or a slight buff to players’ survivability after the time runs out - though that situation is still very difficult.

CHANGES: New features

The following, in no particular order, do not represent a “change” from the original so much as just an addition on top of what was already there. I won’t go into great detail at the moment beyond listing them:

• Zen mode - in the settings - this contains a couple options for players who find the game too hard and would prefer to relax or experiment with the gameplay.
• The “Prolific” level set, randomized each playthrough, was added to give more replayability and an opportunity to design levels without altering the original level set.
• Dark mode
• Settings to aid in understanding what’s happening on the screen, such as a reticle showing the eventual position of a moving flower, a “next” bubble showing where the next flower is coming from, and an arrow that appears and fades away when a flower exits its spawn point.
• All graphics are new: either recreated, sourced from the Smithsonian’s free resources, or sourced from Google fonts.
• Sound effects and music have been replaced, as an exercise for myself to practice creating them. The music is much longer than the original's short loop, and the first section of my composition is a reharmonization of the original game's music loop.