Touhou Puppet Dance Performance Documentation Sheet: Draft 1

What we know so far (as of August 16th, 2014, at 6 PM) about Touhou Puppet Dance Performance.

This guide will document what we know, mechanics and concepts wise, about Touhou Puppet Dance Performance. Additional tidbits will be located at the end of the guide.

-- Seals and Capturing Puppets --
Near the start of the game, Sanae gives you 10 [Seals]. Seals are this game's capture mechanism, similar to the Pokeballs of Pokemon games proper. How they work is very different than how Pokemon's Pokeballs work. Firstly, you must lower the target puppet's health. Seals have a chance of not working, so it's likely the lower the health of the puppet the more chance the Seal has of succeeding. Once you throw a Seal, if it works, a red circle will display around the puppet. This means the Seal is active and you can now catch the puppet. You capture a puppet by defeating them while the Seal is active. Do not take too long, or else the Seal will fade away and you'll need to throw another.

-- Experience Points and Leveling Up --
Like standard Pokemon games and RPGs is the EXP system - you gain EXP by defeating foes in battle, and level up when you hit the required EXP for that level. However, unlike Pokemon games and more like standard RPGs, the EXP distribution is not calculated until after the battle is over. For example, if you battle a trainer with 3 puppets and only defeat 2 then get defeated on the third, none of your puppets will gain any EXP. On the subject of gaining EXP, all puppets in your party at the time of the battle, if you emerge victorious, will gain EXP. At time of writing, I am unsure of if the EXP is divided up dependant on how many party members you have, but according to a source (UNCONFIRMED) the EXP Gain formula works like it does in later Pokemon games, where the further you are from the opponents level, the less EXP you gain.(I will admit here, that the EXP might still be split even if they're at 20, just invisibly, but it doesn't look like it's split up.)

-- Skills and Power Points --
After gaining a level, a pupet may display it has learned a New Skill over it. New Skills are similar to Attacks from standard Pokemon Games, except they work a bit differently. To learn a new skill, you must expend "Power Points", or "PP". PP is gained after beating a foe in battle. PP in this game can be used to teach a puppet new Skills/Attacks, or buff its stats, similar to how Effort Values (EVs) in Pokemon worked. The stats of a puppet can be upped by 64 PP in each stat. Currenty unknown(?)(I believe there is a hard limit of 130 PP you can spend on stats)if you can max out each stat with PPs, but there is a hard cap of 64 PP for each stat. Once you spend PP on a stat, you cannot take it out. As for learning new moves, you can teach a puppet skills it has access to at (presumably) any time, so long as it has it in its Skill List. There is also an option for 0 PP to remove a skill off your Puppet. Once a skill is removed, it goes back to your Skill List for re-teaching, which will cost PP. This will allow the player to swap around skills on the fly, provided they have enough PP.

-- Additional Tidbits --
THE GAME WILL NEED TO BE RUN ON A COMPUTER WITH NATIVE JAPANESE LOCALE SET. APPLOCALE WILL NOT WORK.
You start with the Running Shoes. Press X to $Speed run
In the Hakurei Shrine, the Rest Stop on "Route 1", and the Human Village Healing Center, there is an an Akyuu sitting close to the nurse. The Akyuu will serve as your PC Storage System, similar to Pokemon. It comes with 30 boxes. They function exactly the same as Pokemon's PCs and boxes.
"Blindness" is a new status effect, applied by one of Rumia's moves.
Nicknames can be entered via the keyboard and can be lengthy, but spaces are not valid characters.

FAQ: After beating Cirno in the Human Village, you need to hunt down the other members of Cirno's gang before you can "advance" through the remainder of demo.
Also, currently, you do not get money for trainer battles. You can get it from selling items you happen to have/pick up, but other than that, there's no way to get cash.