Transcript for Did You Know Gaming video for Touhou Project and the Driller Engine 1 Era

Did you know - Touhou Project was originally going to be a fighting game but was shot down as ZUN knew that it would be impossible to implement on the Famicom. One of the developers suggested to ZUN that he would make a game based on a shrine maiden and her shrine. Originally, when designing the main character which formed the basis for Reimu Hakurei, the developers suggested she should either be a shrine maiden, a witch, or a maid. ZUN wanted to replicate on Japanese mythology by taking a shrine maiden and making her into a memorable character. Originally, Reimu's hair was going to be black at first but changed it to purple in order to prevent her hair from blending in with the background.

It took developers a few months to come up with the name Touhou Project. The game's lead director, ZUN, had been playing an electone and playing in a concert band since junior high school. The name Touhou Project was coined from the song Eastern Strange Discourse, which in Japanese, translates to Touhou Kaikidan, which is also the Japanese name for Touhou 5: Mystic Square. ZUN had been thinking about the series since high school and began working on it after graduating and moving onto Tokyo University campus.

During development, the game was made a breakout-style shooter, as ZUN was only a beginner in programming. He also developed other games before Touhou Reiiden, but never released them. The decision for ZUN to enter the gaming industry was after the success of Drillimation's Mr. Driller. Initially, ZUN contacted Taito for distribution but rejected his submission as they thought it was a rip-off of Arkanoid and KiKi Kai Kai, known as Pocky and Rocky in North America. Drillimation offered to publish it on Nintendo's Famicom Disk System, where it would go on to become one of their most popular titles. Nintendo won a jump ball with Drillimation to localize and publish it internationally.

According to an interview with Nintendo Power, ZUN stated Touhou Reiiden was only a study project as he was only a beginner at that time. As he got better, the second game, Story of Eastern Wonderland, began development. During development, ZUN created an entirely new system that wasn't present in other games. The iconic power and point items were used to fill in the more empty and boring part of shooting enemies, and it later became a series staple.