AM
AM (b. 1986 in Korea), also known as Alice Margatroid and こなたん (Japanese: Konatan), is a competitive Touhou player, active since November 2003, who specializes in Imperishable Night, Subterranean Animism and Undefined Fantastic Object. In December 2008, AM held World Records in both the Lunatic and Extra modes of Subterranean Animism. However, as of May 2009, his Lunatic record was topped by yukarin.
In 2009, his Touhou scorerunning activity decreased due to school work and time spent playing other games such as the Korean RPG Dungeon & Fighter (Korean: 던전엔파이터; known as Dungeon Fighter Online in America). Throughout the year, he mainly released challenge replays, such as no-vertical run of Mountain of Faith's Extra. In April, 2010, AM retired from the Touhou scorerunning.
AM is notable for extremely aggressive, perfectionist play style that generally aims to achieve high results through brute force and exhausting the score potential of known strategies before (and sometimes instead of) looking for less conservative or more cost-effective solutions. He considers GIL to be his teacher in regards to playing Touhou games, and treats him with utmost respect.
Historical achievements[edit | edit source]
Perfect Cherry Blossom[edit | edit source]
AM achieved a Lunatic score of 2.968 billion in Perfect Cherry Blossom on September 27, 2008. This was at the time the third highest overall score in the game[1]. He initially wanted to break 3 billion points, but admitted to have failed that goal, blaming lack of patience. Likely the reason he didn't release his replay. He had expected to revisit the challenge despite stiff competition from HS参謀, who held world records under every difficulty and character type at the time. While there is no replay available for the 2.96 billion run, there is a Stage 6 practice replay that employs many aggressive tactics to graze through spells and earns 551 million points by the end.
Imperishable Night[edit | edit source]
For a long time, AM was the most dominant player in Imperishable Night's Extra mode, holding the highest known score with every character, including the popular 3.01 billion Youmu replay. This score attack maintains an extremely high quality of play, as AM grazes through nearly every Spell Card with no visible mistakes and accumulates over 100,000 time orbs in the process. In summer of 2009, most of his records were methodically beaten by ASL, who now holds the overall Extra record with 3.1 billion, also set with Youmu.
AM has also aimed to dominate the Easy mode in a similar way, currently holding 9 World Records out of 12 possible on the B-route. The highest among them, set with Marisa, attains a score of 3.104 billion.
His current best Lunatic score of 5.213 billion, set with Sakuya & Remilia in 2008, ranks within top-10 in the category.
Subterranean Animism[edit | edit source]
Since the debut of Subterranean Animism, the Lunatic and Extra categories had consistently been dominated by UnKnown and Taro (たろー), respectively. On October 30, 2008, AM broke UnKnown's Lunatic record with a score of 3.645 billion points, and since then had improved it multiple times. Originally having set a target of 3.9 billion, AM exceeded his own expectations by breaking 4 billion, using new scoring strategies such as bombing Orin's "Needle Mountain" spellcard for 2000+ graze. On October 26, AM bested Taro (たろー)'s Extra record with a score of 1.091 billion, and since then has improved it to 1.101 billion. He believes that the theoretical maximum is 1.11 billion. As of January, 2010, the record is set by IBUKI at 1.103 billion.
In September, 2009, he reviewed then-current state of knowledge on Lunatic mode scoring in his blog, and concluded that no significant new strategies emerged during the time of his inactivity. However, he then outlined a plan for a potential 4.3 billion Reimu-A run. Since then Reimu-A scores had been pushed further to 4.44 billion by UKT, which convinced AM that even higher scores were achievable. In early 2010 he showcased practice replays of stages 4 and 5 to Royalflare uploader, annotated as 4.5 billion run tests.
Undefined Fantastic Object[edit | edit source]
Along with HECATE (へかて), AM was one of the first high-profile players to challenge Hard and Lunatic modes of UFO. Throughout late 2009 he gradually raised his Lunatic scores made with Sanae-B from 2.02 to 2.75 billion, adopting new strategic discoveries and more aggressive grazing approaches, all the while discarding the necessity of receiving additional extends from red UFOs. As such, AM has been the first to reach 2.4 and 2.9 billion with Sanae-B on Hard and Lunatic modes respectively, as well as the first player to get over 40,000 graze in a single scorerun.
His latest effort of 2.96 billion, set on 2010/03/27, successfully goes through the Byakuren fight with zero spare lives and bombs, achieving over 44k graze by the end. At the time of its publication it was stipulated that 3.15 billion could theoretically be achieved using a variation of this strategy.
Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom[edit | edit source]
After his efforts on UFO Lunatic up until 2010, AM took a 5-year absence. After this absence, AM briefly returned to playing Touhou when Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom came out in 2015. He put his sights on this game's Extra Stage, known to be one of the most difficult Extra Stages in the series. On September 19, 2015 he achieved a 1.008 billion score on this stage with Sanae. He chose to play Sanae as he likes her and believed her to reach the highest theoretical scores. His 1 billion score was the first 1 billion run ever achieved on this game's Extra Stage. His run was also the first scorerun of this category to be a No Miss and Full Spell and the run accumulated 97,397 graze. After achieving this run, AM would retire from scoring and hasn't been active in the community since then.
Personal[edit | edit source]
AM has maintained a journal about his Touhou achievements and other things, mainly in his native Korean (and sometimes Japanese, with the help of an automated translator). After releasing his groundbreaking UFO Lunatic replays in October and November of 2009 AM was confronted with accusations of tool-assistance, which eventually had him close his blog and instead maintain a smaller journal on his homepage together with a Twitter account.
Upon failing to meet a self-imposed deadline of achieving 3 billion in Undefined Fantastic Object before the 1st of April, 2010, AM had realized that Touhou scorerunning had become an addiction that prevented him from experiencing more important aspects of life. He promptly severed all ties with both its community and the games themselves, which was explained in one of the posts on his homepage journal. Although the entry was posted on the 1st of April, it turned out not to be a joke[2]. He however did come back in 2015 to briefly score Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom's Extra Stage.
Later he would close down his blog site with some closing comments[3]:
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| TAS話はいくつかの日本人東方scorerたちと話をして解明された。 | The TAS story was clarified after talking with some Japanese scoreplayers. |
| あまりにも長い前の話と詳細については覚えていないされます。 | It was too long ago and I do not remember the details of the story. |
| TAS疑惑は当時使っていたPCに東方地霊殿をするとたまに瞬間的にフレームが0になる現象があり、この現象がスペルカードで起これば、実際の時間が999秒を示すバグがありました。このことからTAS疑惑がありました。 東方星蓮船時ではない | The TAS suspicion was that when I played SA on the PC I was using at the time, there was a phenomenon where sometimes the FPS would momentarily go to 0. If this phenomenon occurred on a spell card, there was a bug that showed the actual time as 999 seconds. This led to suspicions of TAS. Not at the time of me playing UFO. |
| 東方星蓮船をプレイするときは、PCを交換したので、そのような現象は起こらなかった。 | When playing UFO, I replaced the PC and did not experience such a phenomenon. |
| そして2010年4月1日東方退職の話。 | Then, on April 1, 2010, I decided to retire from Touhou. |
| 当時の心は本気。事実だが、 この時期に重要な勉強があったのでscorer活動にくかった。 そして長い時間が経過した後東方神霊廟、東方輝針城作品が出てきてからも購入プレイしました。 しかし、scorerではなくLuna、Exクリア程度。 | My heart was serious at the time. It's true, but it was hard to score because I had important studies in this period. And after a long time passed, I bought and played TD and DDC when they came out. However, I did not score, but only did a Lunatic and Extra clear. |
| 2013年9月に結婚し。 | In September 2013, I got married. |
| 会社勤務たくさん忙しく、以前ほどのゲームをプレイすることができる時間は、多くの減りました。 | I was busy with a lot of company work, and the time to be able to play games decreased a lot. |
| 2015年8月〜9月の末紺EX scoreパターン製作をして、10億を達成。早苗にした理由は、早苗を好きだからであり、理論値鈴仙が高く早苗よりスコアより成長すると述べています。 | At the end of August-September 2015, I made a LoLK Ex score route and achieved 1 billion. The reason why I chose Sanae is because I like Sanae, and I stated that the theoretical value is higher with Sanae. |
| 東方紺珠伝EXをはじめscorer復活ではない。 | It is not a revival of scoring even when including LoLK EX. |
| 実は紺Ex10億目標をしながら妻と一緒に番組制作することを1ヶ月間延期した。 | In fact, I postponed working on a program with my wife for a month while he was working on his 1 billion LoLK Ex goal. |
| このため、AMは続いて紺Lunaをしたかったが、無理、現在の状況は再び引退が正しいかもしれませんがしたいときにいつが登場してscorerに活動かもしれませんw | Because of this, AM wanted to continue and play LoLK Lunatic but was unable to. The current situation may be right to retire again, but you never know when I may want to reappear and start scoring activities again w |
| 東方紺珠伝体験版プレイしてからscorerでちょっと復活したかったのです | I just wanted to revive scoring a bit after playing the demo version of LoLK! |
| そして最近では、少し時間を割いて紺EX上下封印を考えていますw | And recently, I've been thinking about taking a little time out of my day to work on LoLK Ex every now and then w |
| 一日に1〜2時間程度の練習 | Practice about 1-2 hours a day |
| この程度のようですね。私も日本語を完璧にしていないため、文章が完全していない場合があります。 理解していない部分の話してください | This seems to be about it. I also have not perfected my Japanese, so my sentences may not be complete. Please talk about the part I don't understand. |
Notable player records[edit | edit source]
Perfect Cherry Blossom[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Sakuya B | 1,582,774,620 | 2006/02/18 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Sakuya A | 1,422,337,110 | 2006/03/10 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Sakuya B | 1,591,435,190 | 2006/03/20 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Sakuya B | 1,617,424,930 | 2006/03/28 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Sakuya B | 2,968,759,830 | 2008/09/27 | #3 score at the time, unreleased |
Imperishable Night[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Route | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra | Youmu | 2,695,669,520 | 2005/07/03 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Youmu | 2,783,102,590 | 2005/07/05 | Former WR | ||
| Easy | Marisa | Final B | 2,914,005,800 | 2005/11/03 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Marisa | Final B | 2,968,872,990 | 2005/11/08 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Marisa | Final B | 2,987,235,080 | 2005/11/16 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Marisa | Final B | 3,028,485,050 | 2005/11/19 | Former WR | |
| Extra | Yukari | 1,923,384,570 | 2005/12/07 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Youmu | 3,010,565,950 | 2007/10/31 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Ghost Team | 2,874,012,860 | 2008/04/01 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Reimu | 2,418,721,020 | 2008/05/11 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Sakuya | 2,423,578,490 | 2008/05/13 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Marisa | 2,573,353,360 | 2008/05/14 | Former WR | ||
| Easy | Marisa | Final B | 3,104,212,600 | 2008/08/04 | Former WR | |
| Extra | Yuyuko | 2,001,929,660 | 2008/10/09 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Border Team | 2,812,651,840 | 2008/10/12 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Remilia | 2,041,353,990 | 2008/10/14 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Alice | 1,971,775,680 | 2008/10/15 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Magic Team | 2,908,319,100 | 2008/10/16 | Former WR | ||
| Extra | Scarlet Team | 2,766,871,330 | 2008/10/19 | Former WR | ||
| Easy | Yukari | Final B | 1,755,281,020 | 2008/12/13 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Alice | Final B | 1,893,206,400 | 2008/12/16 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Yuyuko | Final B | 1,778,140,680 | 2008/12/17 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Reimu | Final B | 2,687,842,840 | 2008/12/17 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Sakuya | Final B | 2,659,230,770 | 2008/12/18 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Scarlet Team | Final B | 2,728,957,390 | 2008/12/19 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Ghost Team | Final B | 2,633,850,100 | 2008/12/20 | Former WR | |
| Easy | Magic Team | Final B | 2,839,079,220 | 2008/12/22 | Former WR |
Mountain of Faith[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra | Marisa C | 952,447,040 | 2007/09/28 | Former WR | |
| Extra | Reimu A | 961,113,610 | 2007/10/01 | Former WR |
Subterranean Animism[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra | Reimu A | 1,091,339,400 | 2008/10/23 | Former WR | |
| Extra | Reimu A | 1,094,389,430 | 2008/10/25 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Reimu A | 3,645,063,710 | 2008/10/30 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Reimu A | 3,682,981,260 | 2008/11/02 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Reimu A | 3,849,425,760 | 2008/11/05 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Reimu A | 4,005,225,500 | 2008/11/08 | Former WR | |
| Extra | Reimu A | 1,101,675,500 | 2008/11/23 | Former WR |
Undefined Fantastic Object[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,024,866,500 | 2009/10/01 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,042,395,870 | 2009/10/03 | Former WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,332,867,820 | 2009/10/04 | Former overall WR | |
| Hard | Sanae B | 2,402,751,780 | 2009/10/09 | Former overall WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,486,553,510 | 2009/10/25 | Former overall WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,757,418,250 | 2009/11/07 | Former overall WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,780,503,220 | 2010/03/20 | Former overall WR | |
| Lunatic | Sanae B | 2,961,619,580 | 2010/03/27 | Former overall WR |
Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom[edit | edit source]
| Difficulty | Shottype | Score | Date | Replay/Video | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra | Sanae | 1,008,302,770 | 2015/09/15 | Former WR |