| 0/0 |
0 extra lives and 0 bombs, the point at which the player has no resources left and is thus forced to survive all of the upcoming patterns to still clear.
The 'x/y' notation is often used to denote the number of spare lives and bombs a player has at a given point in time in a run. |
| 10D |
If you use this, please switch to using 'TD' for that game now. |
| 1cc |
1 credit clear; a clear without using continues, which is equivalent to only using one coin if playing on an arcade machine, the origin of the term.
This is the primary goal that people will have in a game when starting to play it. |
| Bottomhugging |
Being at the bottom of the screen all the time while playing, a tendency that newer players often have, due to being afraid of the bullets and
wanting to be as far away from them as possible. While sometimes useful, this is not always the best general strategy. |
| Cancel |
Bullets being converted into items, effectively wiping them from the screen, which is often important for score.
This occurs when the player ends a boss pattern by shooting the boss, but can have several other causes too, such as enemies that cancel their bullets when killed, or bombing. |
| Cap |
Abbreviation of 'capture'; a Spell Card being dodged without dying or bombing, which awards a Spell Card Bonus. |
| Clipdeath |
Dying because of wrongly estimating bullet hitbox size(s). |
| Counterstop |
The point at which the score counter stops increasing; the score limit of a game. Sometimes this is reachable, but most of the time it is not.
Not to be confused with overflow or underflow. |
| DB |
Deathbomb; a bomb within a few frames after getting hit, which saves you from dying. |
| ExNN |
Extra No Miss No Bomb; a 1cc of some Extra Stage without dying or using bombs. A third 'N' is appended if there is a game-specific third restriction. |
| FS |
Full Spell; a run that captures all Spell Cards. |
| GO |
Game over. Not to be confused with "Good Omen", a Spell Card. |
| Graze |
Having a bullet come very close to your hitbox, which means it touches your 'grazebox', a hitbox larger than your main hitbox that is used to detect grazing. |
| Hitbox |
The part of a sprite that is used for collision detection; that is, the part of the player character or an enemy that can get hit, and the part of a bullet that kills you when touched.
In Touhou, hitboxes of a sprite are smaller than the full size of the sprite. |
| I-frames |
Invincibility frames; frames during which something does not take any hits. Your player character has a number of I-frames after a death, as well as during a bomb.
Under certain circumstances, some enemy characters can also have I-frames. |
| LNB |
Lunatic No Bomb; a 1cc of some game on Lunatic difficulty without using bombs. |
| LNN |
Lunatic No Miss No Bomb; a 1cc of some game on Lunatic difficulty without dying or using bombs. A third 'N' is appended if there is a game-specific third restriction. |
| LS |
Last Spell; a spell used at the end of an IN boss fight when the time requirement is met. It does not cost a life to die to it. |
| LW |
Last Word; a special spell (and the difficulty of such a spell) used by an IN boss, which is only available in Spell Practice mode. |
| Macrododging |
Dodging waves of bullets by going around them rather than through them, which may or may not be to avoid having to micrododge.
Often abbreviated to 'macro'. |
| Maingames |
Disputed. Generally means integer games, but the status of PC-98 games and PoFV as maingames is not agreed upon. The integer games from EoSD to HSiFS, excluding PoFV, are always included. |
| Memo |
Memorisation; remembering a specific route for a pattern in order to dodge it. |
| Micrododging |
Dodging dense waves of bullets by navigating through them, usually using small taps to get safely through. Often abbreviated to 'micro'. |
| Milking |
Stalling a pattern for as long as possible to maximise the value of something, which is mostly graze. In GFW, players milk freezes instead. |
| Misdirection |
Making aimed bullets go into a direction away from you, to make sure you are safe. |
| Miss |
Losing a life. This term came from the Japanese transliteration of "mistake", ミステイク misuteiku, which has as abbreviation ミス misu, i.e. "miss". |
| Non |
Nonspell; a boss attack that is not a Spell Card. |
| NB |
No Bomb; a clear without bombing. |
| NBB |
No Border Breaks; used in PCB to mean a clear without breaking Supernatural Borders, whether it be by getting hit during one or by pressing the X key. |
| NF |
No Focus; a clear without using focus mode, that is, without pressing Shift. |
| NM |
No Miss; a clear without dying. Also known as '1 life clear'. |
| NMNB |
No Miss No Bomb; a clear without dying or bombing. Also known as Perfect or the even shorter acronym NN. |
| NN |
See NMNB. |
| NNN |
NMNB, plus a game-specific third restriction, which is
NBB for PCB, NV for UFO, NT for TD and NR for HSiFS. Also known as Perfect
or a more comprehensive version of the acronym, such as 'NMNBNT' for TD. |
| NR |
No Release; used in HSiFS to mean a clear without using releases; that is, without pressing the C key. In Japan, this is also used in PCB, to mean NBB. |
| NT |
No Trance; used in TD to mean a clear without using manual trances; that is, without pressing the C key. |
| NUFO |
No UFO summons; used in UFO to mean a clear without summoning UFOs.
Because of the length of the acronym, NV is often used instead. |
| NV |
No Ventora (Japanese for UFO summons); used in UFO to mean a clear without summoning UFOs. |
| Opener |
The first nonspell of a boss, which is the first attack that they use, unless there are only Spell Cards. |
| Overflow |
When a number becomes higher than its maximum value, causing strange behaviour. Notoriously occurs in UFO,
in which the score will be displayed wrongly once it reaches higher than 2,147,483,647. It loops back to 0 again once it reaches 4,294,967,295.
Not to be confused with counterstop or underflow. |
| OD |
Overdrive; the difficulty above Lunatic that is used for a select few unlockable Spell Cards in TD. |
| Perfect |
See NMNB or NNN. |
| Pause buffering |
Repeatedly pausing the game in order to make reading and dodging a pattern easier. Doing this during a run is commonly considered cheating. |
| Pointblanking |
See shotgunning. |
| PoC |
Point of Collection; this is the area at the top of the screen that, when entered, makes your character automatically collect all items on screen. In TD, this does not work on spirits. |
| PB |
Personal Best; someone's highest score or best survival in a specific category. |
| PIV |
Point Item Value; the number of points awarded for collecting a point item (blue item). The higher up on the screen you are, the higher the value is, with the maximum value at the POC. Most games have a system that allows the player to increase this value in some way. |
| Resources |
Extra lives and bombs, the tools given to you to survive through a game with. Making good use of them is known as 'resource management'.
Resources are often denoted with the 'x/y' notation, for example 0/0 for when the player has no extra lives and bombs left. |
| Restreaming |
Changing your streaming direction, usually by making a quick, unfocused movement to misdirect the bullets
and then streaming into the other direction. Also known as 'cutback'. |
| RNG |
Random Number Generator; used to refer to random bullet patterns, which, because of their randomness, do not have a route. |
| Route |
A specific path used to navigate through one or more bullet patterns. The routing approach is used on both static patterns and patterns aimed at you. |
| s1 |
Stage 1; similarly, 's2' means Stage 2, 's3' means Stage 3, etc. |
| Shmup |
Abbreviation of shoot 'em up, which is the genre of games that bullet hell is part of. STG has the same meaning. |
| Shotgunning |
Being right under the boss to deal as much damage as possible. Also known as pointblanking. |
| Speedkill |
Shooting down an enemy or ending a boss pattern as fast as possible. |
| Static |
A bullet pattern that is always the exact same, and thus can be routed. |
| Streaming |
Tapping into a certain direction to dodge aimed bullets, making them move behind you in a stream-like fashion. This can be done either horizontally or vertically.
If a player comes close to either edge of the screen while doing this, they will want to restream the pattern. |
| Suicide bullets |
Extra bullets fired by an enemy when it dies, usually aimed at the player. On Hard or Lunatic difficulty in GFW, all enemies fire these. |
| Survival spell |
A Spell Card during which the boss is invincible,
forcing the player to survive until the time is up, which is referred to as a timeout.
Because of this, such a spell is also known as a 'timeout spell'. |
| SCB |
Spell Card Bonus; the score awarded from capturing a Spell Card. |
| STG |
Shooting Game; an acronym used to refer to shoot 'em up games, just as shmup does. Used primarily by Japanese players. |
| Timeout |
Surviving a pattern until the time is up. Survival spells,
Spell Cards that force this on the player, are also called timeout spells. |
| Token |
Refers to either a small UFO or a beast in WBaWC, both of which float around the screen. |
| TAS |
Tool-Assisted Speedrun; used to refer not to speedruns, but to runs that used cheats, such as slowing down the game, using savestates and pause buffering,
which is often done to see what is theoretically possible in a game. |
| TO |
See timeout. |
| Underflow |
When a negative number is converted to a format that does not have negative numbers, causing a very high positive number. Notoriously occurs in DDC
and ISC, in which the Spell Card Bonus can be made negative, which, if the score becomes negative when the bonus is added, increases the score to 9,999,999,990,
a counterstop. Not to be confused with overflow. |
| Wall |
A cluster of bullets with no space that a hitbox can pass through in between them, although it can also refer to a cluster of bullets that looks like that. |
