The Misty Lake is a location in Touhou Project. It is a sizeable lake located at the base of the Youkai Mountain that serves as Gensokyo's only significant aqueous body, being a culmination of the water that runs off the mountain via one of its rivers. The lake gets its name from the mysterious dense mist that forms around it at roughly noon each day, which is said to severely hamper the visibility of anyone that finds themselves caught up in it.
Because of the lake's nature as a source of water, it attracts a good number of fairies and youkai to its location, particularly during the summer months; it also functions as an attraction point for anglers seeking to reel in some of the lake's large fish youkai, some of which having been reported to measure up to many meters in length. The lake is a permanent place of residence for several of the series' characters, the most notable of which being Cirno, who is fought here as the stage 2 boss in The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and as Sanae's opponent during the latter's story in Touhou Hisoutensoku; Daiyousei and Wakasagihime are also known to be permanent inhabitants of the lake, while the Scarlet Devil Mansion and its residents are situated on a ridge that overlooks the lake.
In M.U.G.E.N, Shore of Misty Lake has been made by Ouchi and Night; both versions are conversions of the stage that originates from Touhou Hisoutensoku.
Ouchi's version consists of a single graphic consisting of the Shore of Misty Lake stage that appears in Touhou Hisoutensoku, but in an attempt to minimise colour loss that would have otherwise occurred with pre-M.U.G.E.N 1.1's 256 colours per sprite limit, a method has been employed which splits up the graphic into 29 different 'tiles' that each have their own individual colour palettes; despite this, there is still some noticeable colour loss in one of the sky tiles in the centre of the stage. Similar to the source game, the camera will scroll upwards with any vertical movement of the combatants, owing to the stage lacking a floortension value.
Night's version is split up into four individual definition files that can effectively be grouped into non-fog and fog variants, as the only difference between the 1.1 variants over the non-1.1 ones is the addition of camera zoom. Both non-fog and fog variants use sprites of the Shore of Misty Lake stage taken from Touhou Hisoutensoku, with the bulk of each stage variant being compiled into a single graphic with noticeable colour loss in the lake and sky sections; the only difference between the two is the visual composition of the sky in the main graphic and the separate elements that are unique to each stage variant, with the non-fog stages having some blue sky peeking through the clouds and a sun glare effect on the right side of the stage, and the fog variants having a completely overcast sky and the namesake fog as a foreground element. Because the fog definitions show the lake as a mostly white mass and have the fog appear in front of the combatants, characters with a predominantly white colour scheme and white effects become difficult if not outright impossible to see if they find themselves in front of the lake, which can lead to issues that result in certain characters gaining an unnatural advantage.
Videos[]
GMᴜɢᴇɴ - Mortal Kombat ⑨
Shore of Misty Lake
Mugen Random Battles 7 - Unyuho vs Chirnyo la venganza de Unyuho
