Touhou Project (Drillimation)

Touhou Project (東方プロジェクト) is a series of danmaku shooters by the Team Shanghai Alice branch at Drillimation Studios.

Driller Engine 1 Era (1986 - 1988)
Touhou began its life at Amusement Software in 1985 by ZUN, who was 19 at that time. Using the Driller Engine 1 arcade boards, Touhou Reiiden was created. Amusement Software staff originally contacted Taito for distribution but rejected the offer because Taito staff thought the game would be a rip-off of Arkanoid and KiKi KaiKai (known as Pocky and Rocky outside of Japan). Drillimation offered to publish it, and the game would end up becoming one of Drillimation's most popular titles. Nintendo won a jump ball with Drillimation, with Nintendo getting the distribution rights for the series to publish it internationally. Nintendo was also the first company to release the Touhou series in arcades under Nintendo's VS. System.

Driller Engine 2 Era (1992 - 1995)
In 1988, shortly after the release of Touhou 5: Mystic Square, Amusement Software was shut down due to poor sales management and bankruptcy. After Amusement Software went out of business, Nintendo and Drillimation enter a legal battle whether not computer software should enter the public domain if the manufacturer goes defunct. The first five Touhou games were the most pirated NES games of all time, and upon release, it made it easy for hackers to copy the ROM file onto floppy disks and distribute them in magazines. Because Nintendo sought a lot of legal actions over this, Drillimation eventually revoked Nintendo's distribution rights for the Touhou franchise due to the contract expiring, and all rights of the series were turned over to Namco.