Cave Story ~ Critter Tower Defence

Thomas Xin · Jul 7, 2016

You know what guys? I'm actually going to be making new thread on this mod now.
Downloads:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wwp57g48s11w1f5/Critter_TD_v0.2.6.zip?dl=0

Free assembly hacks (Please give credit)

Player-controlled Critter

0x445651
8B 4D 08 81 69 40 00 04 00 00 7E 3D EB 07 D9 55
89 E5 EB EC 9B 83 79 70 00 75 0D FF 41 70 66 A1
CC E6 49 00 98 89 41 40 F6 05 14 E2 49 00 40 74
23 F6 41 04 08 74 1D C7 41 14 01 FC FF FF E8 26
01 00 00 83 61 04 00 EB 68 EB 5D EB 07 C7 41 10
80 01 00 00 83 61 68 00 F6 05 10 E2 49 00 02 74
08 C6 41 68 04 C6 41 4C 02 F6 05 10 E2 49 00 01
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C3 E9 09 02 00 00 C3 8B 4D 08 83 79 68 00 75 0A
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C0 10 89 41 5C 29 C0 89 41 58 04 10 89 41 60 80
79 68 03 7D 02 71 10 83 69 54 30 83 41 5C D0 83
69 58 F0 83 41 60 10 8B 41 10 8B 51 14 11 51 0C
11 41 08 F6 41 04 08 74 0E 83 61 10 00 83 61 14
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EB 3E F6 05 10 E2 49 00 01 75 0B F6 05 10 E2 49
00 02 75 08 EB 2A 83 59 10 20 71 04 83 51 10 20
81 79 10 00 FE FF FF 7F 07 C7 41 10 00 FE FF FF
81 79 10 00 02 00 00 7C 07 C7 41 10 00 02 00 00
EB 3E 29 C0 50 50 50 6A 7F 6A 81 EB 44 66 D9 D0
5A 5A 50 8B 51 4C 4A C1 F2 0B 52 FF 71 0C FF 71
08 29 C0 B0 94 50 E8 94 97 02 00 8D 64 E4 20 8B
4D 08 FF 41 74 83 79 74 03 7C C7 83 61 74 00 C3
66 81 79 14 FF 07 7C 07 C7 41 14 FF 07 00 00 EB
23 E8 E9 9A FC FF 5A 5A 92 66 B8 00 02 98 52 50
F7 D8 50 E8 D7 9A FC FF 59 59 59 01 C8 8B 4D 08
51 50 EB 99 8B 41 0C A3 58 E6 49 00 83 25 54 E6
49 00 00 EB 72 F6 05 10 E2 49 00 0C 75 06 E8 6F
FF FF FF C3 29 C0 50 50 50 29 C0 40 F6 05 10 E2
49 00 04 74 02 F7 D8 C1 F0 0B 50 66 B8 80 02 98
50 F7 D8 50 E8 86 9A FC FF 5A 5A 50 8B 4D 08 FF
71 0C FF 71 08 31 C0 B0 94 50 E8 F0 96 02 00 83
C4 20 8B 4D 08 FF 41 74 83 79 74 03 72 A7 83 61
74 00 F6 05 10 E2 49 00 08 75 01 C3 F6 41 04 08
75 F9 83 69 14 7F C3 66 81 41 40 00 04 C9 C3 6A
01 6A 1E E8 27 AD FD FF 59 59 8B 4D 08 E9 79 FD
FF FF

^ Uses same sprites as First Cave critters

Noxid, GIRakaCHEEZER, RuneLancer etc for Assembly Compendium & Functions list
Wistil for Cave Editor
zxin for being a slave driver
gamemanj for PEONS,
Credit to whoever made ollydbg and;
And most obviously, Pixel.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 7, 2016

But why? It'd be a lot tidier to keep all the ModCon stuff in one thread, as well as less confusing.

Slither · Jul 7, 2016

If he wants the mod to stand on its own instead of just being "part of the contest" I can see why a thread for it would be a good idea, especially if he plans on adding to it. Not sure if that's his plan though.

Might have been better to start the thread once the contest was over though, for organization purposes like you said.

Thomas Xin · Jul 7, 2016

I don't want to clog up the thread with updates/comments.

Thomas Xin · Jul 7, 2016

Okay, for SOD's notes:

okay let's do thi-

triggered

I'll give this a go later, but knowing you this is probably suicide.

ok wow uh
you should've told the player that you start with an invisible Booster v2.0

I was hoping you'd fix this horrid tiling.
You didn't.

I don't know why, but sometimes the hit effects or death smoke from dying critters flies off the screen at supersonic speeds.

holy shit why do you get so little money from demolishing towers

jesus christ dude i only have bubbler towers

>super missiles don't have infinite range
>they disappear before they can do anything
>forcing me to waste over $150
gee thanks
probably gonna lose this round now thanks to that loss of firepower

ok good you don't instantly die when a critter reaches you
at least you learned that much

something is restoring my health but i don't know what

FUCKING RAINBOW CRITTER GET OUT OF MY LEVEL

what i've learned from level 1:
- Polar Star is literally worthless. Shoots too slow even at Level 3.
- Bubbler is just as decent as the others said.
- Spur is just as overpowered as the others said.
- Level 3 Blade is decent for crowd control.
- Super Missile is just as underwhelming as the others said. Just make more Spurs.
- Destroying towers is really stupid because it barely gives you any of your money back. Fuck up and place a bad type of tower in an important location? Say goodbye to your dosh.

this music really is starting to get irritating due to it looping throughout every single level

err
round 22 in egg corridor instantly ended for me

My Level 3 Fireballs have been wrecking everything up until now, but these things couldn't care less.
WAAAAAY too much HP.

and i can't even get more money since they kill themselves after hurting me

and i can't scrap more towers since they give so little money
like really, i demolished a level 3 fireball tower, which took $175 to make, and only got around $10 back

i forgot to mention this, but this tiling is also bad
way too much empty space
also, please remove any and all spikes in the playing area
they shouldn't be there whatsoever

now level 7 instantly cleared

that feel when you're literally 1 buck away from another spur upgrade

why can't there be a repair option

this is literally just "save up for Spur towers: the game"
no other option is safe

every single one of my towers is a level 3 spur tower
wow
such strategy

NOT EVEN ALL THE TOWERS BEING LEVEL 3 SPUR TOWERS COULD STOP THIS THING
R E M O V E
R A I N B O W
C R I T T E R S

time to skip

1. remove spikes
2. bad slope

bad slope 2: electric boogaloo

>Want to re-die?
gee, i wonder what mod you built this off of...

and yet again, you have to put in at least one way to die per screen
even when it serves no purpose

are you serious
did you actually put DEATH SPIKES in one of your maps?

1. hory shet i'm a critter
cool
2. this tiling is even worse
literally why

why don't i get super jumps like the normal rainbow critters
this is rigged

i can't get up

and why do i only get 200hp
the other rainbow critter had at least 500

why did you make it so hard to figure out where to go

now to check out hardcore mode

good joke

Sure enough, you made a tower defense-esque game in Cave Story. I personally haven't played very many tower defense games, though this was pretty neat. However, there are quite a few issues with it:
- The designs of the levels are incredibly lazy in most of the maps. Empty space, reuse of the same block tile for entire maps, broken slopes, etc.
- The inclusion of spikes in 90% of the levels. Combined with your lack of invincibility frames, they are incredibly inconvenient. I know I should be surprised that you thought it was a good idea to place a death spike in the final level, but then again...
- The towers themselves are very unbalanced. Even with a moderately damaging tower like the Level 3 Fireball tower, it becomes impossible to recover if you don't start buying Spur towers as soon as possible. You're not even allowed to experiment with the towers and gauge how good each one is due to how little money you get back from demolished towers. In some cases, not even the strongest tower in the game, the Spur tower, can win you the level, which brings me to...
- The critters are similarly unbalanced. Roughly the first half of the game is fine, but once you get to the indigo critters, dark blue power critters, and the rainbow critter it starts to get unfair. The indigo critters are fast, come in huge swarms, have quite a bit of health, and do more damage than the other critters. I have had cases where not even an entire hallway of Level 2 Spur towers could stop them. The dark blue power critters have an unholy amount of health and phases, as well as the ability to split into even more full-health critters upon death. Again, I struggled with these ones even with numerous overpowered Spur towers. Finally, there's the elephant in the room: the rainbow critter. You apparently decided to throw out everything you learned from its use in the past and revert it back to its former "glory": obscene amounts of health, quick speed, and the ability to do over 4000 damage on contact. Not even an entire armada of Level 3 Spur towers can put this thing down.
- The Bonus Room seemed rushed. For a majority of the map, you used a single type of tile. The controls for the Rainbow Critter were very unclear and the Rainbow Critter itself was very awkward to control. You are limited to 200 HP, far lower than the amount normal Rainbow Critters get. It was really easy to get lost and jump off a cliff thinking it was the way to go. You didn't use <PRI at the end of the map, so I could still hear myself taking damage once everything faded out.

Right.
When I said 'Demolish Tower?' I didn't mean 'Sell tower.'
That option would take far too long to do, for that I would have to give different selling prices AND options for every single tower. So I made them so that people wouldn't abuse and buy towers to demolish them for a higher price than the purchasing itself.
Now you say I don't give good comments about your mod. I did, about the use of the same beetle.
It is YOU who doesn't give good comments on MY mods.
Okay, the spikes thing. Personally, I'd already removed most of the spikes, so I'll have to reconsider removing more of them.
I especially made the Yellow Critters (From Rise of Ballos as well) give you health after they die.
Also, this mod was a completely new mod, although I used sprites from another mod, which is allowed.
The Indigo Power Critters only do the same damage as the regular Power Critters - 12 (dec). It's their spawn that actually amounts to more damage if they get through.
The Rainbow Critter boss may be a little timing/luck based due to the possibilities of your towers missing. I might make Grasstown easier, just for its sake.

As for the Bonus Level, you can shoot, you know! Also, shooting down while you are airborne will make you hover upwards a bit, increasing the length of your jump.
I'll fix the rest of the issues later.

GIRakaCHEEZER · Jul 8, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
Now you say I don't give good comments about your mod. I did, about the use of the same beetle.
It is YOU who doesn't give good comments on MY mods.

If you're gonna say this it'd be nice if you pointed out which of seasons' comments were bad comments. Because right now this comment just seems shoehorned into the middle of your post for little to no reason.

Thomas Xin said:
The Rainbow Critter boss may be a little timing/luck based due to the possibilities of your towers missing. I might make Grasstown easier, just for its sake.

If you can't kill the rainbow critter 100% of the time with the right setup, then that's just bad design. There really shouldn't be any luck in regards to this, especially considering its the last wave.

I really really recommend you spend this next week or so rebalancing the game. Make some of the weapons with different movement patterns more powerful, and make it so that the last wave doesn't require all spur towers to kill? I'd also recommend less waves/less money, since it's pretty ridiculous that you can even build the most expensive tower in the game on every tower spot by the end of a level. This is why building spur towers becomes the only viable strategy, and once there's only 1 strategy then the game becomes boring.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 8, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
Okay, for SOD's notes:

Right.

When I said 'Demolish Tower?' I didn't mean 'Sell tower.'

That option would take far too long to do, for that I would have to give different selling prices AND options for every single tower. So I made them so that people wouldn't abuse and buy towers to demolish them for a higher price than the purchasing itself.

Now you say I don't give good comments about your mod. I did, about the use of the same beetle.

It is YOU who doesn't give good comments on MY mods.

Okay, the spikes thing. Personally, I'd already removed most of the spikes, so I'll have to reconsider removing more of them.

I especially made the Yellow Critters (From Rise of Ballos as well) give you health after they die.

Also, this mod was a completely new mod, although I used sprites from another mod, which is allowed.

The Indigo Power Critters only do the same damage as the regular Power Critters - 12 (dec). It's their spawn that actually amounts to more damage if they get through.

The Rainbow Critter boss may be a little timing/luck based due to the possibilities of your towers missing. I might make Grasstown easier, just for its sake.

As for the Bonus Level, you can shoot, you know! Also, shooting down while you are airborne will make you hover upwards a bit, increasing the length of your jump.

I'll fix the rest of the issues later.

- Just because it doesn't mean "Sell tower" doesn't mean you need to give so little money. It may be harder to do, but getting less than 10% of the funds spent on a level 3 tower is kind of ridiculous, no?

- I am not obligated to sugarcoat my posts for you. I already told you that it was a neat mod. I never would have thought that CS was capable of tower defense-esque gameplay until now. I was pleasantly surprised at first when I played the Bonus Room stage. However, if I see glaring errors that require fixing in order to make the mod better, such as lazy tiling or imbalances, you can bet your behind I'm going to point them out.

- There is no reconsidering required. If you want the spikes there for decoration, take them out of the playing area accessible by the player and stick them in the area outside of it.

- There was nothing that told the player that Yellow Critters heal you when they die. Again, why not just scrap that and allow the player to purchase repairs for money?

- I was just pointing that out to be cheeky considering that you re-used Rise of Ballos' mocking death message.

- You misread what I typed. I said the Indigo Power Critters have unholy amounts of HEALTH, not damage. They take way too long to kill even with Level 3 towers. As I said in my notes, my Level 3 Fireball towers that were destroying the last couple waves couldn't do anything to the Indigo Power Critters, resulting in me being starved of funds.

- Or you could just nerf the Rainbow Critter like you did in Rise of Ballos? Maybe spawn two with less health and less damage?

- I knew I could shoot. That's why I said that you neglected to use a <PRI at the end of the map. You just didn't tell the player how the Rainbow Critter worked. There wasn't even anything in the inventory to possibly give me a hint as to how the shots worked.

BLink · Jul 8, 2016

now what good is giving out mods in hex format when you can give them out in DouA format and actually have them modifiable and usable.

X-Calibar · Jul 8, 2016

I'll probably write more after the contest... but, nice work on the mod!! Very unique and fun. I was impressed~ (only played up to the second level though... died... twice...)

Pros:
Tower Defense ... with Critters!! Epic.
Concept and execution... very good. Fun to watch the critters attempt to reach you, and quite a lot of gameplay.
Nice song.

Cons:
~~You're a block... No offense to all the block heads out there, but not the most exciting character.~~
Traps that hurt you while building...
No instructions... I mean it was kinda fun just being thrown into it without any tutorial. But, even a readme would be nice.
Long, long levels with no save points. Playing very far into a level and then suddenly dying... And starting from the beginning... Frustrating.
Would be nice to have multiple songs, or even choose your own song...

Ideas:
Save point appears every 5-10 waves? Assuming saving wouldn't break something. And a reset point or item to quit the current area to restart...?

Perhaps spike traps should disappear during building phases? Or at least put a block or something on them?
Well, they wouldn't be so terrible if there was a long invincibility frame... I got stuck in one on the ceiling... Wasn't pretty.

Adding characters or even a story mode, would be pretty amusing (A story mode called: Critter Panic... lol).

Running around to choose a tower works well enough. Though it's pretty inefficient...
If you could switch to the tower of your choice through the inventory screen with items, it would be pretty neat.

Being able to start the round from your inventory would be wonderful as well. (Teleport to the start point...)

And maybe instructions within the inventory screen?

Tower type limits could make things interesting...

Conclusion:
Well done. Replayable and fun concept. Jumps right into the action. Would like to see it develop further, but already impressive and playable.
You deserve a critter plushy...

Thomas Xin · Jul 8, 2016

X-Calibar said:
I'll probably write more after the contest... but, nice work on the mod!! Very unique and fun. I was impressed~ (only played up to the second level though... died... twice...)

Pros:
Tower Defense ... with Critters!! Epic.
Concept and execution... very good. Fun to watch the critters attempt to reach you, and quite a lot of gameplay.
Nice song.

Cons:
~~You're a block... No offense to all the block heads out there, but not the most exciting character.~~
Traps that hurt you while building...
No instructions... I mean it was kinda fun just being thrown into it without any tutorial. But, even a readme would be nice.
Long, long levels with no save points. Playing very far into a level and then suddenly dying... And starting from the beginning... Frustrating.
Would be nice to have multiple songs, or even choose your own song...

Ideas:
Save point appears every 5-10 waves? Assuming saving wouldn't break something. And a reset point or item to quit the current area to restart...?

Perhaps spike traps should disappear during building phases? Or at least put a block or something on them?
Well, they wouldn't be so terrible if there was a long invincibility frame... I got stuck in one on the ceiling... Wasn't pretty.

Adding characters or even a story mode, would be pretty amusing (A story mode called: Critter Panic... lol).

Running around to choose a tower works well enough. Though it's pretty inefficient...
If you could switch to the tower of your choice through the inventory screen with items, it would be pretty neat.

Being able to start the round from your inventory would be wonderful as well. (Teleport to the start point...)

And maybe instructions within the inventory screen?

Tower type limits could make things interesting...

Conclusion:
Well done. Replayable and fun concept. Jumps right into the action. Would like to see it develop further, but already impressive and playable.
You deserve a critter plushy...

Okay. I considered the saving option, but although you can save money since I made it part of the tsc flags, you can't save the towers, unless I literally spend 100 hours on this. Same for selling price.

As for SOD's reply, I'll make a set of instructions in a txt file and an item that you can read to tell you the instructions for the bonus level. I'll remove all the spikes/make them do nothing then.

If you think making selling towers is so easy that to you don't care, you can try to make your own tower defense game yourself and try to cover all the options with tsc!
In fact, after looking through it again, it seems that it would overload the parser again... -_-

EDIT: In fact, I've figured out how to do this (selling towers) in assembly.
The chance of this working out is fairly high.

Mint · Jul 8, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
As for the Bonus Level, you can shoot, you know! Also, shooting down while you are airborne will make you hover upwards a bit, increasing the length of your jump.

Some keyboards (like the one in my laptop, but idk how much people really have this) do not like it when the z,x and down are held at the same moment, and start ignoring the 3rd pressed key.
Considering firing down here doesn't work like the machine gun, and the controls in the bonus stage ignore alternative controls, there isn't really a way for me to even get close to beating the bonus stage(or i'm just doing something REALLY wrong).
(again, I might as well be the only one having this, but I thought it's handy to let you know)

Thomas Xin · Jul 8, 2016

Miccs said:
Some keyboards (like the one in my laptop, but idk how much people really have this) do not like it when the z,x and down are held at the same moment, and start ignoring the 3rd pressed key.
Considering firing down here doesn't work like the machine gun, and the controls in the bonus stage ignore alternative controls, there isn't really a way for me to even get close to beating the bonus stage(or i'm just doing something REALLY wrong).
(again, I might as well be the only one having this, but I thought it's handy to let you know)

IDK. It works for me...
In fact, pressing right, down, Z and X at the same time works for me as well.

GIRakaCHEEZER · Jul 8, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
IDK. It works for me...
In fact, pressing right, down, Z and X at the same time works for me as well.

Did you not read the part where he said "some" keyboards? (as in, not ALL keyboards)

It's a common issue with some keyboards, and you can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(key)#Key_jamming_and_ghosting

There's no real way to fix it other than getting better hardware that doesn't Key Jam. That or you fix your game to not require machine gun flying.

Thomas Xin · Jul 8, 2016

GIRakaCHEEZER said:
Did you not read the part where he said "some" keyboards? (as in, not ALL keyboards)

It's a common issue with some keyboards, and you can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(key)#Key_jamming_and_ghosting

There's no real way to fix it other than getting better hardware that doesn't Key Jam. That or you fix your game to not require machine gun flying.

Okay, I try to make my mods to player's issues, so I'm going to remove those four-block high jumps.

SuperJaws100 · Jul 8, 2016

I really enjoyed playing this. The music gets extremely dull and repetitive though.

Thomas Xin · Jul 9, 2016

SuperJaws100 said:
I really enjoyed playing this. The music gets extremely dull and repetitive though.

I tried to insert more music files into the game, but then either the music wouldn't play or the game would crash. Even with these 3 music files I had to remove/change a few instruments so that they would play properly.

Goerge Bobicles · Jul 9, 2016

Are the spikes purposeful, or did you just put them in to add to the enviroment? If its the latter I would recommend changing the tile type. If its the former, its really easy to get hit twice when you touch them fue to the lowered invincibility. Though its kind of fun to bounce on them

Thomas Xin · Jul 9, 2016

Goerge Bobicles said:
Are the spikes purposeful, or did you just put them in to add to the enviroment? If its the latter I would recommend changing the tile type. If its the former, its really easy to get hit twice when you touch them fue to the lowered invincibility. Though its kind of fun to bounce on them

They were purposeful, but since people didn't like them I'll remove them.
I've gotten the entity direction ASM check working, so the next update will feature tower selling.
Because there was no way I could keep track of all the towers at the same time without rewriting the entire mod in ASM, I had to do a direction check for every entity on the map.

EDIT: Update finished, still the same download link, https://www.dropbox.com/s/wwp57g48s11w1f5/Critter_TD_v0.2.6.zip?dl=0
I can't be bothered to update the game version and edit the values and stuff, so yeah.
Though it still says 'Demolish Tower.' the towers now sell for approximately 90% of their original value. Different towers vary in selling price and ratio to purchase price.
Also, spikes no longer deal damage. Lava still does 1 damage, though. Tell me if even that needs nerfing/removing.

EDIT #2: Another new update; minor tower rebalancing

SuperJaws100 · Jul 10, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
I tried to insert more music files into the game, but then either the music wouldn't play or the game would crash. Even with these 3 music files I had to remove/change a few instruments so that they would play properly.

That's extremely unfortunate. The price of messing with ASM I suppose...

Thomas Xin · Jul 10, 2016

SuperJaws100 said:
That's extremely unfortunate. The price of messing with ASM I suppose...

No, it's more like something to do with the ordering of the notes/things inside the music file. Most of them won't play even in a fresh .exe
It's not like I used any of the forbidden instruments/percussion...

Oh yeah, has anyone tried the new update yet?