Cave Story Tribute Site Forums

A mod is just a short way of saying modification. For the most part, if you change something in Cave Story, it's a mod. I'm not positive what the difference between a mod and a hack is, so I won't say any more than that.

To embellish upon what Tp said, a hack is the modification of a certain aspect of the game. For example, making the game run in double resolution is a hack, or making the game able to hold more songs than normal is a hack, but the modified game itself is a mod. A mod may have one or more hacks applied to it. Some have used the term mod and hack interchangeably when referring to a mod, but this terminology is not correct.

Some may also say mod when they're referring to a moderator, which is a position of staff on a website which helps maintain order, but does not have as much power as an administrator.

The classical definition, I think, is that modding refers to changing something in a piece of software or hardware to do something not conceived by the Developers, while hacking is commonly talking about breaking into computers by gaining access to administrative controls or equally illegal things.

In Cave Story cultureish, however, they both get slightly different meanings. Modding refers to using an editor such as Booster's Lab, Cave Editor, Sue's Workshop, or - waaaaaaaay back in the day - Miza to change something in the Cave Story software. Creating a brand new level or messing with some text is considered modding it. I think editing image files or things like that also fall in the modding category, but I'm not sure because I'm not a historian on this stuff. A Cave Story .exe that has anything from a single letter changed to a brand new adventure with new characters is considered a mod, or <strong class='bbc'>mod</strong>ified game. Hacking, on the other paw, refers to manually delving into the game's code with specialized programs like disassemblers - I think. Making a new level by smashing through code, while extremely difficult and pointless, might be considered hacking, but the more common forms include things like editing weapon effects and characteristics, changing the way Quote jumps or runs, editing Special Bosses, and other things that can't usually be done with an editor. A record of what you did to the poor game to give the modder the ability to use infinite characters is called a hack, though it may also come through a prehacked .exe.

Does that clear things up? Or did I just make you even more confused? <img src='http://www.cavestory.org/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue2.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':p' />