Another Cave Story Sequel (ACSS) V: 1.19.1

i'm late to the party once again! at least this time i have excuses behind my belt

the mod was fun, the only real issues i had with it were the text problems at the very beginning but i'm sure i've told you about them already

feedback time?

• the timed battles are pretty interesting, and so are the challenges/trainings, even though i stopped doing them because i wanted to beat the game with 10 health only
• the characters are fitting for the cave story universe, the dialogue seems decent overall
• i don't know if i were to have more weapons than just the alpha minoris and the snake launcher (i did not want the blade)
• speaking of the snake launcher, the puzzles were pretty fine. nothing i'd have to spend too much time on, but still engaging (i have no clue how the one puzzle with arrows and yes/no worked, had no trouble with it anyway)
• there's booster so it's 10/10

had fun! i'll be waiting for updates so i can experience more of this

 

i'm late to the party once again! at least this time i have excuses behind my belt

the mod was fun, the only real issues i had with it were the text problems at the very beginning but i'm sure i've told you about them already

feedback time?

• the timed battles are pretty interesting, and so are the challenges/trainings, even though i stopped doing them because i wanted to beat the game with 10 health only
• the characters are fitting for the cave story universe, the dialogue seems decent overall
• i don't know if i were to have more weapons than just the alpha minoris and the snake launcher (i did not want the blade)
• speaking of the snake launcher, the puzzles were pretty fine. nothing i'd have to spend too much time on, but still engaging (i have no clue how the one puzzle with arrows and yes/no worked, had no trouble with it anyway)
• there's booster so it's 10/10

had fun! i'll be waiting for updates so i can experience more of this

I'm really glad to see you enjoyed it!
A few things to explain:
Yes, the writing in the very beginning (upon rechecking it) had like 15 bajillion small errors, whether just plain forgetfulness, mistakes, or more plausibly something in-between, I took the time to go back and do an entire sweep of the script and have been fixing things. Being ACSS' sole main dev for the last 4+ years, I get so used to some scripts that it takes people like you or @Woddles who play the mod to tell me about some text errors in places I wouldn't expect. Every time I fix a bug I begin to feel bad for the devs who put up with this for years and get told by fans about their "easy to notice" bugs because like some text errors you found were literally in the opening sequence but when play-testing I skip those segments so much I probably would've never noticed it.

The Snake Launcher puzzle in the HEF is supposed to make sense in theory, but I know it can be quite confusing. As long as you have no trouble with it that's what matters most to me, a puzzle is supposed to make you stop for a minute to fiddle with, but it shouldn't be outright impossible where you need a strategy guide. Intuition should carry the player hopefully.


And yes Booster is cool.
Updates will come out eventually, it's slow but I'm swear I'm working on it!

 

Hello everybody, update 1.19 is out.
A lot has changed: My closet partner on the project, Kenzo_ITN, passed away, may he rest in peace, I'm doings lots in college, and I got caught up with life in general. But I'm back for a little bit to deliver more bug fixes and polishing! I'm pumped and want to do my best to make this game the best it can be. ACSS has become such a big project and I won't let everything go to waste.

Spoiler: 1.19 Changelog

Version 1.19 Changelog:

Major Changes:
- Added SBF (Set Booster Fuel) hack, co-created by Brayconn, Txin, and the now late Kenzo (rest in peace we'll always love you for your hard work mate). This hack will be utilized later in the mod.
- And thus had to fix the old TT2 to compensate for the new bug that SBF caused.
- Aegis Pump has been officially completed thanks to Txin; thank you once again for your amazing work! And thank you GabrielTFS for fleshing out the initial concept.
- Replaced Training Test 2 with a new Training Test that is more appropriate for the difficulty curve of that current section of the game
- TT2's original map will be moved up and be used as TT7 (It's still accessible in the files if you're really interested in playing it again)
- TT2 is still in the game in the form of TT?, which can be accessed to the very bottom right of the original Training Test room. Training Tests 1 - 3 must be beaten before accessing though. There's no reward for beating TT?, consider it for the challenge but there's no incentive to do it yet.
- Completely changed the HEF Control Room sequence. Now there is a new boss battle awaiting players and changed up dialogue.
- Greatly reduced the number of Missiles that spawn in Training Tests 3 and 4.
- All three Training Tests now give 2 hp each, an extra life capsule has been placed in the overworld to compensate.
- Changed all of Quote's dialogue to be more consistent with a new direction for his character (alongside dialogue that corresponds to Quote such as other characters reactions and interactions with Quote).
- Dedicated the post credits intro to Kenzo_ITN.

General Changes:
- Added a new story for Jenka to give about the Island's lore.
- In Sand Heights removed several NPC Rabid Mimis. This includes Usagi the Weaponsmith, and the one that gives you the Nazelron's Letter item.
- Changed the way you view which Training Tests you beat. Once you talk to the terminal (1 - 3) or Misery (4), you will see which Training Tests you have completed. Exiting out of the terminal/Misery will deactivate the TT signs. This is mostly a feature that adds some extra flare, and it allowed me to perform some much needed TSC fixing.
- This also applies to the TT? terminal.
- Minor change to some water pipes in the Waterway to be foreground tiles and not background tiles.
- Changed statue following Twin Spirits fight to state something else.
- Changed name of Radical Spirits to Twin Spirits to better fit the tone of the story.
- Changed the pit in the Island's Underbelly to have terminals and not just smoke generators to make it more obvious of where to go.
- Added Night Spirit enemies into Island's Underbelly map.
- Did a general clean up of HEF and Waterway maps, as well as the Training Test maps (specifically TT's 2 and 3), mostly with decoration tiles.
- Changed the sound effect used when interacting with the TT terminal the icons appear.
- Renamed Sarah to Sara to be more unique.
- Renamed "True Bottom of the Island" to "Bottom of the Island."
- Added a book in the Little's house.
- Removed a description in the Mirfield Villas Town Hall fireplace so that it no longer says "a path is behind the fire."
- Prellim gives you a hint as to where to go and if you did it prior to talking to Prellim for the first time, Quote will reassure himself (-slash-you, the player) to talk to Prellim again.
- Added an easter egg dedicated to Romana Dell.
- Changed Kilma's intro dialogue.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a text error in the Town Hall that incorrectly states when the HEF was built (Thanks Lethrys for pointing that out).
- Fixed a bug in TT1 wave 6 where if you killed the fuzz cores, reset the game, and went back to wave 6, killing only 1 would trigger the boss instead of killing both.
- Fixed a bug in the Training Tests where if you beat a Training Test and immediately retried it, the Power Control Flow NPC would drop a tile down vertically. I have no clue why it happens, probably a stray MNP command lying around in the TSC I can't be bothered to find. Slapping a quick additional MNP command fixes it though.
- Added a failsafe in the Sand Heights if you reach the missile gate without missiles so you're not making the trek back to reset the room for missile drops.
- Fixed a minor bug where you can enter the Wind Fortress before talking to the statue and quickly chatting with Malco. Now if you do it will skip the small cutscene when interacting with the statue.
- Fixed a bug where the teleporter in the Wind Fortress used a <MS3 instead of a <MSG for the beginning part.
- Fixed a bug where the Prellim side quest would continue on it's own if you first went straight to the Wind Fortress.
- Fixed as many errors of "The Island" into "the Island", "The Sand Heights" into "the Sand Heights", "The Bottom of the Island" into "the Island's Underbelly", etc...

Personal Notes:
- Making lots of minor text changes because jesus christ there's so many minor errors I haven't caught.
- Fixed a bug in TT1 where the boss' draw order and the terminal's draw order were incorrect so Balrog always ended up behind it. This was one of the oldest bugs in the game and it took 5 minutes to fix lol.
- Removed some H/V Triggers in TT?'s boss that did nothing (they required a flag to be activated but I never set the flag and kept forgetting about it, this was before I knew TSC like I do now).
- Edited lots of text/cleaned up lots of grammatical, spelling, and TSC errors.
- I will start including these changelogs inside the .zip folder for the new ACSS updates when possible.

You can download the new update here or go to the thread main page for download links, as well the mod is available for download via the Doukutsu Club.
I'm very excited to get back into the groove of things, and I know there are a few people who will experience ACSS for the first time so I'm super pumped.
Sorry updates are slow y'all! Doing my best I promise!!

Spoiler: Cursed meme

Join the CSMC to be part of the cursed memes such as ASS, and Kilma Balls.

Edit: 1.19.1 is out, download it here.

 

Okay, so I started playing this demo 3 weeks ago (just the day after you posted that update with version 1.19), and have been chipping away at this mod off and on, and just now reached the end of the demo.

I enjoyed this mod quite a bit. It's not anything too ground-breaking in terms of new mechanics, hacks, graphics, music, or story, but surprisingly enough, that's the mod's charm. In an era where the conventional wisdom is to supe your mod up with all kinds of hacks and custom resources, you present a refreshing mod that feels like Cave Story to the bone by going back to the basics and building upon that original experience by keeping ASM hacks to a minimal (if even using them at all) and primarily relying on the vanilla engine's scripting capabilities. I don't find the story to be particularly riveting and I didn't ever feel like the stakes were very high, but I appreciate the mod for what it is- a fun adventure that expands on the lore of the island, introduces some new characters, and gives some new areas to explore. The mod doesn't ever seem to be trying to pass itself off as anything more than that, and I appreciate the humility and self-awareness in the way that you market this mod. It lowers my expectations so that I wind up pleasantly surprised by the amount of time and effort that was put into it.

What really impressed me about this mod was the sheer amount of time that you put into building out these new levels and all of this dialogue. The level design is quite good, and despite mostly using familiar tilesets, it didn't feel stale. The levels were appropriately challenging, and the inter-connected nature of all of the rooms was really well thought-out. Even though this was a "back to its roots" sort of mod, you weren't afraid to introduce some new features like the new style of teleporting, the energy refill station, and the training tests. The energy refill station in particular was simple, yet very clever, and extremely satisfying to use.

You were pretty good about adding your own creative spin with the new characters, while also doing an exceptional job of filling in lore gaps that are left open in Cave Story, both through the off-hand comments some characters will make, and through the in-depth information you'll find by reading books on the shelf. For the more original areas of your headcannon, my feelings on such creative decisions ranged from anywhere between mildly amused to very intrigued. I'm not quite sure what to think of that brown-haired robot that you meet, but she was kinda funny, so I'm interested to see where you go with her. I'll have to say though, one of the mod's strongest points in terms of story was how you introduced Kilma. You did a really good job of making that robot seem threatening, and after that boss fight, I'm now starting to feel the stakes in a way that I wasn't before.

I've gotta hand it to you, at first I thought the whole gag about "his voice box being broken" was just a silly gimmick, but making Quote start to have actual in-game dialogue after getting a voice box was pretty darn amazing and felt like a really big payoff. The art for Quote's facepic is also really good. It's something different from the NICALiS art or the colorings I often see of Quote's face from that credit art illustration with Jenka's puppies, so good job on some facial expressions that are original but look like Quote. I'm still gonna stick to my personal head cannon of Quote actually talking in the original Cave Story even though his lines aren't shown due to Cave Story utilizing the "Silent Protagonist" trope, but I respect the bold move.

My only complaint about that is that Quote's talking style (not even his personality really, just his talking style) is a little bit different from what I was expecting. He and Curly were meant to be a bit more human-like than the other robots, and Curly's personality in Cave Story sets the precedent for this more than anything, which makes Quote's talking habits in this mod feel all the more jarring. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it didn't. I liked how he talked with the Mimigas, but when talking with the brown-haired robot, the lines "Shock expressed." and "Decline." just sound really weird. I will admit though, his "militaristic" talk sure did work for me in the confrontation before the end of the demo, I felt like Quote's talking style poised Kilma's conniving personality to serve as a very entertaining foil.


The mod could do with a bit more polish, but I've played plenty of mods that are way more rough around the edges than this mod. It's been a really long time since I've played a mod this long with this much thought put into it, so good job on this. With a mod of this length, it can be easy to miss minor issues, so here's a list of bugs or oversights that I took note of when I was playing the mod:

Spoiler

"Identifying for items..." is not exactly the most grammatically sound statement. Depending on what that's supposed to mean in this context, maybe it would be more fitting for it to say "Searching for items", "Scanning for items", "Scanning items", or "Identifying items". Given that it then identified your Malco card in your inventory, perhaps the phrase "Scanning items". Or if you're really determined to use the word "Identify", then maybe it could say "Scanning to identify items".

When getting the Alpha Minoris from Malco, I noticed a "got item" sound playing after the jingle finished.

When you defeate the HEF monster hive, it just jumps right to resuming the Waterway music, and doesn't play the "victory" music at all, which is kind of jarring.

After you've got Quote's voice box fixed, and you talk to the Mimiga in the village who says "Maybe you're one of those many Robots from ten years ago...", it un-pauses when it has Quote say "Correction needed...?" This looks kind of funny since sometimes the Mimiga will walk away, which doesn't seem right.

Once I activated training test 3, I saw a sparkly item, so being a curious player, I interacted with it. I was assuming it would like, maybe give me the option to bug out of the test like I can do for test 1, but instead it ended test 3, and acted like I had just won, and gave me the life capsule. So it ended the training test before it really had much of a chance to even start.

When I load a save file in the "Sand Heights Residence," I notice that some of the red flower-influenced Mimigas fall a bit to the ground when they spawn. This sort of breaks the illusion of them just standing. Not sure if that can be helped.

When I was in the first room at The Bottom of The Island, I fell off the edge of the map, but instead of dying, I got a message "Welcome to the home of the Gaudi: The Wind Fortress". And then I had to reset.

While it's good that the bullets from enemies don't hurt me while I'm reading the statues, it would probably be best to just use a <PRI command there so that it pauses altogether.

And here were some typos I noticed:
-"There's myself, Amp, Watt, and Joules. We've been seperated..."
-"I don't know why, but I have my suspcions:"
-"This launcher should be a lot more powerful thanks to it's new power:"
-Malco when you're in the outer catacombs: "Anyways, I assume you made here without much trouble."
-"Hey you, you're one of those robots right? A really fighter I hope."
-"If you have any updated on this virus or it's infectants, do let me know!"
-There are quite a few missing commas in this mod's dialogue, but this one is especially impactful because it changes the meaning of the sentence: "it's in our best interest to teach you how to fight Sara..."
-"...crystel restored our consciousnesses. And it's effects differ from how the Red Flowers work."
-"Halda seeked nothing but vengeance on his human-mage creators."
-"I was hoping following this, the Crown would ceased to be used..."
-"I saw him defeat The Doctor. He's an adapt fighter, and quite skilled."
-"It should be, it's off the beaten path, so you can go in at if you want."

And here are some areas where text got cut off. I feel as if these typos are best reported with screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Okay, so I started playing this demo 3 weeks ago (just the day after you posted that update with version 1.19), and have been chipping away at this mod off and on, and just now reached the end of the demo.

I enjoyed this mod quite a bit. It's not anything too ground-breaking in terms of new mechanics, hacks, graphics, music, or story, but surprisingly enough, that's the mod's charm. In an era where the conventional wisdom is to supe your mod up with all kinds of hacks and custom resources, you present a refreshing mod that feels like Cave Story to the bone by going back to the basics and building upon that original experience by keeping ASM hacks to a minimal (if even using them at all) and primarily relying on the vanilla engine's scripting capabilities. I don't find the story to be particularly riveting and I didn't ever feel like the stakes were very high, but I appreciate the mod for what it is- a fun adventure that expands on the lore of the island, introduces some new characters, and gives some new areas to explore. The mod doesn't ever seem to be trying to pass itself off as anything more that that, and I appreciate the humility and self-awareness in the way that you market this mod. It lowers my expectations so that I wind up pleasantly surprised by the amount of time an effort that was put into it.

What really impressed me about this mod was the sheer amount of time that you put into building out these new levels and all of this dialogue. The level design is quite good, and despite mostly using familiar tilesets, it didn't feel stale. The levels were appropriately challenging, and the inter-connected nature of all of the rooms was really well thought-out. Even though this was a "back to its roots" sort of mod, you weren't afraid to introduce some new features like the new style of teleporting, the energy refill station, and the training tests. The energy refill station in particular was simple, yet very clever, and extremely satisfying to use.

You were pretty good about adding your own creative spin with the new characters, while also doing an exceptional job of filling in lore gaps that are left open in Cave Story, both through the off-hand comments some characters will make, and through the in-depth information you'll find by reading books on the shelf. For the more original areas of your headcannon, my feelings on such creative decisions ranged from anywhere between mildly amused to very intrigued. I'm not quite sure what to think of that brown-haired robot that you meet, but she was kinda funny, so I'm interested to see where you go with her. I'll have to say though, one of the mod's strongest points in terms of story was how you introduced Kilma. You did a really good job of making that robot seem threatening, and after that boss fight, I'm now starting to feel the stakes in a way that I wasn't before.

I've gotta hand it to you, at first I thought the whole gag about "his voice box being broken" was just a silly gimmick, but making Quote start to have actual in-game dialogue after getting a voice box was pretty darn amazing and felt like a really big payoff. The art for Quote's facepic is also really good. It's something different from the NICALiS art or the colorings I often see of Quote's face from that credit art illustration with Jenka's puppies, so good job on some facial expressions that are original but look like Quote. I'm still gonna stick to my personal head cannon of Quote actually talking in the original Cave Story even though his lines aren't shown due to Cave Story utilizing the "Silent Protagonist" trope, but I respect the bold move.

My only complaint about that is that Quote's talking style (not even his personality really, just his talking style) is a little bit different from what I was expecting. He and Curly were meant to be a bit more human-like than the other robots, and Curly's personality in Cave Story sets the precedent for this more than anything, which makes Quote's talking habits in this mod feel all the more jarring. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it didn't. I liked how he talked with the Mimigas, but when talking with other robots, it just felt off. Especially when he meets the brown-haired robot, the lines "Shock expressed." and "Decline." just sound really weird. I will admit though, his "militaristic" talk sure did work for me in the confrontation before the end of the demo, I felt like Quote's talking style poised Kilma's conniving personality to serve as a very entertaining foil.


The mod could do with a bit more polish, but I've played plenty of mods that are way more rough around the edges than this mod. It's been a really long time since I've played a mod this long with this much thought put into it, so good job on this. With a mod of this length, it can be easy to miss minor issues, so here's a list of bugs or oversights that I took note of when I was playing the mod:

Spoiler

"Identifying for items..." is not exactly the most grammatically sound statement. Depending on what that's supposed to mean in this context, maybe it would be more fitting for it to say "Searching for items", "Scanning for items", "Scanning items", or "Identifying items". Given that it then identified your Malco card in your inventory, perhaps the phrase "Scanning items". Or if you're really determined to use the word "Identify", then maybe it could say "Scanning to identify items".

When getting the Alpha Minoris from Malco, I noticed a "got item" sound playing after the jingle finished.

When you defeate the HEF monster hive, it just jumps right to resuming the Waterway music, and doesn't play the "victory" music at all, which is kind of jarring.

After you've got Quote's voice box fixed, and you talk to the Mimiga in the village who says "Maybe you're one of those many Robots from ten years ago...", it un-pauses when it has Quote say "Correction needed...?" This looks kind of funny since sometimes the Mimiga will walk away, which doesn't seem right.

Once I activated training test 3, I saw a sparkly item, so being a curious player, I interacted with it. I was assuming it would like, maybe give me the option to bug out of the test like I can do for test 1, but instead it ended test 3, and acted like I had just won, and gave me the life capsule. So it ended the training test before it really had much of a chance to even start.

When I load a save file in the "Sand Heights Residence," I notice that some of the red flower-influenced Mimigas fall a bit to the ground when they spawn. This sort of breaks the illusion of them just standing. Not sure if that can be helped.

When I was in the first room at The Bottom of The Island, I fell off the edge of the map, but instead of dying, I got a message "Welcome to the home of the Gaudi: The Wind Fortress". And then I had to reset.

While it's good that the bullets from enemies don't hurt me while I'm reading the statues, it would probably be bet to just use a <PRI command there so that it pauses altogether.

And here were some typos I noticed:
-"There's myself, Amp, Watt, and Joules. We've been seperated..."
-"I don't know why, but I have my suspcions:"
-"This launcher should be a lot more powerful thanks to it's new power:"
-Malco when you're in the outer catacombs: "Anyways, I assume you made here without much trouble."
-"Hey you, you're one of those robots right? A really fighter I hope."
-"If you have any updated on this virus or it's infectants, do let me know!"
-There are quite a few missing commas in this mod's dialogue, but this one is especially impactful because it changes the meaning of the sentence: "it's in our best interest to teach you how to fight Sara..."
-"...crystel restored our consciousnesses. And it's effects differ from how the Red Flowers work."
-"Halda seeked nothing but vengeance on his human-mage creators."
-"I was hoping following this, the Crown would ceased to be used..."
-"I saw him defeat The Doctor. He's an adapt fighter, and quite skilled."
-"It should be, it's off the beaten path, so you can go in at if you want."

And here are some areas where text got cut off. I feel as if these typos are best reported with screenshots:

Spoiler

View attachment 8615View attachment 8616View attachment 8617View attachment 8618View attachment 8619

I am very happy to hear you enjoyed the mod! I do agree that I'm trying my best to simply make a sequel to CS that feels like CS, one of my biggest gripes with mods such as Jenka's Nightmare are that the level design feels so not-Cave Story with how big the rooms can be and with the difficulty spikes the game presents like in Sand Zone, Facility Zone, and other areas like Last Cave. Although honestly I'm a little embarrassed to say I used quite a lot of hacks.

Spoiler: hacks

But as long as they flowed naturally into the progression of the mod that's what matters most.
I appreciate all of your criticisms and bugs you found! I actually found out a good chunk of these myself and from playtesters but you found others I hadn't seen at all so that'll help me improve the game even more!
I hope you enjoy Cascade and other mods in the future, and give it another 5 years for me to finish ACSS lol.

 

Oh yeah that's right, I glanced at that document with the list of hacks when I first opened it up, then totally forgot about that. That is indeed quite a lot of hacks. I guess that's just a testament to the fact that they melded very naturally into the game without feeling like the stale gimmicks that I'm used to seeing.

I figured that you might have been aware of some of the bugs or typos that I pointed out, but glad to hear that I caught and reported some that you haven't heard of before.

 

Is this still being made?

 

I still intend to work on ACSS eventually, I've just been lazy and have been focusing hard on my education degree. School is a b-word as the kids say.

 

School is a balls.

 

Hi! Just finished the demo (1.19.1) and it's great! i really love the new portraits and the story you are going for! There are only two problems that i noticed: 1) There are grammatical errors spanning all the demo. i would rewatch every dialogue to be sure 2) The later dialogues are better but the intro cutscene dialogue just sounds like a fanfic. That's about it. As i said i really love the demo and can't wait for the next version.
EDIT: Jenka's nightmare sucks, you can see it was made by pros for pros. This is from now on not Another sequel, but THE sequel

 

Lol I appreciate it. I should continue working on the mod again. I have plans to rewrite the intro from being less fan-fiction-y, I can definitely see how it feels that way lol.

 

Cold is cooking... just give him time...

 

Hey! How is development going?

 

I'm playing your mod and all I can say is it's pretty good! I'm kinda lost in reaching the sand zone. Is it in the north of the hydro-electric facility?

 

Hey there! Glad you all are enjoying my mod!!

Hey! How is development going?

I won't lie, I haven't touched development in a few years, got caught up with working on my education degree and got hopelessly addicted to Arknights - the only good gacha game out there, no joke. I've always said once I drop Arknights I'll go right back into development for ACSS. I firstly intend to overhaul the mod and port it over to C+ so making mods and hacks for the game will be much better, easier, and hopefully allow me to be more creative because of how limiting Assembly is. I would also like to rewrite parts of the story and make the maps more cohesive.

I'm playing your mod and all I can say is it's pretty good! I'm kinda lost in reaching the sand zone. Is it in the north of the hydro-electric facility?

It's north of the Mirfield Villas. If you haven't completed the part of the main story where Amp sends you back into the HEF then go do that first. Hope that helps!

 

Thank you very much! I'm in the fight against a robot with misery powers

 

Yeha that's Kilma, silly little guy. He's the only boss with any major assembly changes that I think makes him unqiue and super tough. Although in my ideas for an overhaul I'd certainly love to make him easier lol

 

I'm pretty sure that guy is your avatar. Just because the third 'eye'

 

The PFP is a "You should kys NOW!" meme with him

 

Finally, defeated the robot guy. He was a pain but overall, I liked this mod!