Another Cave Story Sequel (ACSS) V: 1.19.1

Feb 28, 2021 at 2:37 AM
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i played this as well & totally forgot to leave a review - so all notes here are from memory

- intro cutscene (and the cutscenes beyond basic convos in general) are really well designed - impressive TSC, too, i like :]
- having quote be out for a year feels like... too long, if that makes sense? i know there needs to be a period of time to explain all the massive landscape changes and whatnot, but something like 3-6 months (or even just something vague like 'a while') would feel a little more sensible (and make it stand out from JN which also did the 'come back to the island after a year and everything's radically changed' thing)
- interesting idea focusing on the malcos, i like their themed names lol
- for some reason a lot of sentences have random ' at the beginning? i'm not sure what that's about.
- areas are cool! for the most part they're pretty well designed and make good use of tilesets, though without a map i got pretty lost in the HEF
- speaking of the HEF, i feel like the snake launcher locks could be, well, more obvious - a brighter colour or a symbol, perhaps. i got frustrated trying to figure out how to start the power because the console/surrounding NPCs didn't give any hints & the locks weren't noticeable
- for the most part the dialogue is pretty good, though i agree that you could give more secondary dialogue - both so you don't have to read through the same chunk of dialogue and to flesh out NPCs a little more
- the inclusion of lore books are really cool (and inspired me to do something similar in my mod) - worldbuilding/expanding on an established universe like that is one of my favourite things and it's done pretty well here, excited to read more
- as the resident misery fan i'm disappointed she got nerfed, 0/10 kidding
- the stuff with the ravils also has me curious, the sprites/lack of animation are a little weird at times but i get there's limitations, clever idea to use map tiles

overall there's a lot of interesting plot points and implications being set up and i'm excited to see where this goes! while it does, of course, remind me of JN, it has its own distinctive identity at the same time, so i'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the next update!

EDIT: also sarah is adorable and i'm extremely concerned for her safety, i stg if she's the toroko equivalent -
 
Feb 28, 2021 at 3:00 AM
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i played this as well & totally forgot to leave a review - so all notes here are from memory

- intro cutscene (and the cutscenes beyond basic convos in general) are really well designed - impressive TSC, too, i like :]
- having quote be out for a year feels like... too long, if that makes sense? i know there needs to be a period of time to explain all the massive landscape changes and whatnot, but something like 3-6 months (or even just something vague like 'a while') would feel a little more sensible (and make it stand out from JN which also did the 'come back to the island after a year and everything's radically changed' thing)
- interesting idea focusing on the malcos, i like their themed names lol
- for some reason a lot of sentences have random ' at the beginning? i'm not sure what that's about.
- areas are cool! for the most part they're pretty well designed and make good use of tilesets, though without a map i got pretty lost in the HEF
- speaking of the HEF, i feel like the snake launcher locks could be, well, more obvious - a brighter colour or a symbol, perhaps. i got frustrated trying to figure out how to start the power because the console/surrounding NPCs didn't give any hints & the locks weren't noticeable
- for the most part the dialogue is pretty good, though i agree that you could give more secondary dialogue - both so you don't have to read through the same chunk of dialogue and to flesh out NPCs a little more
- the inclusion of lore books are really cool (and inspired me to do something similar in my mod) - worldbuilding/expanding on an established universe like that is one of my favourite things and it's done pretty well here, excited to read more
- as the resident misery fan i'm disappointed she got nerfed, 0/10 kidding
- the stuff with the ravils also has me curious, the sprites/lack of animation are a little weird at times but i get there's limitations, clever idea to use map tiles

overall there's a lot of interesting plot points and implications being set up and i'm excited to see where this goes! while it does, of course, remind me of JN, it has its own distinctive identity at the same time, so i'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the next update!

EDIT: also sarah is adorable and i'm extremely concerned for her safety, i stg if she's the toroko equivalent -
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I really appreciate all of the criticisms you all have been giving me this last week!

For the story, I kinda just dropped 13 months as an arbitrary number, but I could definitely modify it to be something like a few to 6 months.

And don't worry Sarah's not gonna be a Toroko equivalent. I don't want to just throw her out like that like how Pixel threw Toroko out.
 
Apr 17, 2021 at 11:01 AM
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Hello everybody, I finished this hotfix update in a singular night, and while my sleep schedule is hecked, the game's development is not! Enjoy this hotfix update.
Major Changes:
- Fixed the HEF Hive Boss entirely, the terminal and Mimiga worker disappear for the fight (and reappear afterward), some TSC was also fixed to accommodate these changes, it should hopefully be impossible now to soft-lock the fight (please let know if it still occurs).
- In The Underbelly of The Island (right before the HEF) I removed the teleporter that was once there and instead added a pathway that leads straight back to the Innermost Catacombs; once inside the Catacombs once again you'll be able to shoot a missile block and gain access to go back and forth. This is essentially to allow people to more easily return to Malco and try out Training Test 2 (since the teleporters don't work until after the HEF you'd be spending a lot of time going back to Malco's just to play what is arguably the most unfair TT of the current 3).
- As well, in the Boss, the hidden missiles have been removed and the timer has been dropped from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.

General Changes:
- Updated background in the Catacombs to feature a darker variant of the "bkBlue", edit help thanks to Woddles
- Updated screenies in the forum thread
- New forum signature thumbnail for the mod, courtesy of Asperdev
- Removed any mention of Quote's face in the intro cutscene, as well as Curly addressing Quote about his voice; his face pic is also removed in the Waterway Boss fight
- Remove camera locations of the three E-Bits in the Inner Catacombs
- Moved some enemy positions in the Waterway (specifically the Jellies), and redid some tiles to better fit the water current (basically gave some pools like the top wave tiles)
- In the HEF the terminal at Sector B will no longer show you where terminals of sectors C and D are
- Timeskip is only 4 months now, not 13 months
- The Snake Launcher block has been resprited (by Asperdev) so hopefully they're a little more clear as to where to shoot
- The 4 instructional blocks in the HEF's Snake Launcher puzzle have been temporarily drawn to represent a left and right arrow, checkmark to finalize, and X to reset the puzzle. These block changes are temporarily and will be fixed in a future update (most likely 1.18)
- Gave Sarah's introduction cutscene a little rustling sound to indicate her moving around in the grass (I am not animating the grass)
- Books in the Town Hall (in Mirfield) and Misery's room (Sand Heights) now have tiles with colored books, indicating they can be interacted with for a unique event (idea thanks to Kenzo_ITN from his mod, Fever Dreams of Ascension)
- In Malco's Hideout I added some extra terminals to help give a better idea that he's actually doing stuff and not just sitting around by the teleporter all of the time.
- There is an easter egg where Quote will say "bloody hell" in honor of Romana Dell, the creator of the Quote face pic, who requested this 2 years ago (it was a long time coming, I just seriously forgot, sorry Dell)
- Fixed a bug where talking to the door when the Rabid Mimis mini-boss starts Sarah's face pic will appear instead of Quote's (thanks to Romana Dell for pointing it out, I never would've found it)
- Mirfield Villas' slope resprite by Asperdev

Buffs/Nerfs:
- Reduced enemies in Inner Catacombs, this should hopefully make getting the E-Bits a little easier

Tile Spike:
- Damage nerfed: 10 -> 5

Hanging Bat:
- Nerfed HP: 11-> 8

Circling Bat:
- Nerfed HP: 9 -> 7

Misc.:
- Fixed a bug where after first talking to Malco would activate flag 2000 (the skip cutscene flag)
- Fixed many spelling errors thanks to Woddles' help
- Fixed a tile in the Outerwall, a girder tile, to have a proper background behind it
- Fixed pillars in Mirfield Villas to have proper shading
- In the HEF/Waterway, fixed all of the background pipes so that they don't have a weird line of shadow on their sides, hard to describe, they should just look better now
- Gave statues in the Mirfield Villas proper black eyes (so they're not transparent anymore)
- Fixed a singular red flower in the Red Flower Corridor that was annoying the heck out of me

Personal Notes:
- This update was all achieved in a singular night and proves that development of this mod could've been done by now had I not been so apathetic/lazy/so-caught-up-on-gacha-games-o-o-p-s
You can download the new update here.
And as always thank you so much everybody for sticking with me through the thick and thin!
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 12:59 AM
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OK so the crashes were because of Windows 10 being dumb. After changing the game's directory it worked.
p375513-0-cqnmzs.png

This background tile part looks a bit too light for me. For a second, I thought it was solid tile. Just make it slightly darker and it's fine.

Probably do <TUR for most things that are text in the game's universe (books, terminals, etc). An example is the terminal in Malco's room about the Snake Launcher.

p375513-1-x5b7hr.png

Why is the block next to the TP block fall-through?

Okay this is kinda dumb but... I miss the ALLCAPS TALKING that Malco had in the AGTP translation. But also it doesn't work as well for a major character with a facepic.

p375513-2-1o2iys.png

I think the cluttered tiling in HEF is entirely down to this tile right here. It's relatively detailed, has contrasting colors, and is a self-contained block. While the original game's Waterway does use it quite a bit in the beginning, it's in small clumps. When this tile is used hundreds of times in long lines that cross over each other, it creates distracting patterns. I'd say if you replaced this tile with a less detailed one (or just removed the long lines of them in general), the clutter would be solved.

Aside from the clutter though, the HEF is REALLY good tiling-wise.

p375513-3-hck3h1.png

ok foreground

Nice Quote facepic. Unlike most custom facepics, it fits with the original game's art style to a T.

Grasstown = Bushlands
good

"Why aren't you... How should I put it... Screaming? Like back in Bushtown where we first met."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Wow, Training Test 2 is really hard for when you unlock it! Even after doing the HEF first, it took several tries. But it's great! I like the challenge, the environment, the enemies. Standouts are the intermission and how Round 5 fakes you out.
And Training Test 3 is just as good. Kinda funny that I ripped this off for my first mod, but now it's 50 times better than that version.

The books in the library are really cool. All the lore dumps that still fir the Mimigo Villa residents. And wow, the poems. The music is such a nice touch. But also... Sakemoto? ...To...? Interesting.
WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID YOU PUT A NOVEL IN HERE

Though there's a lot of tense swaps. Also, there are lots of missing commas in the dialogue. Same with the novel. I'll start pointing some of them out starting now.

"I've been worried for their safety but her, they're capable"
Have a comma or a period after "safety"
p375513-4-9nmmik.png

A bit of cutoff there.

bcomp

oh hello curly recolor
I kid. Sarah's cool so far.

"Well that's sweet to see, I'm Quote, I assume you're a non-violent robot?"
Awkward grammar. Make it something like "Well, that's sweet to see. I'm Quote. I assume you're a non-violent robot?

And the Sand Heights are really good too. You've done a really good job at turning the Sand Zone's style of level design into a vertical stage.

With the dialogue, the interactable things, and Quote's introspection, I can tell you've put a lot of effort into this mod's story.
One thing, though: I think Quote's too well-spoken. Like, he has amnesia, and until now he didn't have time to do much but shootypewpewbangapichuun. As it is, he doesn't feel like (my interpretation of) the Quote from the original. And it's quite a stretch to think someone would program him with the knowledge of, say, what alcohol is and how it works.
Personally, I would take advantage of the fact that he didn't do much talking in the original game. Since he's been powiebingabadoomying from before he can remember, he has a hard time putting his thoughts to words.
Of course, you'd have to totally rewrite all of his dialogue for that. He'd still have the same heroic personality, but with added clumsiness in his speech & mannerisms. A stutter here, an awkward phrasing there, a long pause as he tries to think of what to say. Misusing idioms, being overly literal, trying to tell a joke and failing miserably. It could add humor, contrast with his eloquent inner thoughts, and even signify character development as his speech slowly improves.
That's just my grain of salt. It is your mod.

Holy shit is the bartender the "Doctor Dumb can go screw himself!" mimiga?
"Mimigaling" sounds weird
What's with the apostrophes at the start of sentences?
p375513-6-wh1pum.png

ok
Kinda jarring, but also who cares.

The monster Encyclopedia is a fun idea, but why did you put it in? Aside from the flowers section, all of this information is obvious to the player.
In the Crown Bearers book's Doctor section
"that defeated Miakid fifthteen years prior"
It's fifteen.

Miza's sprite is green and thats so weird
like if you wanna be more accurate to the facepic then make her shirt black
p375513-7-shdype.png

uh

p375513-8-jhfks0.png

Those rocks look unnatural.

bcomp

And so does this.

Wind Fortress was cool. And I like how you made it reward you with the Map System and Life Capsule, despite being unfinished.

When the Kilma fight starts, the H/V Trigger doesn't disappear. The intro cutscene just repeats forever. I was still able to fight the boss by skipping the cutscene and shooting a Ravil in the couple frames I had control, making it activate and push me out of the H/V Trigger. It was just a standard Misery fight, though since touching the H/V trigger meant a softlock, I could only be in the right half of the arena. That was pretty frustrating, though I won't knock it against the mod.

But even with that in mind, I think Kilma's projectiles do a bit too much damage for 20 health. Also, even though the boss (under normal circumstances) takes about a minute, you kill the "Rabid Mimis" in less than 10. Unless you're trying not to kill them, they don't factor into the fight that much.

...Aaaaand beating the boss warps you right behind the H/V Trigger. It's still there after beating the boss, so there's no way to get past it. It seems there's not much left for this update, so I guess that's the end for now.
Really good mod so far. Not sure how much more you got planned, but it's certainly shaping up to be one of the greats! I appreciate that you're making a sequel mod that doesn't stray too far from the original. Looking forward to the next update!
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 9:20 PM
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OK so the crashes were because of Windows 10 being dumb. After changing the game's directory it worked.
p375513-0-cqnmzs.png

This background tile part looks a bit too light for me. For a second, I thought it was solid tile. Just make it slightly darker and it's fine.

Probably do <TUR for most things that are text in the game's universe (books, terminals, etc). An example is the terminal in Malco's room about the Snake Launcher.

p375513-1-x5b7hr.png

Why is the block next to the TP block fall-through?

Okay this is kinda dumb but... I miss the ALLCAPS TALKING that Malco had in the AGTP translation. But also it doesn't work as well for a major character with a facepic.

p375513-2-1o2iys.png

I think the cluttered tiling in HEF is entirely down to this tile right here. It's relatively detailed, has contrasting colors, and is a self-contained block. While the original game's Waterway does use it quite a bit in the beginning, it's in small clumps. When this tile is used hundreds of times in long lines that cross over each other, it creates distracting patterns. I'd say if you replaced this tile with a less detailed one (or just removed the long lines of them in general), the clutter would be solved.

Aside from the clutter though, the HEF is REALLY good tiling-wise.

p375513-3-hck3h1.png

ok foreground

Nice Quote facepic. Unlike most custom facepics, it fits with the original game's art style to a T.

Grasstown = Bushlands
good

"Why aren't you... How should I put it... Screaming? Like back in Bushtown where we first met."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Wow, Training Test 2 is really hard for when you unlock it! Even after doing the HEF first, it took several tries. But it's great! I like the challenge, the environment, the enemies. Standouts are the intermission and how Round 5 fakes you out.
And Training Test 3 is just as good. Kinda funny that I ripped this off for my first mod, but now it's 50 times better than that version.

The books in the library are really cool. All the lore dumps that still fir the Mimigo Villa residents. And wow, the poems. The music is such a nice touch. But also... Sakemoto? ...To...? Interesting.
WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID YOU PUT A NOVEL IN HERE

Though there's a lot of tense swaps. Also, there are lots of missing commas in the dialogue. Same with the novel. I'll start pointing some of them out starting now.

"I've been worried for their safety but her, they're capable"
Have a comma or a period after "safety"
p375513-4-9nmmik.png

A bit of cutoff there.

bcomp

oh hello curly recolor
I kid. Sarah's cool so far.

"Well that's sweet to see, I'm Quote, I assume you're a non-violent robot?"
Awkward grammar. Make it something like "Well, that's sweet to see. I'm Quote. I assume you're a non-violent robot?

And the Sand Heights are really good too. You've done a really good job at turning the Sand Zone's style of level design into a vertical stage.

With the dialogue, the interactable things, and Quote's introspection, I can tell you've put a lot of effort into this mod's story.
One thing, though: I think Quote's too well-spoken. Like, he has amnesia, and until now he didn't have time to do much but shootypewpewbangapichuun. As it is, he doesn't feel like (my interpretation of) the Quote from the original. And it's quite a stretch to think someone would program him with the knowledge of, say, what alcohol is and how it works.
Personally, I would take advantage of the fact that he didn't do much talking in the original game. Since he's been powiebingabadoomying from before he can remember, he has a hard time putting his thoughts to words.
Of course, you'd have to totally rewrite all of his dialogue for that. He'd still have the same heroic personality, but with added clumsiness in his speech & mannerisms. A stutter here, an awkward phrasing there, a long pause as he tries to think of what to say. Misusing idioms, being overly literal, trying to tell a joke and failing miserably. It could add humor, contrast with his eloquent inner thoughts, and even signify character development as his speech slowly improves.
That's just my grain of salt. It is your mod.

Holy shit is the bartender the "Doctor Dumb can go screw himself!" mimiga?
"Mimigaling" sounds weird
What's with the apostrophes at the start of sentences?
p375513-6-wh1pum.png

ok
Kinda jarring, but also who cares.

The monster Encyclopedia is a fun idea, but why did you put it in? Aside from the flowers section, all of this information is obvious to the player.
In the Crown Bearers book's Doctor section
"that defeated Miakid fifthteen years prior"
It's fifteen.

Miza's sprite is green and thats so weird
like if you wanna be more accurate to the facepic then make her shirt black
p375513-7-shdype.png

uh

p375513-8-jhfks0.png

Those rocks look unnatural.

bcomp

And so does this.

Wind Fortress was cool. And I like how you made it reward you with the Map System and Life Capsule, despite being unfinished.

When the Kilma fight starts, the H/V Trigger doesn't disappear. The intro cutscene just repeats forever. I was still able to fight the boss by skipping the cutscene and shooting a Ravil in the couple frames I had control, making it activate and push me out of the H/V Trigger. It was just a standard Misery fight, though since touching the H/V trigger meant a softlock, I could only be in the right half of the arena. That was pretty frustrating, though I won't knock it against the mod.

But even with that in mind, I think Kilma's projectiles do a bit too much damage for 20 health. Also, even though the boss (under normal circumstances) takes about a minute, you kill the "Rabid Mimis" in less than 10. Unless you're trying not to kill them, they don't factor into the fight that much.

...Aaaaand beating the boss warps you right behind the H/V Trigger. It's still there after beating the boss, so there's no way to get past it. It seems there's not much left for this update, so I guess that's the end for now.
Really good mod so far. Not sure how much more you got planned, but it's certainly shaping up to be one of the greats! I appreciate that you're making a sequel mod that doesn't stray too far from the original. Looking forward to the next update!
I really enjoyed this review, you gave me a lot of great advice on how to fix many aspects of the mod, especially with Quote's character, I love the idea! I fixed the softlock and many bugs and grammatical/spelling errors that you pointed out. I'll definitely fix Quote's character and redo it all in 1.18. I'm also going to fix the HEF's tileset so the gray block isn't cluttering everything and anything. The original concept for ACSS was that many map would use a tile as the map's "electrical tile" since every area in old version of ACSS' story would use power from the HEF.
p375514-10-unknown.png

Many of these maps would use these "electric blocks" to weave paths in and out, with some foreground and background tiles acting as like power-lines of sorts". I've dialed this back in recent updates where the original idea is long gone. The HEF was actually one of the last areas with this old issue I had to fix and you gave me some motivation to fix it all up one last time.
p375514-11-unknown.png

I'm a lot more happy with how Malco's Hideout looks now (though I still need to find tune some things but that'll be for a later date).

p375514-12-unknown.png

Many maps just simply look atrocious with all of these "electric blocks" and I'm a lot happier with how maps look now in retrospect.

p375514-13-unknown.png

And this is the HEF with all of it's electric blocks weaving in every which direction, around pipes and all over the map itself. It's honestly a nightmare looking at it from afar.

p375514-14-unknown.png

Here's some progress on how it's looking right now and I intend to release 1.17.3 tonight or tomorrow with all of these changes in mind.
Your criticism's gone a long way to helping ACSS in every way, and I more than appreciate it. Modding can very much be a collaborative effort, Pixel may have had a good stroke of luck making nearly the entire game himself but for certain he had play testers and people giving ideas and feedback, so this is something I very much appreciate from everybody in the community. Thank you again!
 
Apr 30, 2021 at 12:09 PM
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Apr 30, 2021 at 5:00 PM
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really fun mod but uh, a lil bit unstable
The best I can recommend to remedy this issue is to move your ACSS folder up a folder or two or place it directly on the desktop. The mod seems to have a problem loading maps sometimes when it's deep jn a folder, others have been having this issue and moving the mod up in your computer's directory fixes it (I don't know why though). I hope this helps.
 
Apr 30, 2021 at 5:51 PM
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The best I can recommend to remedy this issue is to move your ACSS folder up a folder or two or place it directly on the desktop. The mod seems to have a problem loading maps sometimes when it's deep jn a folder, others have been having this issue and moving the mod up in your computer's directory fixes it (I don't know why though). I hope this helps.

From what I remember Windows doesn't like file paths whose size is of over 240-260 characters (unless you set it to higher in W10) so if your mod's folder is somewhere close to that then that's indeed probably it.
 
May 27, 2021 at 9:04 PM
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Wow! Great mod Cold! I rolled on the floor when blue Malco said Grassland was better!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!
 
May 27, 2021 at 9:06 PM
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Wow! Great mod Cold! I rolled on the floor when blue Malco said Grassland was better!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!
His name is Amp, this pains me to read.
 
May 27, 2021 at 9:25 PM
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So I was wondering if Kilma is actually the 5th robot in the Malco crew that you took out in an early update.
No, Kilma's more of an evolution of The Hunters from the original version of ACSS.
p375653-0-unknown.png

Kilma is basically just an edited Blue Robot and Asper and Raymundo have made efforts to update it and make Kilma more unique as a character and villain.
 
Oct 7, 2021 at 6:41 AM
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Hey, I just checked this out, and I've gotta say this is definitely one of the most promising mods I've seen in a long time! It reminds me in some ways of Jenka's Nightmare, which I consider pretty high praise as far as the world of CS mods goes. Eagerly awaiting to see what comes of the next major update.
 
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Oct 7, 2021 at 6:16 PM
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Sorry for the double-post, but I seem to have run into a bug.

In the hydroelectric plant, after activating HEF Gate C (the one shortly after defeating the monster hive), going back to the room with the save point gives an error that says "failed to load stage," after which the game crashes.

I seem to be able to enter the room just fine before activating Gate C, for some reason it seems an event flag with gate C (either the monster hive miniboss or the gate itself, not sure which) causes the map data for the save room to fail.
 
Oct 8, 2021 at 12:04 PM
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Sorry for the double-post, but I seem to have run into a bug.

In the hydroelectric plant, after activating HEF Gate C (the one shortly after defeating the monster hive), going back to the room with the save point gives an error that says "failed to load stage," after which the game crashes.

I seem to be able to enter the room just fine before activating Gate C, for some reason it seems an event flag with gate C (either the monster hive miniboss or the gate itself, not sure which) causes the map data for the save room to fail.
Hey good morning! I'm really glad you're enjoying ACSS so far. I've come to a halt in development right now because of schoolwork and 2 jobs this semester. You did give me some motivation however to continue work and ironing out bugs and adding new features, I appreciate it. As for the bug in question, I believe this was something I have patched in the newest update that's been in development for who knows how long. Because of this and many other bugs I'll most likely update the mod with the current changes as update 1.18 (probably gonna upload it sometime this weekend or next week) and then continue work on the major stuff and push that as update 1.20. I appreciate your feedback and support!
 
Oct 9, 2021 at 8:02 AM
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Hey everybody, version 1.18 is here! In response to @Zennistrad 's post, I wanted to speed up progress and release the newest version; I've already done a lot of bug fixes and changes. I decided to release this version, it has a new section to the Wind Fortress. But mostly this update fixes lots and lots of bugs and changes.
New Area(s) Added:
- The Wind Fortress' Fortress segment.

Major Changes:
- Kilma's boss modifications done by Enlight, Kenzo_ITN, Txin, and myself. (Watch a video on the changes here!)
- Most Mimigas in the HEF and Mimigo Villas now have different text after talking to them more than once, many even after turning the HEF's power back on.
- Training Test 4 added.
- Training Test 1 entirely reworked and cleaned up to follow the more current design philosophy I use for today's Training Tests. Tl;dr: I spent a night ripping the map's NPCs and TSC apart and cleaning it up.

General Changes:
- Changed HEF save room to be a little smaller and no <FON NPC is required.
- Added teleporter coil in Sector E of the HEF.
- Changed all Guadis on death to disappear rather than produce a death animations; death sounds have been changed accordingly.
- Updated Forum thread page to include gifs and redid a few sections; hopefully this gives the page a little bit of a more official feel to it. Also a few words and lines in the introduction paragraph of the thread are changed but nothing major.
- Fixed some text to remove apostrophes in the beginning that indicated slang.
- Redid cutscene between Kilma and Quote to better fit Quote's new language font as I call it.
- Fixed 2 tiles in the Innermost Catacombs where after showing the Malco Card, these two background tiles would turn into air.
- Changed a skull in the Waterway to only give one heart and not several around it.
- Fixed every line of narration to have a <TUR and all non-narration lines have varying uses of <TUR purely for stylistic purposes.
- In the Inner Catacombs gave Snake Launcher and E-Bit mentions proper ='s so they have the circles around them.
As well as fixed a few lines of dialogue with <TURs to start in the middle line.
- Changed bed in Amp's place to be a charging station terminal. Added a terminal in Malco's too.
- Added cutscene skips to all 4 terminals in the HEF.
- Removed a few enemies in the HEF Monster Hive fight.
- Changed "received the voice parts" to "retrieved the voice parts" in the HEF Control Room, because Quote's picking them up, not having them be received to him by somebody. Also removed a circle before the word "the".
- Removed extra shootable hearts in The Island's Underbelly.
- Changed a block in the Waterway to indicate you can walk through it.
- Asperdev made a darker HEF background for me for use in Training Test 4.
- Added the volume button back to ACSS, click it and it works.
- Added Iron Bond, figuring out what to do with it, it will currently serve a similar ancillary role.
- In Training Test 1, when deactivating the Test, an extra unnecessary <NOD was placed after the <YNJ command. This has been removed.
- Fixed a singular background tile in the Training Test Boss Room that was apparently a solid foreground tile.
- All hearts and missiles spawned in by the Training Tests don't disappear anymore. (Aka gave them all <SNPs and made them all change a direction to make the hearts permanent). This change is across all Training Tests.
- Shortened Intermission round in Training Test 2 from 30 seconds to 25.
- Modified the position of 2 Fuzz Cores below the map in Training Test 2.
- Changed True Bottom of The Island to have an enemy sheet that fits the pink hue of the tileset.
- Special thanks to Asperdev for the Pilopaiman sprite, as well as Woddles and SphericalCube for making a new CCL font for my PIXEL.bmp (can be seen on the title screen).
- Sonolomous' name changed to Solomon (as well, changed from "Goddess" to "God" of Love).
- Changed the years Miakid ruled. (Before it was ~24 - ~16, now it's ~19 - ~11, because in CS lore the battle for the third Crown was 10 years ago. And in-between the time Miakid died, the events of CS happen, and the events of ACSS happen, it's been another year at least.)
- Fixed a book in Misery's Training Room to be green (basically to indicate there's nothing to read).
- Changed Life Pot Jenka gives you into the Jellyfish Juice, this item restores 25 hp, and later on can be upgraded into the Life Pot.
- Added a new dialogue for Jenka where she explains the lore of the first Demon Crown Holder. As well I changed some text in the Demon Crown Holders book in Misery's Training Room to accommodate for changed lore.
- Big thanks to both Raymundo and AsperDev for working on the Frog Mech boss sprite.
- Removed Dying Leaf.
- When entering the Waterway boss fight, Quote will react to sounds around him, just something a little more realistic.
- Thanks to a mini-hack by Kenzo_ITN, experience points from the EXP machines spawn much more efficiently now! (This only applies to the 2 EXP machines in Malco and Amp's hideouts).

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed Map System; thanks to Brayconn's Improved Map System (again).
- Fixed a bug where dying in the HEF Monster Hive fight would cause the Timer hack to not turn off (basically the flag used originally, 0379, was used in the Innermost Catacombs' Life Capsule; and in the head script not only was the event improperly put in (it was set as a flag jump set to flag 368), but the <FLJ that did use 379 made the game jump to event 0050, the falling off map event and not 0051 which is the custom Timer hack offset command death script that used <ENT). Aka, fixed the bug you can die normally. If the <ENT goes off as you press yes or no on the retry menu you'd get softlocked and would have to ESC + E2 to reset the game.
- Fixed a bug in the Intermission round of Training Test 2 where you could fall through the map before the H/Z Trigger activated; this is now much less likely to happen by accident at least. As well, added new death flags to ensure the Intermission timer turns off if you die whether by falling off the map or dying via enemies.
- Fixed a bug where the <SET command in the HEF Monster Hive fight would break the game when you tried to enter the Save Room.
- Changed the game's folder from "Another Cave Story Sequel" down to "ACSS" because Windows has issues with the length of folder names and files paths, which can lead to issues.
- Fixed an annoying bug in the HEF where certain NPCs post-area weren't disappearing when they were told. Flag 0611 is cursed and I can't seem to fix it.

Personal Notes:
- Changed Cave Editor to have commands <CNV, <DNB, <ENT, <MIM, and <SET for quicker ease of access and so the program stops telling me to check for syntax errors. As well, fixed music ORG list to have the current tracks used in the game as well as fixed a few CRASH NPCs to display what enemy/NPC they are supposed to be (ie., NPC 0188 is the Fuzz Baby and not a random CRASH).

Buffs/Nerfs:
Kilma:
- Revamped boss fight
HP Values nerfed:
- Base HP: 500 -> 400
- HP threshold (the amount of damage Kilma sustains before teleporting): 80 -> 45
- Begin phase 2 (2 rings): 340 -> 200
- Begin phase 3 (4 rings): 180 -> N/A (There is no more phase 3)
Attack pattern:
- During his orb attack, Kilma will attack for double the time, originally it's like 30/50 frames not the attack runs for 60/50 frames. The orbs from this attack are shootable.
- Every 3rd attack, Kilma will (instead of dropping a block) direct a bolt of lightning to the player's position a second will pass before the reticle launches the lightning bolt from above. Bolt deals 10 damage.
- Kilma's shield orbs that turn into bats now have travel in a slightly less than practical direction toward the player. Aka they're a little more inaccurate than they once were.
- Every 20 seconds two missiles will continuously spawn from opposite sides of the map, as well as every 15 seconds bats will spawn to swarm the player.
- The Rabid Mimis in the fight no longer spawn missiles when killed.

Fire Whirr:
- Projectile HP nerfed: 30 -> 18
- Base HP nerfed: 40 -> 35

Power Critter:
- EXP drop nerfed: 7 -> 6

Fuzz Core:
- EXP drop nerfed: 8 -> 6

Stumpy:
- Base HP nerfed: 15 -> 9

Gaudi Armor:
- EXP drop nerfed: 8 -> 4
- Base HP nerfed: 15 -> 13

Gaudi:
- EXP drop nerfed: 8 -> 3
- Damage nerfed: 5 -> 2
Thanks again for supporting the development of ACSS! 1.20 will come out at some point, most likely 2021 we'll see idk lol.
 
Oct 11, 2021 at 9:15 PM
lol
Modding Community Discord Moderator
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Oct 20, 2013
Location: Florida
Posts: 604
You ever hear of those games with a 10 year plan? ACSS is basically that.
If ACSS is never completed, it's because I died. This mod will die when I die.
 
Last edited:
Dec 16, 2021 at 10:41 PM
Neophyte Member
"Fresh from the Bakery"
Join Date: Dec 16, 2021
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is this mod still getting updated?
 
Dec 16, 2021 at 11:12 PM
lol
Modding Community Discord Moderator
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Oct 20, 2013
Location: Florida
Posts: 604
is this mod still getting updated?
Yes but development is always slow. Following October I've been really busy with life and school. ACSS is sadly not my priority and even when I have free time I sometimes simply have no motivation to work on it.
I've been thinking about it in recent weeks so development will always continue, just that it's slow lol.
Apologies!
 
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