BtS-Before the Story

Now, let me introduce myself.
My name is Liraxus, or Vap for short, i am a 14 year old game designer & director. I can not code, and i have just begun learning how to mod Cave story. (So far, i only know how to design maps, i am currently learning NPC's, and starting points.) Now, your wondering...what is Before the Story? If yoru smart, you would know its a Prelude to Cave story, i am sure their are a few mods like this, but mine i want to be Unique, Different, etc.

Currently, i have yet to create any examples, but i plan on taking a screenshot of the first few maps, once i learn a few scripts, i will begin posting a simple demo of the first few caves, when you finally reach the Mimiga Village. This is why it is only in the Idea's section.

Story-You are Drone 17.21.15.20.5, or as your friends, Drone 3.21.18.12.25, Curly, and Drone 11.1.9.14.5, Kaine, call you, Quote. You are in a squad of Scout bots with your 2 friends, when you get cut off by a mysterious quake, now its your goal to regroup with your squad, learning the secrets of the floating island, and...well...thats all i'm going to tell you,

Features

Well, i take it you remember the Badges back in Cave story, well, BtS will have new badges, here are a few i came up with.

The Mystique badge

Spoiler

Obtained when you beat Misery without taking damage.

The TOAST badge

Spoiler

Obtained when you beat Balrog without taking damage.

The Epic Feet badge

Spoiler

Obainted when you complete the Chaos Cave in 3:00

The quick Farewell badge

Spoiler

Obtained when you beat Kaine in under 3 Minutes

{BADGES COULD CHANGE WITH TIME.}
___________________
Curly and Kaine will help you. No matter where ya go, if their's an enemy, they will help. Be warned, the enemies will be stronger than they were in Cave Story. Well, at least until

Spoiler

Kaine becomes possessed by the Demon crown

Well, as you know, i got to fall asleep, so please wait while i continue to add on, for i am ridiculously tired. Thank you. I hope you are not enraged by this.​

 

badges? ooh shiny

they're rather ambitious if you don't know code

as vanilla (unhaxed) cs has no function for checking health (as far as i know)

you need hax

Let's get noxid up in this joint yo

also were you planning to change any gfx and if so may we see it

i'll help you learn tsc if you PM your troubles to me

this thread should be helpful for your other small modding woes such as "how make enemy" and "how edit grafix"

 

I'm pretty sure the game makes the check for no damage in the Ironhead fight doesn't it? Making a hack for that shouldn't be too hard.

 

That works by having the Ikachan-generating entity kill itself if the player takes a hit (triggers the invincibility timer more specifically)
So it could be used as a no-damage check for anything really.

 

Only the Throne room will have custom Gfx. It will have red eyes surrounding the area, and a bit of blood. Although, their will be ALOT of custom Gfx for NPC's, like recolored Quotes for the scout bots(i believed they all looked alot alike, and Kaine has black hair that looks like Misery's, he has a bit of Emo, but can get the job done.

Heres a spoiler of the final boss i have in mind.

Spoiler

The final boss is Kaine, while possessed by the demon crown, but he is not alone, Balrog and Misery are with him, and will also attempt to destroy you. I want to see if i can turn those 2 into normal Entities that can be placed anywhere, i am not sure if it could be done, but we will cross that bridge when we get their. :3

 

EDIT: GODDAMNIT.

 

If your pissed because you read the spoiler, it warned you.

Edit: DOI! Nvm.

 

lol

 

lol

What is this? Single word posts in my thread? Their is no such thing! BEGONE!

 

Considering that this is your first mod, this actually looks decent and well thought of. As someone who has made a prequel mod myself, you may come across some situations where you get this feeling that you may feel odd because you're usually tampering with an already made-up area. That's only if you're modifying places like Grasstown or the Egg Corridor, which looks like what you're doing. Trust me, you may experience it sometime soon while modding, because who knows what officially happened in the game's timeline? No one knows, and neither will they know, ever.

Sorry, I'm rambling on, this is coming from someone who has been modding for 2 years and can't get his mind straight. But anyways, this looks really cool. Goodluck with your project, you're going to need it. I may eventually come across playing it when you get a test executable out, and I'll tell you what I think.

...Oh yes, and welcome to the community!

 

Modding is tedious. It looks easy, and technically it is. But in reality it takes hours to make the simplest of cutscenes, since changing a few tilesets takes up so much time and making entities do stuff is even more annoying. That's why I never completed a mod, I've made many minimods with a few maps in them and TSC gadgets/minigames but never a real mod. And I don't want to scare you away from modding, I just don't want you feeling any confusion.

Ralren and I talked about it yesterday, but I couldn't remember the right word that would describe modding as a whole. I guess it's - decieving.

 

Let's get noxid up in this joint yo

All mods begin with Noxid and end with Noxid ... This is my belief! At least for now...

 

Well, currently i am a bit scared of modding. Seems hard, but if i find a tutorial, or if Noxids tutorial has Cutscenes & NPC help, i can possibly get a demo running. But for now, i'm gonna work on a bit in the music department, and maybe a teaser video. Prepare for a crapterpeice.

 

You don't need to be scared of modding, while it has it's benefits of teaching you how to build things and put them together into one game. It's not really hard, it's just.. tedious, as Woodenrat said it. Just take breaks periodically and you will be good, unless if you are really inpatient like me.

Trust me, you went the right way going down this road of wanting to be a future game designer, we are just telling you what may happen while you mod, where it can be difficult and very dull later on. Just put confidence into yourself, and you will be fine. We aren't trying to make you stop and leave, we are just telling you the things you need to be aware of. That's all. : >

 

Well, this is awkward, my Cave story has busted, when i try to enter it, a message with gibberish written on it appears. Anyone know the solution?

 

(C)Pixel error, most likely; you modified one of the images, but forgot to remove the (C)Pixel requirement from the .exe

Or, it's some other kind of file not found. Check error.log and it should say which.

For future reference, this is the best place to ask questions:
http://www.cavestory.org/forums/

 

Check the cave story folder for a file called "error.txt" or something, chances are it can't find a pbm file. Probably you've edited a .pbm file without removing the "(C)Pixel" requirement. If you're using CaveEditor (which I strongly suggest you do), then in the main menu just go to "Game Settings" and then check the box that says "Remove (C)Pixel requirement for images" and then save.

Also as for general modding advice, the best thing I can tell you is that if you really do want to make a good mod, chances are it will take a lot of time. A lot.

 

Well, currently i am a bit scared of modding. Seems hard, but if i find a tutorial, or if Noxids tutorial has Cutscenes & NPC help, i can possibly get a demo running. But for now, i'm gonna work on a bit in the music department, and maybe a teaser video. Prepare for a crapterpeice.

You should never call your creations a crapterpiece, because that'll just make it worse in your own eyes and perhaps you'll put less work into it. Take things slowly--there's no rush to learn everything.

Music--you'll need OrgMaker:
http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_6.php

Scripting Guides:
Dragonboots' Guide and Noxid's Guide.

 

You should never call your creations a crapterpiece, because that'll just make it worse in your own eyes and perhaps you'll put less work into it. Take things slowly--there's no rush to learn everything.

Music--you'll need OrgMaker:
http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_6.php

Scripting Guides:
Dragonboots' Guide and Noxid's Guide. <----Now, this is a Guide, thanks dragon!

Due to the little error, i had to remove my copy of cave story, hmph, right when i FINALLY get to hell. No, really, getting the secret ending is a pain in the *ss. So, back to work.