Cave Story GB Port

I decided to download GBStudio to see what I could do with it, and ended up making my own little version of Cave Story.
This is all I have so far.

 

i'm interested in where this goes, but i have no idea how gbstudio works so i can only speculate on some things
either way i hope to see more! i like niche cave story ports

 

This looks super cool and I'm eager to see what comes of it. always had a massive soft spot for game boy graphics and this looks like it's going to kick ass.
best of luck to you homeslice!

 

Update:

I should probably add that this port is based more off the prototype of Cave Story than it is the released game, as seen with the start point being a carbon copy of the prototype version

 

With how very little we really know about the beta version, I'd love to see your spin on how events turn out. Plus the graphics do look simple enough to work in the gb port!

 

It's absolutely ridiculous how much I had to compress the maps for this, I mean... just take one look at this
EDIT-Could probably fit the original map in there, I may just have to reduce the amount of unique 8x8 tiles it uses

 

It doesn't allow scrolling the screen? Interesting...

 

It's absolutely ridiculous how much I had to compress the maps for this, I mean... just take one look at this
EDIT-Could probably fit the original map in there, I may just have to reduce the amount of unique 8x8 tiles it uses

how do you think this will translate to the larger maps and bigger levels? maybe split them up into many chunks or sumn? idk just spitballin here

 

how do you think this will translate to the larger maps and bigger levels? maybe split them up into many chunks or sumn? idk just spitballin here

I may just have to make the larger levels a lot smaller than their original size, but besides that I think I could be rather accurate with the map design

 

It's absolutely ridiculous how much I had to compress the maps for this, I mean... just take one look at this
EDIT-Could probably fit the original map in there, I may just have to reduce the amount of unique 8x8 tiles it uses

You really should be implementing scrolling rather than downsizing the maps. I'm sure GBStudio would have a feature for this.

 

I have implemented scrolling, but I haven't tried just straight-up importing the maps yet.

 

I don't think the maps necessarily need to exactly be 1:1, i do think you can do a bit of both, scrolling and modified maps, maybe even brand new versions of the maps if they don't translate well.

 

Personally I think a Gameboy port of CS is better off being half-res. As in 8x8 tiles instead of 16x16. It's just that it makes it harder to hit that sprite limit and it gives you more space in vram.

 

Personally I think a Gameboy port of CS is better off being half-res. As in 8x8 tiles instead of 16x16. It's just that it makes it harder to hit that sprite limit and it gives you more space in vram.

As seen in the original screenshot attached to the post, I have already tried that, but I may try it again.

 

Personally I think a Gameboy port of CS is better off being half-res. As in 8x8 tiles instead of 16x16. It's just that it makes it harder to hit that sprite limit and it gives you more space in vram.

This. A platformer on the Game Boy with 16x16 tiles would take up a lot of real estate on the screen. Games on the game boy usually utilized smaller tiles to combat this. The screenshot looks like something more reminiscent and/or playable on the console, so i do recommend you do try it again as a second opinion. Still really excited to see where this is going, though!

 

Regardless... sprite limitations are going to be your biggest enemy when porting CS to the Gameboy. Each sprite is 8x8. If you have a 16x24 npc on the screen that is basically just 6 sprites grouped together. Now here is the shit part: there is a max of 40 sprites on the screen and 10 sprites along a single horizontal line. There are technical tricks you can use to get around these limitations such as quickly unloading and reloading sprites before they can disappear (R-Type does this) but I question whether this is actually possible via GB Studio. The Core will likely be a baptism by fire for any GB port.

 

I can probably imagine a more stationary Core, most similar I could really think of to compare it to is Dark Moon, or even the Wily Star from Mega Man V. Just have part of it show up as background tiles, and have the "face" be a sprite that you can attack and interact with.

 

That's actually a really good idea, the most fun thing about old consoles IS their limitations. I'm really excited to see where you go with this, regardless.

 

Slowly collecting advice from the people in this comment section, and trying to make the port a lot better than it was when I first started. It has gone back to half res, but I haven't gotten far enough in the port to know how to make the core fit into the game.
Progress, by the way:

 

Looks absolutely freaking awesome. Super hyped to see how much more this game flourishes now that some changes have been made and envisioned properly!
I also really like how the slope tiles look in the small tileset for some reason, they just feel right lol.

Also, about the Core thing. I was thinking that maybe you could use the mini-Core sprite as the big core? Just an idea. Not only that, but if you do need help with spriting or anything at all, we're here in the thread to help you out.

Again, excellent job, and I'm even more excited to see what's in store now!