Cave Story HD Mod

-- What is this?​

Exactly what it says on the tin: a mod for Cave Story that will give the game HD sprites! The sprites are 8x bigger than the original game. This mod uses doukutsu-rs and currently in development.

-- Features​

• HD sprites drawn by me.
• A few minor additions to the game's presentation.
• Most features included with doukutsu-rs.

​

-- Video + Screenshots​

Spoiler: Screenshots

Spoiler: Video

-- Notes​

Every sprite is based on how it appears in the FREEWARE version of the game. This means redesigns from Cave Story + (Toroko's redesign, Balrog's added eyebrows, etc.) will not be in this mod.

I want to have this complete sometime towards the end of July, but my self-imposed deadline is December (20th anniversary of Cave Story is that month.)
No longer the plan, I am now aiming for sometime next year.

Feedback is extremely appreciated!

 

hey, this looks pretty impressive! i wish you the best of luck in completing it!

 

Neat! But does the font still have to be Courier?

 

Neat! But does the font still have to be Courier?

It isn't actually Courier; it's a font called "DejaVu Sans Mono." Unfortunately, I don't have much freedom in regards to fonts. For some reason, if the chosen font isn't exactly perfect, the game will do this to the text:

Look at that godawful letter spacing!

There is one other font I have that works well. It's called "Liberation Mono" and isn't very different from the previous one.

So I dunno. Maybe Liberation is better?

 

11 years ago, this was considered a pipe dream. But now look.

So while the effort here is definitely significant, part of me does feel as if more detail could be added in some of these up-scaled sprites and facepics and tilesets. Which I guess leads into a couple of questions I have. One is, how much of this is final? Are some of the images you've shown just showing placeholder graphics with most of the existing graphics but just sharpened up, with plans on adding more detail? Or are you going for a more simplistic art style, whereby it's mostly just taking the existing graphics, and sharpening them up a bit? Obviously, the latter is no small task (unless you get the right AI tools), but the former would be a lot more work. There are some parts you've shown, such as the life capsule sprite, which seem to reflect an approach of more detail. Whereas there are other parts, like the critter and Quote sprites, that just look like their 1x res counterparts with a little bit of sharpening up.

I guess my feedback on this project is dependent on what it is you're going for with the art style. If your plan is to go for maximum detail, then I'd say there's room for improvement on the level of detail, since a lot of it is hard to distinguish at a glance from the 2x res graphics in the NICALiS ports, or from the 1x res graphics with the edges sharpened a bit.

Regardless, what you've done would have involved a significant amount of effort, so kudos to you on this undertaking.

 

So while the effort here is definitely significant, part of me does feel as if more detail could be added in some of these up-scaled sprites and facepics and tilesets. Which I guess leads into a couple of questions I have. One is, how much of this is final?

I do plan on going back to a lot of these sprites later. Part of the reason I started this project to begin with is to try and improve my art and asset creation skills, so I imagine that as the project goes forward I'll be able to improve most of the earlier and worse sprites.

Are some of the images you've shown just showing placeholder graphics with most of the existing graphics but just sharpened up, with plans on adding more detail? Or are you going for a more simplistic art style, whereby it's mostly just taking the existing graphics, and sharpening them up a bit? Obviously, the latter is no small task (unless you get the right AI tools), but the former would be a lot more work. There are some parts you've shown, such as the life capsule sprite, which seem to reflect an approach of more detail. Whereas there are other parts, like the critter and Quote sprites, that just look like their 1x res counterparts with a little bit of sharpening up.

I guess my feedback on this project is dependent on what it is you're going for with the art style. If your plan is to go for maximum detail, then I'd say there's room for improvement on the level of detail, since a lot of it is hard to distinguish at a glance from the 2x res graphics in the NICALiS ports, or from the 1x res graphics with the edges sharpened a bit.

The art style I'm trying to go for involves certain things having more detail, and other things having less detail. In particular, character sprites will continue to be simple, whereas environmental and inventory sprites will be more detailed. Hollow Knight's art style is in a *somewhat* similar vein to what I'm describing. But to that end, I agree with you that there's a lot of improvements that need to be made (Specifically, I plan on going back to things like the doors, chest, health refill box, as well as many tiles. I'm also planning on improving the existing facepics at some point, since they really do need it.)

It's also important to note that all of this is based on sprites that are usually 16x16 pixels big. It's definitely hard to add detail when the original sprites leave so much to the imagination (Which is one of the main benefits of pixel art.)

Anyways, thanks for your input! This was helpful to read, and gives me a better idea of what I need to work on.

 

I actually do like the art style here, as it is intentionally different than the official 2x sprites, giving it a more unique look. Very excited to see how far this goes!

 

I have one complaint, it's a bit nitpicky though, because furry. But, can Toroko's hands be changed to paws? The fingers on a tier 4 furry bunny is kinda uncanny.

 

I do plan on going back to a lot of these sprites later. Part of the reason I started this project to begin with is to try and improve my art and asset creation skills, so I imagine that as the project goes forward I'll be able to improve most of the earlier and worse sprites.

The art style I'm trying to go for involves certain things having more detail, and other things having less detail. In particular, character sprites will continue to be simple, whereas environmental and inventory sprites will be more detailed. Hollow Knight's art style is in a *somewhat* similar vein to what I'm describing. But to that end, I agree with you that there's a lot of improvements that need to be made (Specifically, I plan on going back to things like the doors, chest, health refill box, as well as many tiles. I'm also planning on improving the existing facepics at some point, since they really do need it.)

It's also important to note that all of this is based on sprites that are usually 16x16 pixels big. It's definitely hard to add detail when the original sprites leave so much to the imagination (Which is one of the main benefits of pixel art.)

Anyways, thanks for your input! This was helpful to read, and gives me a better idea of what I need to work on.

Cool, I'll be excited to see how things evolve as you continue to make improvements. And yeah, I definitely feel you that the original graphics leave a lot of details to the imagination, and filling in those details in a way that looks good and believable is an art in and of itself. That's no small task, and I don't envy you at all, so best of luck.

 

For some reason, if the chosen font isn't exactly perfect, the game will do this to the text:

The term you are looking for is "Monospace". CS's text system accepts monospace fonts/typefaces but doesn't correctly render fonts that aren't monospaced.

 

The term you are looking for is "Monospace". CS's text system accepts monospace fonts/typefaces but doesn't correctly render fonts that aren't monospaced.

Well now I just feel silly. Tried a random monospace font and it worked perfectly, so thanks for this info!

 

This is looking pretty great! Wishing you luck in development!

 

I'm back with a progress update on this! I probably should've posted something related to this project months ago, but I never got around to it... Regardless, I've been working on this project a good amount ever since the initial showcase. Not only have I updated almost everything I showed off initially, but I also have completed everything up and including the Egg Corridor! Work has also started on Grasstown/Bushlands. Here is a screenshot of Egg Corridor:

Spoiler: Screenshot

However, there is some bad news. It has become increasingly apparent that I won't be able to finish the project this year. This is mostly due to personal life stuff, but it's also the result of me working on this kinda slowly... This could be a good thing overall, since I no longer have any reason to rush this out. Maybe the quality of the finished thing will be better as a result?

I plan on putting out a more substantial progress update that shows off the current quality of the project (since I feel like it looks much nicer than what I showed off at first), but that could still be a little ways away.

 

Looks amazing! I had thought of doing something similar to this a few months ago but never got around to doing it.

 

However, there is some bad news. It has become increasingly apparent that I won't be able to finish the project this year. This is mostly due to personal life stuff, but it's also the result of me working on this kinda slowly... This could be a good thing overall, since I no longer have any reason to rush this out. Maybe the quality of the finished thing will be better as a result?

Honestly, as long as you're pacing yourself there won't really be a need for burnout. Most mods that either change graphics, music, or any sort of design with the stages don't even make it past Mimiga Village, meaning so far, you're doing very good!

 

I wanted to have done this on the 20th, but I put up new screenshots and a progress video for the mod! (Mostly because the original showcase video is severely outdated at this point.) You can find the new screenshots and stuff in the main post.

The update video shows the stuff I described in my last post, and also the mod now running in doukutsu-rs! The move away from CSE2 was a big technical hurdle, but it was very worth my time since doukutsu-rs is slightly less jank and will let me potentially do sprites for Cave Story + content.

Also, merry christmas!

 

Glad to see this is still in development! I am a bit scared of suggesting for more tile variants to make them look more seamless in the stages, even though it'll be way more work because, yeah, Pixel never would've anticipated the game's graphics being overhauled in such a scale. And even if that's done, the new .pxm and .pxa files would have to be included in the pack anyways, just to accommodate to the tile changes.

 

Yeah, tile seams have definitely become an issue, especially with Grasstown.

Spoiler: Try as I might, I can't escape this:

I am a bit scared of suggesting for more tile variants to make them look more seamless in the stages, even though it'll be way more work because, yeah, Pixel never would've anticipated the game's graphics being overhauled in such a scale. And even if that's done, the new .pxm and .pxa files would have to be included in the pack anyways, just to accommodate to the tile changes.

I'm not opposed to doing this, but I probably won't do it until the mod is nearly done. Not only would it be a lot of work like you said, but I also don't want to commit to making tile variants before I've made the final versions of the tiles.

 

I have some new stuff to show off at last! It's not much, but it is pretty neat.

Spoiler: Video

I spent time programming new animated water visuals, which I think looks nicer than the completely static water from before. The effects aren't finished (I plan on adding some moving bubble particles), but I'm interested to hear feedback on what's here. Hopefully my efforts were worth it, because this was a massive pain in the ass to get working. (I also hope video compression doesn't make it too hard to see.)

 

Interesting touch to still have it on even in dark areas like in First Cave, even if it won't be noticed at first in regular gameplay. Hopefully it won't affect certain areas, making it harder to look out for obstacles or worse, harder to no-hit Ironhead. *cough* Cave Story 3D *cough*