Cave Story: Jenka's Nightmare

Opinions: Would putting a signpost at the area you need to leap to in order to find your way to the sword be too obvious?

 

I dunno, that would be up to you. I kinda don't like being able to miss weapons, because some people aren't the most observant (me) and seeing how I missed 14 HP, sword, and probably other things somewhere along the way, it makes me think that some things are wayyy too hidden for their own good. I saw a chest in the top left of one of the maps surrounded by a buncha blocks and I said to myself "Well..there's something I'm gonna miss cause I don't think I feel like searching for 30 minutes..."

 

By the way, is the Polar star supposed to come back when you reach first cave after fighting the gaudskateers?

The way the hermit talks it sounds like that's a scripting bug.

There are also a couple of chests in sand zone that reappear if you save the game, exit, and reload.

 

Polar Star is fixed. It's fun going back and looking at how bad my scripts were at the beginning when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing ;P

Which chests in the sand zone are reappearing? All of the scripts and flags look ok.

 

A couple other things - there's a typo in one of the bookshelves in the Sand Zone workshop, "Propultion" should be "Propulsion," and if you return to the very start of the Sand Zone (where you enter from Genesis) then the event that closes the entrance will replay (you'll hear the thud but it was already closed so you won't see any change).

EDIT: And another fun thing, at the column behind Cthulu near the workshop, if you jump on top of it from the left side and walk to the right, you'll get stuck. (I only noticed that because one of the mini Polishes got stuck up there and I followed it up.

 

Opinions: Would putting a signpost at the area you need to leap to in order to find your way to the sword be too obvious?

Maybe. Try using something that's out of place, but not entirely noticeable. It's a secret area, after all.

 

I finally got to the end of it. It is a very fun game even at its difficulty. I want to see what happens next. Also I cheated to the chest and it is the map system but i don't think you are supposed to reach it yet also in the same area there is something funny going on. you can do the old fashioned SMB jump over ceiling

 

Okay, here's another mess of observations made the second time through:

Yes, it's possible to get to Genesis without the Snake and any of the ammo.

There's that 5 missile box in Grasslands. This is another item that could be avoided and taken after Genesis, but you could simply replace it with a health box (and then replace that health box up high with the 5 missiles or something); there's not much to it, but it'd be nice to reward someone for that trick for more than one level.

I'm not sure if it was disabling the terminal on the far left of Grasslands, or if it was a terminal that is supposed to be out of reach (if not for a damage hop off a bat), but you can disable the fan that pushes the player away from the Explosive (yes, it's get-able).

Regarding the end of sky Genesis, some kind of hint would help, but it can be more subtle than a sign. That said, I would lean towards not penalizing a player so much if they don't get it (the Bubbler is a pretty big dropoff from the Blade, especially after de-leveling).

In the Sand Zone, I'm going to agree about that one chest completely surrounded by solid blocks. It's not enough to say there's an item there; you also have to give some kind of hint of how to reach it (the same goes for one of those boxes in the Labyrinth). Also, the hint about Mimigas and Red Flowers living in peace is a bit misleading (I was trying to get them to both stop barking, not have them be the only two barkers); if anything, it would make more sense to say something about the Gaudi ending their grudge, or something.

The boss here is neat, but most of the room doesn't come into play. *shrugs*

In the Labyrinth, in addition to being able to skip Monster X (yeah, I now see the column of spikes is avoidable, and yes the 3 HP run is impossible if you skip Monster X), it's also possible to skip the memory chip for the teleporter; there's nothing that seems to force you to get it.

That big critter makes for an interesting Balfrog replacement; I'm actually impressed you were able to make it "work" (since Balfrog fights typically didn't function properly in hacks).

I also realized I "missed" a Super Missile upgrade. If that upgrade is going to be hidden, I'm going to recommend more strongly that you have a better un-missable weapon available (like the machinegun). Or maybe you award other weapons and then allow for a barter system for upgrades (trade two crappy weapons to get one decent weapon); I'll see if I can come up with some ideas for that, but it'll be kind of tricky if you're going to have Blade (a moderate/decent weapon) available so early as a secret, and if you have your heart set on certain weapons being availalbe at certain times, it's probably just not going to work.

In the Revolutionariam, there's a BuyoBuyo Base before the 'teer fight. If you don't kill it, you can use it to harvest weapon energy and health in case you take damage. This is almost essential for a Bubbler + normal Missile player, but you probably want to block that area off during the boss fight.

I did at least get my Missile count up to 20 on this playthrough. So my chestlist has me missing the Missile upgrade, 13 HP, and Remote Control. But other items I've been able to have that weren't on that list are: Snake (delayed gratification), Explosive (turned off the offending fans), Lipstick (o_O), and Critter Juice (a few spikes never killed anyo... err, nevermind).

I'm pretty sure that's it.

 

Help! I can't make it past the Reservoir! Whenever i'm nearing the edge, i drown!

 

You shouldn't have to go anywhere that almost uses up all your air. Go to Grasslands instead.

 

Yeah, you actually need to get the explosives when you did. Even though you can go back to Grasstown later, you can't get it any other time than your first trip through.

The reason I've been holding off on giving the polar star or the machine gun is because of plot and access condsiderations (since it'll be pretty obvious in the next installment, I'll go ahead and tell you that if you get the machine gun, it's your method of ascending the Chimney).

A lot of items end up being tradeoffs at some point. If you have something that wasn't on the list, but are missing some things, it's possible something you've got is needed to get what you're missing.

Also, since a few people are mentioning it, the Snake chests should actually be gone by the time you get back from the Labyrinth. There will be another way you can reacquire the Snake.


BTW: Has anyone found the Hermit Gunsmith yet?

 

Yeah I found him..somehow on complete accident O_o

I liked his dialog.

 

Yeah, I found him (I liked the free heal), but I'm not entirely sure which chain of doors triggered it. Which doors link to which rooms under which circumstances doesn't seem particularly organized (it's not the most confusing thing I've seen in a Cave Story hack, but it ranks up there).

 

Polar Star is fixed. It's fun going back and looking at how bad my scripts were at the beginning when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing ;P

Which chests in the sand zone are reappearing? All of the scripts and flags look ok.

After you get the booster, there's a chest on the way up to Misery's. When I got it on the way up, (I think) it gave me a 5 missile expansion, with the normal message. Whe I got it on the way down, it said "You have found the missile launcher", and gave me a 10 missile expansion

So I had 30 when I got to labyrinth.

 

You shouldn't have to go anywhere that almost uses up all your air. Go to Grasslands instead.

I know only one way to Grasstown, but i can't make it!

 

All you have to do to get to grasstown is to go to the Village Plumbing and beat the boss there and return to that area and a fan should be on allowing you to acess grasstown. That was one of the easier things.
On another subject I have some suggestions and questions:
Suggestions:
1.You should make it so everything isn't entirely hard because this may be a hard game you should still make it ok in some places as I hate to miss weapons like the blade.
2.It is too easy to spam bosses. What I mean is that the first boss battle you fight can be easily defeated with a level 2 Snake with 50ammo by running under the block that the boss sits on and just button mash till the end and the Were-Sues don't even bother you as they get stuck in the ground. As for the Gauditeers you can go on a ledge and fireball them to death.
3.Try not to make too much "go through blocks to reach item" to get weapons, life tanks etc. It makes me mad as I have to do that.
Questions:
1.Where do you meet the Gunsmith? are you going to make it so if you find him that you get the spur or some other weapon?
2.Are a lot of areas going to be flooded with water? if so then you should make it so you get an air tank as that is a good idea.
Thanks as this is an excellent Mod which I want to see happen.

 

yes the 3 HP run is impossible if you skip Monster X

Actually I was wrong bout that. It's 100% possible with out taking a single point of damage. I just did it. The trick is that you can stand on a edge with one of the small spikes. It isn't easy, especially making the jump from 223,7 (or maybe 223,16) to 239,16. That is really the hardest part. If that spike on 239,16 was a death spike, then it would be impossible.

If you don't have critter juice (nice flavor text on that btw) you can still spawn Monster X by touching tile 138,15 and likely a few above them.

The way you have to traverse labryinth B feels really random and IS very unintuitive, I'd suggest changing the monster in the 4 area's at least... I wouldn't have realzed it was different with out the map system, and even if you get the map system you might trade it before getting Balfrog. Getting to dead end seems to be much easier then getting to Balfrog. So far this part is the only puzzle that I didn't like.

 

I will do something to mix up that area and make it a little easier to figure out what's going on. There're a couple subtle hints on how to get through it, but unfortunately I couldn't think of a way to give more significant hints without making it completely obvious.

I was worried about the difficulty of that particular puzzle, as it was hard for me to ascertain it's difficulty since I knew exactly what to do from the start. =P

 

Well, first there is a bug, if u fall out the "Genesis" Sky area, you wouldn't die...
I always loved the Secret ways trought the block, why do you hate it?
Your mod is great, i like grasstown, with turning all that fans on, it was a challenge!

 

Well, first there is a bug, if u fall out the "Genesis" Sky area, you wouldn't die...

Can you tell me specifically where you fell? That bug happens when there is a script running when you cross the "death" altitude. I need to know which script was running when you fell so I can make it shorter (or instant).


Also, I figured out what was wrong with the Monster X event. The null entity that was getting turned into an H/V trigger to start the event had the 0x0100 flag set (because H/V triggers typically do as well). However, on a null entity that flag basically has the effect of saying "if your hit box enters any part of this tile, trigger my event". Seems to work just fine without the 0x0100 flag though, so I just unchecked it.

That actually might come in handy for some things though...