Cold Core Demo 3! Now With Fun Included!

It was great. I didn't quite understand the story. Why did that kid fall down into (I assume it to be) the earth's core? (OR IS IT THE CS CORE!? Dun dun duuuuuun!...)
I liked the custom backgrounds and tiles. Too lazy to do that in my mod (Thank cod it takes place on the island). What happens if you don't shoot the missiles?

 

It was great. I didn't quite understand the story. Why did that kid fall down into (I assume it to be) the earth's core? (OR IS IT THE CS CORE!? Dun dun duuuuuun!...)
I liked the custom backgrounds and tiles. Too lazy to do that in my mod (Thank cod it takes place on the island). What happens if you don't shoot the missiles?

Warning: Spoiler for Story!

Spoiler

The story takes place on a separate planet. The story will get to it later.

He's not a kid, really. I kinda think of him as 17-20ish. Thanks for the complement on the tiles!

Oh and btw second demo is out! The newest version adds a new section to the game, along with a boss fight. Check the changelog for more details!

 

Warning: Spoiler for Story!

Spoiler

The story takes place on a separate planet. The story will get to it later.

He's not a kid, really. I kinda think of him as 17-20ish. Thanks for the complement on the tiles!

Oh and btw second demo is out! The newest version adds a new section to the game, along with a boss fight. Check the changelog for more details!

Are we allowed to make playtesting threads for our contest mods?

 

This isn't a contest mod, I wasn't able to enter it because I started really working on it a couple hours before the contest was announced.

 

Shoot, I should probably make those disappear when the boss is killed. I'll work on the difficulty once I get more input from others, since I want it to cater to most people.

Edit: Alright, made the spikes disappear after defeating the boss.

 

Alright, I made it a bit more difficult, and made a save point after the boss so you wouldn't have to beat it again when the next demo comes out. Saves from previous the previous demo will work, but I wouldn't advise it since the levels are now more fun, and you might miss out on an extra health capsule. More information is in the changelog as always.

 

Spoiler: Review

I like the interactions between the speaker guy and the main character. From the dialogue we have so far, I think it's fairly entertaining chemistry. In regards to the logs on the computers, I didn't really read them. I'm not really engrossed enough in the story to read a bunch of text this early in the game.

The gameplay is a lot of standard Cave Story stuff, which usually is harder to make enjoyable, especially when you're reusing the classic bat/critter combo in the start area. To your credit though, the placement of the enemies and level layout is far superior to most mods with that same theme. However, I don't think the enemies and spikes do enough damage. Critters, bats, and spikes only do like 2 damage I think? That's insanely low, especially for how much health you give away. You could probably deal with raising the damage they do just a tad, getting rid of one of the injectables, or both. While on the topic of the injectables, the one you get with the key is kind of strange. I was mashing the shoot button when I killed the enemy that had the key, so the text that told me about the key kinda just flashed by. As for the flame (boss?) fight, they seemed to want to avoid me whenever they could. I couldn't hit them often because they would hardly ever get so close to me! If you could manipulate their pattern to make them slightly more... aggressive, I think that would work wonders. ALSO totally unrelated but you spelled "punishable" wrong at some point in the beginning.

The art was... eh? It gets the job done. The tiles were fine, but I feel like there's some jarring artifacting on the background. The colors seemed to blend in together a little bit but I dunno maybe that's just me. It's hard for me to give advice when it comes to art. The bodypic was alright (cool animations tho).

As for the music, I'm glad to see somebody putting Safusaka's great orgs to good use. All of the songs were appropriate for the situation they were used in (THANK YOU FOR USING SKYPE IDIOT EMOTE!!!).

Overall, solid mod so far. I look forward to seeing what you do with the rest.

 

Spoiler: Review

I like the interactions between the speaker guy and the main character. From the dialogue we have so far, I think it's fairly entertaining chemistry. In regards to the logs on the computers, I didn't really read them. I'm not really engrossed enough in the story to read a bunch of text this early in the game.

The gameplay is a lot of standard Cave Story stuff, which usually is harder to make enjoyable, especially when you're reusing the classic bat/critter combo in the start area. To your credit though, the placement of the enemies and level layout is far superior to most mods with that same theme. However, I don't think the enemies and spikes do enough damage. Critters, bats, and spikes only do like 2 damage I think? That's insanely low, especially for how much health you give away. You could probably deal with raising the damage they do just a tad, getting rid of one of the injectables, or both. While on the topic of the injectables, the one you get with the key is kind of strange. I was mashing the shoot button when I killed the enemy that had the key, so the text that told me about the key kinda just flashed by. As for the flame (boss?) fight, they seemed to want to avoid me whenever they could. I couldn't hit them often because they would hardly ever get so close to me! If you could manipulate their pattern to make them slightly more... aggressive, I think that would work wonders. ALSO totally unrelated but you spelled "punishable" wrong at some point in the beginning.

The art was... eh? It gets the job done. The tiles were fine, but I feel like there's some jarring artifacting on the background. The colors seemed to blend in together a little bit but I dunno maybe that's just me. It's hard for me to give advice when it comes to art. The bodypic was alright (cool animations tho).

As for the music, I'm glad to see somebody putting Safusaka's great orgs to good use. All of the songs were appropriate for the situation they were used in (THANK YOU FOR USING SKYPE IDIOT EMOTE!!!).

Overall, solid mod so far. I look forward to seeing what you do with the rest.

Spoiler

The Homers try to home in on you, but they can get far out if you move a whole bunch, so I'll try to make them turn more sharply tword the player. The artifacing is due to me using gimp's make seamless feature, which is okay at it's job, but not the best. I should probably add a <WAI to the key script too. I'll make the enemies harder as well, I'm just a bit cautious with making things too hard, which I need to get out of.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

Okay, here's what I think of this next version:

Spoiler: SPOILERS

I think you need to tone down the enemy's health by just 1HP, hitting it five times with the Level 1 Polar Star is hard. Either that or make it easier to level up to Lvl 2.
The instruments in the ORG for the first area are a little grating...
I shot the boss flame things a TON and I have no idea if I even got close to killing one. It'd be nice to know how much HP they have. Also, the distance that they knock you back and the fact that there's only one place you can get out of the spikes is really annoying. Also, the <WAI command after they die is too short, and the animation for their death should be longer I think. And I didn't know I was fighting a bunch of Simpsons when I started out

 

Okay, here's what I think of this next version:

Spoiler: SPOILERS

I think you need to tone down the enemy's health by just 1HP, hitting it five times with the Level 1 Polar Star is hard. Either that or make it easier to level up to Lvl 2.
The instruments in the ORG for the first area are a little grating...
I shot the boss flame things a TON and I have no idea if I even got close to killing one. It'd be nice to know how much HP they have. Also, the distance that they knock you back and the fact that there's only one place you can get out of the spikes is really annoying. Also, the <WAI command after they die is too short, and the animation for their death should be longer I think. And I didn't know I was fighting a bunch of Simpsons when I started out

Spoiler

Yeah, I'll make it easier to upgrade the Pistol, and I'll see if I can do something about the ORG instruments, but there is no guarantee that I can fix it because the one thing I did was make it loopable, Safusaka is the one who composed it. The Homers each have 90 health, but unfortunately I can't really add in a health bar for them, unless I use Noxid's individual Health bar hack, but I don't know what it replaces. I'll work on a death animation, since they currently only turn to smoke after death. There's no <WAI after they die, btw. They're called Homers because they home in on you. I tried to make a convincing Homer head, but it just didn't look like him.

 

Spoiler

Yeah, I'll make it easier to upgrade the Pistol, and I'll see if I can do something about the ORG instruments, but there is no guarantee that I can fix it because the one thing I did was make it loopable, Safusaka is the one who composed it. The Homers each have 90 health, but unfortunately I can't really add in a health bar for them, unless I use Noxid's individual Health bar hack, but I don't know what it replaces. I'll work on a death animation, since they currently only turn to smoke after death. There's no <WAI after they die, btw. They're called Homers because they home in on you. I tried to make a convincing Homer head, but it just didn't look like him.

Spoiler

There should be a <WAI after the Victory Music starts playing.
TBH the Homers as a standalone enemy are kind of dis-interesting. The majority of the time they're in a wall and in all four times I fought them before I defeated them, they just flew around me and only hit me occasionally. They'd be much more difficult to fight if there was an NPC keeping me from standing still. It'd be cool if you could have some kind of cool boss robot come in and spawn them. They'd be invincible, and you'd have to kill the boss robot before they'd disappear. I think Misery's sprite would work best since she flies.

 

Spoiler

There should be a <WAI after the Victory Music starts playing.
TBH the Homers as a standalone enemy are kind of dis-interesting. The majority of the time they're in a wall and in all four times I fought them before I defeated them, they just flew around me and only hit me occasionally. They'd be much more difficult to fight if there was an NPC keeping me from standing still. It'd be cool if you could have some kind of cool boss robot come in and spawn them. They'd be invincible, and you'd have to kill the boss robot before they'd disappear. I think Misery's sprite would work best since she flies.

Spoiler

I could do that with the basil, actually.

 

Played it the other day, forgot to respond...

Spoiler

Thought the first area was exceptional (the one with security measures)! All the scripted events and dialogue made it really stand out. Fun, fun. xD (Also had a portal vibe from this...)
The second area was about average. Just a normal CS romp with some cool sprites...

Boss... (ohhhhgh not sure if anyone else has used that enemy in mods?? Was looking forward to using it... waited too long lol.)
Adding basil or something might be an interesting way to do it. I just stood still on a platform and almost never jumped or moved. Shooting the bosses as they flew around me.

Anyway, first area was awesome. Hope to see more interactive events like that~

In any case, keep it up!

 

its fun until the boss. even with level 3 weapon really hard to hit it.
also dave is to small

Yeah, the sprite is meant to be proportional, so it's a bit on the small side. I'll be adjusting the boss as soon as I figure out how it's movements work, I think slowing them down might help a bit.