CS ~ Encore

It's basically an upscale with extra features.

I began this project on April 2nd after stumbling upon my old, cringy CS Amino Page from 2017.

Even then, I always had this vision of bringing Cave Story to life the way I saw it when I first played on WiiWare in 2011.
I want additions such as an alt path leading to a new ending I have a bit planned out, along with some weapons that would accommodate the new locations and enemies.
Of course, this comes after the base game is completed.

Here's everything I have so far.

Spoiler: Fat Sprite Sheet

Spoiler: Weapon UI

Spoiler: Quote Stride

Spoiler: Tentative First Cave

I'm thinking of going for something like Contra 4, I'm not sure yet. I just know I want the environment to look a little more varied. Not so much like CS3D though.
Speaking of that, adding in those exclusive areas from CS3D would be pretty awesome. I also think the absurd Life Capsules in that game would work well in an easy mode.

I currently have a volunteered musician who goes by Kase who's making a pretty sick soundtrack for the mod. You can really feel their style through it.
Hopefully, they'll release the OST on their YT Channel once it's all completed. They have already gotten a massive chunk of the tracklist done.

AsperDev will also be lending a hand in pixel art which is always cool. His pixel art is honestly amazing so I'm glad he's alongside me.

There are a few challenges at the moment.

The tilesets and everything can be easily implemented. Despite the amount of variety I'm gonna put into the tileset, the collision is gonna be unchanged.
But I'm not sure how a 2xres hack would work with Cave Editor or BL.
And as for adding new weapons and a new boss, that just sounds completely out of my league.
There are also size differences between my sprites and traditional CS+ graphics, not so much to warrant a hitbox change.
I think I can get into script editing given some time. I tried it out when I was 14 and it wasn't too hard to understand. But I'm still not the greatest.

I can't do those things on my own. I need someone who's experienced with this and is willing to help me out.

This is a pretty ambitious project. But it's a project I actually enjoy making.
Usually, I'd have to force myself to get through with something like this. CS is just cool like that. The game has always meant a lot to me.

I'll begin posting updates here. I'm not sure if I should edit this top post or just create entirely new ones along the thread.

 

Top ten things I wasn't expecting to see on the CSTSF today
#1 - A new upscale

While some of the prominent character designs are a bit off-model, I have to commend the sheer amount of effort and time that went into this,
I'll keep an eye on this to see how it evolves over time.
Also please be careful and make sure you're basing the upscaled sprites on the original game's graphics and the NICALiS assets.

 

Huh, this is an interesting development. I would like to say you'll have no problem at all working on it as a vanilla mod through Booster's Lab, since it's always been compatible with 2x res mods. I... don't know how the new weapons and new boss could pan out however, especially after CSE2's removal. I mean, never say never, there are alternatives (NICE or Mod Loader), but that will still require a knowledge in ASM to work with. If any ASM wizard here is still looking for something to do, I'd definitely suggest asking them for help.

 

Thank you both.
And Serri, the Booster's Lab bit is especially reassuring.
Hopefully down the line dealing with the weapons and boss thing will be easier to work with.

 

It's been a while since I saw a thread pop up for a new mod that seems to have so much promise. The art looks amazing, I especially like that sort of "3D" effect for Heavy Press.

But yeah, some of the things you seem to be trying to do will either require ASM or something really custom. When I first saw those screenshots, I thought that this was either a fangame or a CSE2/NXEngine project instead of a mod of the vanilla game.

I want additions such as an alt path leading to a new ending I have a bit planned out

I can relate. I'm very curious as to what your plan is for a new ending. Not sure how thoroughly planned out you have it and what threads you've seen, but if you are still looking for ideas and pondering thoughts, this thread and this thread may be helpful. X-Calibar's thread from 2009 had a heavy influence on my fourth ending mod.

 

Actually, I have a bit of inspiration coming from your forth ending mod. Though I approach it very differently.
The ending I have planned gives purpose to a lot of seemingly useless things in the base game.
All I'll say now is that Chaco's Lipstick, 'Malco's tea', and the fireplace in Jenka's House have meaning to progressing the alt path.
Sounds weird and that's because it is. But it'll be interesting I think.
But I'm currently going down the thread you sent and I'm finding tons of interesting stuff, so thank you for this.

 

Interesting, I'll be excited to see what you have planned. And good, glad that you're entertained by those threads.

By the way, since this is a thread for a Cave Story mod, this thread belongs in the modding showcase forum. You can probably get DT to move it for you.

 

Keep up the good work! I'll be sure to check in on this

 

Whoa, JetHawk, haven't seen you around in a while.

Not sure what the status is on this project. Dr. Minty Fresh just kinda posted this thread, responded to some posts later that day, and I haven't seen anything from him since.

 

Hey guys. I haven't posted due to school, which just ended 3 days ago. I wanted to post then but the forums were down.
Still, though, I and Asper have been making gradual development despite the Academic Workload and I'll show most of it here.
I'll be excluding some things just because it's either too incomplete or isn't too interesting. Like black.bpm lol.

WeaponUi:

Spoiler

Bullet:

Spoiler

Almonds:

Spoiler

Backgrounds:

Spoiler

Red is not done yet!

'Rogs:

Spoiler

Misc:

Spoiler

Asper's beautiful items:

Spoiler

 

(Continued)

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

I plan to work diligently on this over the summer. Hopefully, the base graphics will be done by then.
Expect another update in the coming weeks and thanks for the interest ^^

We also have a small dev server that I'm allowing a few people to spectate through, giving feedback and whatnot. If you're interested, just drop a Pm and I may link you one.

 

Looks absolutely gorgeous as always. I especially like the Curly facepic, and the grass texture for the Mimiga Village tileset. Glad to see this is still actively under development. Also yeah, school, I remember those days. That made a lot of things hard. Work of course takes up time too, but there's something really pesky about school in a way that nothing else really is.

 

Happy Halloween!
I've gotten a lot done so I'll be dumping it here.
Most of this work comes from August and September. I took breaks during June and October, but I'll be resuming in November.
You can find all temporary and completed files in this MEGA link.
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There are far too many files for me to attach here on the website.
I hope you enjoy viewing it.
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I'm expecting this all to be done by around the Christmas season. It'd be nice to have it done for Cave Story's birthday.
Of course, it wouldn't be completely finished. I'd have to add the extra aesthetic graphics and the tilesets/NPCs that would be used in new areas

 

Nice to see an update on this! The graphics look magnificent as usual. That's really cool how you're adding facepics for more characters, like Kanpachi and Hermit Gunsmith. The level of detail on the clouds is really amazing. Some parts of these graphics look similar to the NICALiS upscale, but the backgrounds definitely have their own style, have so much extra detail, and overall put the NICALiS graphics to shame. Looks like you're keeping that semi-3D style for some of those tiles, that's a really cool touch. I also really like those Ballos sprites, those just look amazing.

So it looks like the graphics upscale is pretty well underway. What's the status on implementation? Have you decided whether you're moving forward with this project as a mod of the vanilla game, or using some other engine?

 

thanks as for implimentation, most of this, espeically the NPCs, is nothing more than drag and drop. im likely gonna go to alula for usage of Doukutsu-rs. i think itd look beautiful with this mod. once i get layering enabled, i can finally begin the level editing process and after that id recoordinate sprites that have moved in their sheets. but for now im jus finishing the graphics and worrying about implementation later

 

That sounds like a solid plan, this would look really good with doukutsu-rs. Not sure if that thing has all of the game implemented, but I guess I haven't been keeping up with that project, so it may be farther along than it was last time I checked. Keep up the good work, I'll be excited to see what comes next.

 

The sprites looks so cool! Can't wait for you to finish so I can play through again. Honestly, I hate the Cave Story plus because a lot of the sprites looked too on the nose compared to the originals. Yours are a lot more expressive and interesting to look at. Also is Doukutsu-rs like cse2? I don't keep up with this stuff.

 

Also is Doukutsu-rs like cse2? I don't keep up with this stuff.

No, Doukutsu-rs is an entirely different project from CSE2. Easy to mistake to make though, it's a lesser known project. That project would have probably gotten a lot more attention if the CS modding community was still in its heyday.

It's a shame that these engines came about so late in the game of CS modding. Modders in 2010 would have loved to use this stuff, it would have been interesting to see how WTF? Story, K:SS, CS Redesign, and other 2009-2012 mods would have turned out if CSE2 came before then. Instead, the community was still getting over the fact that Noxid and GIRakaCHEEZER together managed to make an extremely inefficient but nonetheless functional 2X res assembly hack of the original game.

 

Happy Birthday, Pixel!

I'll be dumping what I've done so far in regards to the tilesets.
For now, I won't be going for the 2.5D look, not only so that the tileset doesn't get bloated, but for consistency and ease of platforming.
I may bring back the idea but I'm not sure.
Now that the tilesets are basically complete, apart from the Eggs, EggX, and Eggsin, that means all the games' original graphics have been remade.
The tilesets shown are basically detailed versions of what Lethrys made in his upscale, making things a million times easier, and I can't thank him enough for it.
You can view the tileset here.
What I'm gonna begin working on now is bringing life to the game, animated tiles (such as the grass in grasstown), foreground elements, and overall just bringing more variation to the visuals.
I believe Doukutsu Rs is in a complete state, so hopefully, implementation of features that go beyond new sprites can begin soon

 

Aw, I I really liked the look you had with the 2.5D look. The art you had for PrtCave and PrtMimi with the 2.5D effect just looked amazing. But, I can understand how that can make it harder to do the platforming.

So have you officially decided that you're going to be using Doukutstu-rs for this project? If so, it seems like you'd be able to customize the engine enough to make the 2.5D platforming work.

By the way, the images in your posts from June of last year are broken now.