CSTSF 2016 Modding Competition Showcase & Voting Thread

Tpcool · Jul 15, 2016

Welcome to the voting portion of the 2016 CSTSF Modding Competition! We have a whopping 19 entries this time around, and they are all unique and representative of our community.

Click here to view the original thread for discussion and submission. Below I have included some information that was discussed in that thread, such as the prize list and end of the voting period, for convenience.

With all that out of the way, here are all of the submissions! (Organized by time submitted, for now)

The goal of this contest was to make a Cave Story mod that is creative. Something original, something "out there." This was intentionally left open-ended as to not hamper the imagination of those who wanted to get their interesting ideas out there. Even though the main focus was creativity, good design should have been prioritized above all else.

=Single Download Containing ALL Contest Mods=
gamemanj: catfall
Thomas Xin: Critter TD [Updated 16/7]
SeasonsOfDestiny: Autopilot
Anonymous: Cave Story - Live and Uncut!
TLincoln: The Final Level
Pummelator: Cave Story - What To Do When Modding
BLink: STARZZ
Noxid: H4CK3R.STORY
Spirit: RAVE BAR
Kenzo_ITN: Pierce Feverdream
Miccs: Metronari
APenDemon: One Eye Story
Safusaka: cat gay
CookedChef: Killjoy
Bionicobot: The Water Challenge!
thomasco2013: Lara [Updated 15/7]
Anonymous: Σο ψου Χαμε
DoubleThink: Precious Thoughts [Updated 15/7]
Anonymous: Valastos

Those who have submitted mods and/or are voting, read this!

As I more or less explained in the other thread, scoring will have two segments this time: Technical rating (40% of score) and community voting (60%). The technical rating will be judged as the mods were when the deadline was reached, and this can more or less start immediately. Mods will be tiered based on level of completion and polish relative to their amount of content, after which mistakes will be docked and final order will be considered. "Technical" in this sense means things like scripting errors and such, i.e. your tiling can be as godawful and messy as it wants and use 100% base assets for all I care, as long as it doesn't hamper the ability to play the game (although it may dock a couple subranks). All tiering will be posted publicly for community input before being approved.

While mods cannot improve their technical score or add new content, modders can request to fix serious (or possibly seriously distracting) errors during the playing period. Only approved requests (via tpcool or possibly me or idk who else has done any organizing) will be accepted. If it's not in the first post of the voting thread then it doesn't count.

Community vote scoring will take place like so:
• Mods will be ranked in order of personal preference
• Users must rank a minimum of at least their top 6 mods, or as many as all of them if they so wish.
• They will get points from each position based on this table.
• Any mods a person doesn't rank will be given the average of the remaining unranked scores. If you want something to stand out from the rest, you need to give it a position!
• At the end of voting, a mod's score will be averaged. This score will then be added to the technical score to determine the winner.

Voting will end on Sunday, July 31st 11:59PM EDT. This gives two weeks from the end of the submission period to play the entries and submit your vote via a post on this thread. The results of the contest should be posted shortly after the voting period is over.

In addition, please try to play and complete all mods, if possible. In spite of that, if you have a justifiable reason for not playing a specific or multiple mods, you are still allowed to vote. There are a lot of mods to sift through this time around, so if you were able to experience a mod by other means, your vote will still be valid.

There are five prizes in total, with the person placing highest having first dibs on which prize they want (second place gets second dibs, so on and so forth). This is what the winners will have to choose from:

• $50 via PayPal or a gift card of your choice.
• $25 via PayPal, courtesy of @Bombchu Link.
• Five Steam games from this list, courtesy of @Polar✪.
• Five Steam games from this list, courtesy of @X-Calibar.
• Cameo appearance in Rave Story 2, courtesy of @Polar✪.

If there is anything at all that I forgot to mention or clarify, please let me know! There's been a lot to keep track of for this contest, so I may have accidentally missed something. Also, this post will be continually edited to further tidy the content and update the status of the contest.
Edit by DT: I've taken all these as listed and stuck them in a single zip file, here. I may not bother to replace the files in it so make sure you watch out for updates.
Edit again by DT: Speaking of which I'm immediately authorising myself to make a change to my own mod because I COMPLETELY SKIPPED OVER AN ENTIRE CUTSCENE HAHAHA I'm screwed :droll:

DoubleThink · Jul 15, 2016

I kinda didn't have time to add any info to my mod when I submitted it so I'm gonna make some notes here.

Firstly, BIG THANKS TO:

-The wondrous Wild Desu for helping design the main character and swoocing right in at the last minute to provide the facepics I needed
-My main man Thomas Zenixzinxiinxid for the leet hacks he provided
-Noxid for playtesting for me on very very short notice

Hidden text highlight (or click) to view:

-Everyone whose assets I chose to use (and also everyone whose assets I didn't use)

-The CSTSF community as a whole wooo yeah

-When I submitted this just before 2pm I hadn't slept since 9am the day before (yesterday, for now; I've had a nap since)
-I was so close on time I was doing things like filling in the <FAC's as Dasu made them during the last half hour
-I had time to work a bit on most sprites, but if something looks like it was made in a couple of minutes (like the title screen) it's probably because it was
-As of this post I literally still have not played through this from the beginning on my own; if everything works that must be some sort of record :koron:

-Like many of you I've had to cut content, including an original(ly transcribed) org, a more extended end section and a few more graphical updates

While I'm here I'd also like to add another comment about voting. There's been more than a little drama as a result of this tournament already, and with a whole load of opinions about to be dumped into this thread I don't want to see any more of it. If you don't like something then don't harp on about it, every mod is basically done and dusted now anyway so there's little to prove. This also extends to the voting; be tolerant of how others want to rank their things, but also be open to discussion about differing points of view. Everyone seems to be riding the hype now that all the submissions are in; let's keep it that way

BLink · Jul 15, 2016

I'm pretty sure this should be obvious but you can't vote for your own mod.

DoubleThink · Jul 15, 2016

We've already discussed about that actually, that's not really a fair rule because it means mod makers are basically punishing their own score by voting, and if mod makers don't vote then we'll be stuck with a whopping five scores or something :v The only way that would balance out if every entrant voted and all the nulls were cancelled. I think we can trust people to be honest about where they think their mod deserves to place. Or how about a smaller limitation, e.g. someone can't put their own mod in the top 4 or 5?

Slither · Jul 15, 2016

I think giving the entrants full reign on their votes should be fine, even if one or two unfairly put their mod on a pedestal the rest of the votes from other voters will probably put them in their place easily enough.

Noxid · Jul 15, 2016

so I guess we can use this thread to post reviews/in-depth feedback on the mods too ya? I plan to at least give a blurb for each of em' although there's way more than I expected (good!!) so I will have to do it in chunks.

and I guess now that I have time to breathe I can give a little more insight on my own entry too.
spoilers ahead although I think everyone knows what I dun by now

So, I wasn't actually considering participating until I heard there was a prize >.> but I decided to give it a shot and see what I could come up with even though I haven't modded in ages. I spent a few days thinking "What can I do that's never been seen in a cave story mod before. Something so crazy that nobody would have even thought it possible". And I'd also been playing some dungeon crawlers lately like Legends of Grimrock so I figured if I could pull off the first-person view then the rest should fall into place.

So, I achieved my proof-of-concept for that on June 13 and have been mostly ironing out the details since. As the filename implies I have 11 separate builds chronicling its progress but I doubt anyone really cares enough to play each one.
Overall I think it turned out pretty good as a framework but as usual I ran out of time to plug content into it & stuff. The first 2 floors are pretty solid IMO but then it quickly falls apart as I made the last floor in ~24h and didn't test it hardly at all.
Things that were envisioned but never realized:
- inventory management! (T0X1C's original special skill was extra carrying capacity)
- more items that you could pick up and drop wherever you wanted
- the ability to use inventory HP recovery items
- a "final boss" fight or platforming level. something cool.
- more encounters for each floor
- I wanted to have The Ping give hints on puzzles
- and further I wanted to give each character different responses to things, but writing is hard. At least they each have a different ending dialogue.
- a use for CHIPZ
- some way to level up

addendum: I have a version of my entry without encounters on the 3rd floor. Play that if you prefer or are having trouble but maybe dont count it towards the competition?? idk
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42853625/Temp/DungeonStory_b11a.zip

Slither · Jul 15, 2016

I'll be twitch streaming contest mods tonight.
Current stream time will be 8 PM EDT. I'll try and remember to say something if things change.

CookedChef · Jul 15, 2016

Killjoy is kind of a mess. Like some other entries, I had to cut a LOT of content to make the deadline. These include:
-A second level
-More weapons
-All original assets
-Bosses (I ALMOST got this to work)
-Orgs not made by Safu (although thank you)
-A neat concept i stole from kirby air ride, in which there's a random chance to find a 'weapon part' in each chest, finding 3 of these will unlock a super-powerful weapon that only lasts 4-5 rooms
-the machine gun was supposed to be a shotgun lmao
-A double-jump mechanic that involved jane's wings
-a chest system that isn't fucking broken
-characters?????

All in all, if i started this WAY earlier and was a lot more careful with it, this mod would have come out a lot better. Honestly though, I'm just happy it works, as this was a nightmare to code. TSC is a fickle mistress, and she doesn't like it when you try to throw RNG into the mix.
Funnily enough, the TSC for each level is almost EXACTLY the same. I had to set up a system in which each room had an equal chance to be the next one, except for the one you're on. This involved a lot of level design, and a lot of copy/pasting with tiny edits. If i didn't spend so much time being dumb and getting the script to work, maybe you would see a few more custom assets.
I haven't given up on this mod, though. Like I said before (about 4 times now), I plan on making an upgraded version of killjoy, with everything I've listed above and more. If you like what this mod brought to the table, but didn't like the execution, keep an eye out for SUPER Killjoy.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 15, 2016

I thought that I might as well finish my notes for each mod before getting to actual voting for the sake of completion.

Links to my other posts:
Part 1
Part 2

It has also came to attention that Miccs' mod, Metronari, expects you to backtrack to the very beginning of the mod with the jetpack to get something mandatory to progress. This is the opposite of okay.

I like the title screen, though it probably could've used some new music to go along with it.

man your cat is small

not sure how to feel about these branches acting like faulty slopes

this set of stairs works just fine...

... whereas this one can't be climbed normally

right after this message box is a TSC error

I think that cat was supposed to give me something, but didn't thanks to that error.

looks like i'm stuck

A pretty short mod, though I think it's the first one to take place in an environment such as this one. I can't say it was too terribly enjoyable, though. It was kind of short, and that TSC error I ran into kept me from beating the mod.

you left window.rect in the mod folder

you left a lot of other (probably) unneccessary stuff in the mod folder

that title screen was different i guess, though what was the point of it?

starting in start point
nice meme

triggered

this is pretty neat, but god almighty does it have bad controls

1. why
2. these laser attacks have absolutely no telegraphing

there wasn't
a single
checkpoint???

why does this thing's power star last so much longer than mine

and now you try to tug on our heart strings to squeeze a few more points out of us

not being able to skip the title screen stuff is kind of annoying

kind of hard to capture it in a screenshot, but you run faster than the screen can scroll

why is my health still so low

why did it skip to phase two right away

i've been shooting these with level 2/3 spur shots for at least 30 seconds now
why won't they die/break

ok one finally broke
and i died
too much hp

Okay, so it's a mod with cool ASM. That's, uh, quite literally all there is to it. There's no story, no build-up, and barely any challenge up until the final boss. You just run through a tunnel and then fight an ASM-packed critter in a very hard-to-control zero gravity environment that came out of nowhere (???). I decided to ignore the tiling since I didn't have the patience to look for it while powered up with a star, but you did have a few TSC errors that are worth mentioning. The first is that the first phase of the boss is skipped even after you redo the game from the title screen. The second is that restarting the game after beating it doesn't refill your HP; as you could see, I was still around 50HP when I made it to the boss again.

you left window.rect in the mod folder

ohmygod, chrono trigger cat

when you talk with the cat, there's the sound of text appearing before the message box shows up

holy butts this is hard

like, unfair levels of hard

ok i give up

Like your other mods, it immediately throws you into a short run-and-gun mod filled with custom tiles, sprites, and guns. However, this one wasn't nearly as enjoyable as those mods for one reason: the gun was tied to a cat. It was cool how pressing Fire caused the cat to explode with high-damage fiery projectiles, but it was also very, very hard to control. Since the cat had Curly's AI, it would never truely stand by my side or attack what I needed to attack. It also didn't help that you only have five hits before dying and additional hearts are nigh impossible to run across. Ultimately, I think this would have been better if you had playtested it more.

didn't need to include the safutunes folder

the wait between opening the game and the title screen finally showing up is too long
i know it's the same length as always, but it's just a black screen

this room was kind of unfair tbh

opened the chest
sound of text appearing played
nothing came out
???

same with this one

i went through the door on the right, and popped out here
pointing this out since that door was missing a <KEY

oh

yeah uh, sometimes the mod just spawns a critter next to you when you enter a room
unfair damage to be h

you have essentially given me an infinite Booster that does damage

and i just used it to fly out of the mod

Sure enough, the mod doesn't randomly generate maps, but instead randomly draws from a pool of rooms excluding a few doors like the one that leads to the POLAR room. It was an enjoyable timewaster, though I have a few problems with it. The first is that the starting pistol is a little too strong; it has effectively infinite range and has ridiculous DPS at level 3. The second is that you missed a few H/V triggers, like the one in the ending room where I flew out of the map with the Machine Gun.

oh boy, what an original concept implied by the title

aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA

you tried/10

jesus christ what is this tiling

so this is all a boring, overly difficult jumping course using weird water current physics in what is basically First Cave
ok

you didn't even change the map name like what the heck

>messing up a single time boots you back to the beginning
ahhahaha no i'm done

Given the title of the mod and the lack of a custom intro cutscene, I wasn't expecting much. As it turns out, I was correct. It was just another "challenge" mod, which isn't unique or creative enough for the mod's guidelines in my opinion. The tiling feels rushed, there weren't enough break points/saves in between rooms from what little I played, and it takes place in First Cave.

pretty sure notepad doesn't support greek characters, so oops

this sign keeps refreshing the message when i stand in front of it
that save function is also probably a good way to softlock yourself

i really like the tiling of your caverns

whoa, a mod that finally makes these things solid
nice

why is there such a long pause between the previous map and this one

i died and restarted immediately at the start of the map where i saved
however, the music hasn't triggered again

but what if i do

i know i shouldn't be here yet
but like
these things have way too much health even though i have a level 3 snake

also forgot to mention that critters being upside down is pretty neat

192 health on the white ghost things
w h y

too difficult my foot
gimme that +4 hp

nice, have just enough health to get back through that wall of ghosts

only there's nothing to do here
epic

those things blend in WAY too well

sometimes i run into invisible walls for no reason
usually near people with dialogue or screen transitions

ok what the actual fuck was that boss after getting the upside-down Fireball

this is getting kind of dumb

ah yes, you just balanced the grasstown-esque area around the weapon
i don't really like it when people make your other guns obsolete like that, but whatever

bad slope

oh
so it's literally grasstown

these purple things have ENTIRELY too much health

and wow this Sharp Shooter is ENTIRELY too overpowered at level 2/3

getting an exp chip/arrow stuck in here makes a really annoying sound until it despawns

that's a pretty lazy way to guide the player tbh

how could this laser machine gun be any more OP than the Sharp Shooter

oh, it's this meme again

well that's an odd background

what
the actual
fuck

ok sure
just use -10 spikes when i only have 24 max hp and no life pot

this is ACTUALLY bullshit

you were doing so well

yeah no fuck this

I'm not sure what to make of this, really. It would have been perfect as a standalone mod, but I don't think it fits too well in this contest. It doesn't really have very many unique things about it, you know? I think the only thing that qualifies would be the upside-down critters and whatever the heck that green block mimic was; everything else was just Cave Story-esque gameplay with no story to back it up. Your level design was really nice (up until a certain point); it looked like how a rugged cavern should look. Your balancing, however, needed a little work. The Fire Spit was a decent gun. The llaberiF was starting to push the boundaries; it may have been harder to use, but its DPS was insane when you got the fireballs to stay on the target. The Sharp Shooter was grossly overpowered; at level 1 it may have been hot garbage, but levels 2 and 3 both utterly decimate anything they touch. I would only assume that the Laser Cannon would have been even more overpowered, but I never got the chance to use it. Why? Well, the final level, or what I assume is the final level, took a nosedive into horrible design. I'm not talking about tiling issues, but rather shoveling in fake difficulty with spikes LITERALLY everywhere. With the life capsule you get a little ways into the map, you have a maximum of 32 life. Strewn throughout the corridor are -4 spikes (which are relatively okay), -10 spikes (which are significantly less okay), and -127 spikes (almost as bad as the -10 spikes). One of my main problems with the -10 spikes, aside from them doing nearly 1/3rd of my life in a single touch, is that they're only a couple shades darker than the -4 spikes, which is hard to notice when the screen is shaking and you're boosting by them with what is essentially the Booster v2.0. You were doing so well, yet you dropped the ball so hard at the end.

you tried/10
the off-shade black in the Begin/Continue part is a little off-putting, and the title itself is a little MSpaint-y
not to mention you included Studio Pixel and the version number

wait, how was i supposed to know i had to go here
there wasn't any kind of visual cue

hurrah for potential sequence breaking
also this door makes a door-opening sound despite not having an actual door

dunc is gonna kill you when he gets here

what, there isn't even an option to go back?
or text saying i can't?

help
bats

thanks for the no save after that slightly tricky jump :v

i certainly hope you weren't expecting the player to grind up to level 3 for this
that took a while to do

hwat

facepic flickered before "The"

it did it again

and again

and again...

not sure how i feel about everything being so flat

holy negative space batman

either i'm doing something wrong, or this jump is way too precise

this is literally impossible

wow, it only took like fifty tries

>fall
>have to start over
ahahahahahaaaaaa this is horrible

there's a reason why you don't see pixel overlap blocks ever
this is why

just
why
using these blocks isn't hard

usually isn't a good idea to let the player go behind the HUD like this, but whatever

this entire press section is cancer

i really wish YOU would lay off the cheap wine

ok
that's better

time to use tinypic because imgur is being an ass

oh, so this is a showcase of mods from the past

been saying this a lot, but more than 4 lines of text in a message box is not okay

been pretty lenient so far, but the flatness is starting to wear on me

oh boy
death spike floor
my favorite

oh, so it's Misery + The Twins

what the fuck
not-Misery teleported away when i did enough damage, so i started to fight the Twins
then a random block falls out of nowhere, summoned by Misery, and hits me for 10 damage

yeah uh
the boss you're supposed to fight/kill, not-Misery, can warp into the walls at will

"imagiantion" should be "imagination"

aaaaa you tease

That was a pretty decent mod. Similar to So You Have, I think this fits less into the mod contest and more as a standalone mod. I don't think I really saw any unique gimmicks unlike some of the other mods. It was just... average, I guess? The story was alright, though the pauses in the text felt like they overstayed their welcome after a while. I'm not a fan of everything starting off scaled up in damage, when the same could be accomplished with smaller numbers, though I guess then the orb weapon would be a lot stronger due to it doing 1 damage per tick/frame/whatever. The tiling was pretty subpar; the first cave or two were acceptable, but everything afterwards took a bit of a nosedive. Aside from what I already said about the boss fight at the end, I think it would have benefitted from the dragons having custom sprites or at least recolors to match the surroundings more. Instead of being all bright and energetic, they could have been more purple and dark.

bruh

b r u h

the different message box is nice and all, but it's hard to read white on tan

execution chamber??

oh ok, i was able to walk off the edge and out of the map

could have probably used some slopes or something

oh, so the map is just unfinished
and can be accessed in the starting map
ok

nice

should be "You found =Shuriken=!"

but it's a shuriken, not a blade

oh right, i only have 3 hp

or
yknow
just make an H/V trigger disallowing the player from progressing
also you need to grammar/spelling check your stuff

so level 3 makes the blade instantly pop on you
this is infinitely worse than level 2

i'm starting to suspect that english isn't your first language

dying in one hit to literally everything isn't fun

it sounded like you messed up the <TSC between "save point" and "Temple"

why

I still only have 3hp
and I still only have the Blade
this is the anti-fun

okay, i think i've seen enough

This mod was pretty disappointing. The only good things about it were the custom tiles and those homing flame spawners. Everything else was less than good: there were unfinished maps, you spammed a ton of enemies when your only weapon is a severely nerfed Blade, you only give the player 3 HP, and those homing flame spawners can practically fill the screen with homing flames if you don't rush through the level as quickly as possible. Oh, and the spelling/grammar leave something to be desired.

Will be continued in another post since I'm close to the 100 image limit.

Serri · Jul 15, 2016

The Final Level actually could've been a longer mod if it weren't for the couple technical difficulties I've been having with my laptop for the past month.

Here's some stuff that could've been put in my mod, but couldn't due to the changed time restraints.

- The level was originally going to be much longer, I originally planned for there to be a dark room where you can only see yourself and the enemies in the room (no dirty tricks like hidden spikes or invisible fall pits). That whole idea had to be cut out.

- There were originally going to be Sand Crocs in the level, but they were scrapped.

- The Quick Man Beams were originally animated, but there was a problem with the animating in the long fall room, so I had to make them all one color per frame.

- Originally, the Arms Barrier and the Whimsical Star were going to be part of the Battle Outfit. I scrapped them due to problems I was having with the Weapon X.

- Now for a big surprise. The whole cutscene with Mitch originally wasn't going to have talks about "The Omnipotence". As you probably already know by now, I've put in several red herrings in the mod (Weapon X, the Yoku Blocks, etc.). The Omnipotence talk is one of those red herrings, it's an excuse really, to put in the "Join me, Judith" dialogue. Also, in response to Seasons' thoughts, referencing just TNO would've been too obvious.

- Also, if you saved in the ?????? room, I suggest saving that Profile.dat file. That IS an intended feature for a future mod involving Judith.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 15, 2016

Continuing off of my previous post...

you left window.rect in the mod folder

doesn't that violate the rule of not continuing something made before the contest for the contest

box room is a box

why heterochromia
and why a pokeball shirt

you're usually supposed to capitalize every part of a map's name, like a title

different pixel sizes aaaaaa

"isn't" should be "aren't"

"i'm" should be capitalized
also how would you reach the surface if you're presumably on the island

"Humans" shouldn't be capitalized

the lack of any and all <FAI's and <FAO's is jarring

you really need to go back through your text and spell/grammar check it

probably could have used a <WAI when knocking on the door

hello ms. not-sue

ok, what was the point of visiting the other houses
i learned nothing whatsoever

really though, <FAO and <FAI exist for a reason

this probably isn't how this scenario would actually play out

help
why am i molesting this little boy against my will

because nuzzling strangers is wrong

oh, we're a girl
i literally couldn't tell
that makes this nuzzling thing even worse

me too thanks

why am i controlling someone other than myself

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Out of Character much?

how haven't these mimiga been found yet
their cave is hidden by a mere pot

comma shouldn't exist
also how does she know that mimiga exist

this isn't something a sane person would say or believe

wow, it was literally nothing

This mod felt like Spirit's RAVE BAR, but with a few more maps. It was literally just walking from Point A to Point B only to be forced to choose No. The only things that really stood out were the lack of transition and the nuzzling. <FAO and <FAI exist for a reason; they allow you to smoothly transition between maps, and not using them jarrs the player. The nuzzling thing felt like you were trying to be creepy for the sake of it; why even bother to try?

You left Profile.dat, window.rect, and .DS_Store in the mod folder

why Studio Pixel

the comma after "here" shouldn't be there

the heck is that

"thats" needs an apostrophe

also, white on light green is hard to read

legit couldn't see this chest until i was standing right next to it

ahem
that's not a =Hand Gun=

nice rain

fam
that's not a knife

why would a knife in your shed take you aback?

AHEM

you do know there's a type of chain that's broken at the bottom, right?

the doors don't animate or play the door opening sound

i legit couldn't tell that that was the background and not a wall

ah yes
neon green death spikes
just what this mod needed

these columns could use a little variation in shape, tbh

excuse me

oh ok
an igor fight with a whopping 6hp
that's fair

one punch and i go from 6hp (max) to 1hp
balanced

A H E M

bad slopes ahoy

the TSC upon leaving the Cave House is a little wonky since i hear the text sound in the transition

you need more slopes fam
everything is super blocky

these don't link up so good

2
two
unnecessary line breaks

you what

the chest didn't stay open, either
or play the chest opening sound

IT WOULD BE NICE IF I WAS BUMPED IN THE RIGHT WAY

i got bumped so many times that i fell out of the mod
nice

why does nearly every mod neglect to autoequip the booster

welp

i wasn't a huge fan of it tbh

unnecessary line break

oh ok

It feels as though the main "gimmick" of this mod was being entirely GB green, which honestly isn't that great of a gimmick. It was often difficult to discern what was what, such as chests, background walls, or spikes. There were a few neglected details here and there along with what I believe is a TSC error. It's also a little silly how the Igor reskin was capable of doing more damage than the Red Ogre fight. Other than that, it was an okay mod, albeit rather short.

I think that's all. I'll wait a little while longer for everything to get cleared up before I start giving specific scores.

Slither · Jul 16, 2016

https://www.twitch.tv/diachromatic Stream is going up momentarily.

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

heyo i'm gonna do some wacky ass shit and post my reviews in multiple posts because the CSTSF hates more than 100 images in one post for some reason
sooo
let's go

first up: Auto Pilot
--

AutoPilot

here we go

why is it a .dat file

well at least the title screen looks neat

THIS ONLY MAKES ME WANT TO MORE

holy shit this is really cool

i see you, motherfucker

youshouldnthavetogethurttoprogressthatsbadleveldesign.jpg

this is insane

hi blargo

i like how the spikes killed him, what a loser

the <NOD bar is there now
i'm assuming im supposed to press something now right

okay listen

uh oh i'm pulling a zxin aren't i

I'M HERE MOTHERFUCKER

... oh
he sent me away

i didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in the cave place so idk where to split the timeline

i can't possibly pass this

oops i died
Death counter: 3

this part was really cool and i still hold my breath each time

i think i just have to interfere at the end of each level

ohhh that's why i didn't notice him before
you have to talk to him in the first level to get him to appear here
clever

'sup

:3c

are we geneforge now

are behemoths serviles now

brb killing BBallos

i like how that changed

phew, it autosaved

i guess i'll choose spur and bubbler?

OH GOD MY WHIMSICAL STAR CRACKED THEM OPEN

oh i can't choose bubbler
oh whale

my...my arms?
can i ORA my way through BB

holy fucking shit

i think i'll go with mobility this time and not firepower

i think my problem is actually using the spur and not another weapon
i'll use the machine gun this time

oh god

im bad at cave story but this is really fun

i think i'll go with bubbler this time

i just realized he breaks a refill station when he enters
:joy: :gun:

HE WAS AT LIKE
0 HEALTH
THEN I FUCKING DIED?
THAT'S COOL
I WAS CLOSE TO BEATING HIM WITH A LEVEL 1 BUBBLER BUT WHATEVER, MAN!

fuck it, spur

1 HP
NARROWLY MISSED HEALTH STATION

boi he boutta do it

AW SHIT

can i skip the ballos fight please and thanks

OOPS

now i know where balrog gets it from

yeahhhh
im sorry im just not at all good at fighting ballos, LOL

omg there's basketballs coming down

this is insane 2: electric boogaloo

okay closed DouTrainer

glad to see White isn't changed

b-but i used mobility

i mean, not really

AutoPilot is a neat game, I'll give it that.
It has a great concept ("Don't let go"s and its subverted form, "Don't press anything"s, are usually my favourite kind of games), which is extrapolated on well throughout the course of four maps, and has unique level design, despite the tiles being the same. (Doesn't actually matter, tile making is hard, but oh well)

The parts where you have to "take control" are always at the end of the level though, which kinda made it predictable. Scattering the Cthulhu Follower a bit more in between the levels would have made it more enjoyable to find him.

Once I "got off the beaten path" and activated the "Best End" route and fought the final boss, though, the mod ~~kinda became stale~~ actually got active, instead of not pressing anything, though since I'm bad at Cave Story I'm biased in not liking the final boss.

Anyway, the final boss was Ballos But Different (re: not different), and the ending felt not as good as it could have been. A simple text box saying "You did it!" shouldn't be given to me after beating a creature that destroyed an entire lab that was meant to be virtually indestructable.

If i had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, it'd be a clear cut 7, mainly because the AutoPilot was fun, but the Pilot wasn't AS fun.

next up is CatFall
--

CatFall

here we go

HMMMMM

H M M M M M

wait why was window.rect already in the folder
this is sad

why is it two dots

same

WHY WAS STUDIO PIXEL THERE TOO
AAAAAAAAAAAAA

is this intentional lag

WHAT IS THIS SAYING

?!

fire spam the game

FIRE SPAM THE GAME

what does this say

i...i guess that's the end?

this music is fucking hurting my ears

CatFall isn't that great.

The player ship is kinda ehh, the background doesn't feel right, and the bullets are hard to distinguish from everything else that's going on.

Speaking of, there's no sound effects. It makes the game very hard to enjoy, seeing as infinite cats coming in from the right side in the final level and the not-very-well-done music hurting my ears aren't very enjoyable to begin with.

The concept is cool, though. Very Touhou-esque or something similar.

The story is ehhhh... I mean, saving Earth is cool and all, but there's no real rhyme or reason for it to be happening. Random invasion is cool and all, but it feels not-very-original.

All in all, I say on a scale of 1-10, CatFall places at a 2.

next up, Cave Story: Live and Uncut!
--

Cave Story - Live and Uncut!

here we go

good lord, man
pick up your shit

i'll run the not-60 fps first

also why was manual in here

DEAR LORD

why is studio pixel there
also nice original donut steel Quote oc

lmao

im so immature for laughing at this but i can't help it

i can relate

it's the healing sound

random jappo

:0

Hey look, you got this Piece of shit gun=! *clap clap clap* good job

this mod is amazing

same

even tho it's Cave Story but Different im enjoying myself

what the

what would pixel do

i can relate

dude, meta

it's... it's incomprehensible

shut the fuck up oh my god

dear lord

=Brittle piece of shit Map System=!

=shitty fuckin' necklace=

i can relate

wow thanks for being a bitch, toroko

Yes

balrog and co. are nice people

"go fuck yourself"
:thumbs-up:

im not gonna bother questioning it

wtch

wait where's sue

he looks nothing like daddy cthulhu

this guy is fucking high

that death song is lit

same

these can all overlap and it's hilarious

this is amazing

ale... ale 8?

:/

(ow that audio hurt)

WHY

Despite being Cave Story but Different, CS: Live and Uncut really pulls it through on the entertainment field.

The voice clips are great, and honestly it's probably the only reason why I played the mod to its end.

On an art scale, tho, everything is really bland, seeing as it's just Cave Story.

Again, the voice clips are pretty much the only redeeming factor.

I don't really have much to say on this because albeit being very enjoyable, it's just Cave Story.

If I had to rate it on a scale of 1-10, it'd be pretty high up there. Maybe like, an 8.

(more to come)

Thomas Xin · Jul 16, 2016

Hey um... I just wanted to fix the distracting noise in Egg Corridor in CTD, if that's allowed. It's only for player experience, not extra points. I don't think something like that will affect anything anyway.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 16, 2016

Thomas Xin said:
Hey um... I just wanted to fix the distracting noise in Egg Corridor in CTD, if that's allowed. It's only for player experience, not extra points. I don't think something like that will affect anything anyway.

If I can't add skipflags to the few message boxes that could use them, I'm pretty sure you can't do that.

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

(continued)
Post 1

--

time for critter tower defense
---

Critter Tower Defense

here we go

?!

all these window.rects

christ almighty

?!

why even make this a thing

well this is a lot of the same tile

oh god

wowzers

fireballs are useless

LOOK AT THIS

holy fucking sh

this game requires me to think strategy
i like it

...until i got the spur towers
then everything is cheese

christ

christ x2

i've muted CS at this point and just started playing my own music

the spurs are overpowered x2

NOT OVERPOWERED ENOUGH NO--

perfect

died on level 21

not really

anarchy

god

oh boy

why spikes

sometimes when i demolish towers i don't get money back
?!?!

god almighty

okay here's what im gonna do

im gonna play the bonus level now

this mod will be biased in that i haven't played the rest of the levels but i don't see the point, seeing as they're all the time

maybe i'll come back to this idk

already triggered

this is insane

why do i only have 200 health
rainbow critters normally have more

I CAN'T GET BACK UP

i had to reset
thanks

haha

THESE SPURS ARE IRRITATION INCARNATE

uh

you've got to be kidding me

okay im DONE THIS IS IT

iDONTEVENLIKECAVESTORYWHYAMIPLAYINGMODSFORIT

Critter Tower Defense has a neat concept that struggles with difficulty, critter spam and balance issues.

To be fair, the map layouts seemed okay at a first glance, but once you progress in the mod (re: to the second level) the difficulty spikes up and suddenly you have a million critters attacking you while your guns don't do shit.
Toning down on critter spam and easing up on the difficulty would do wonders for this mod.

Speaking of critter spam, there's a ton of critters that show up after level 3, when you don't even have excellent weapons yet.
Plus, the diversity in said critter spam is nonexistent. The max amount of critter types I've seen in one level is four, and the max amount of critters I've seen in one level were too many to count. Probably around 40?
My point is, it's not very entertaining. At all.

What's also not entertaining is the fact that if you place down Spur towers everywhere you win the game. It's as easy as that.
Toning down the damage the Spur does, or maybe increasing its price, would be better than what it currently is.

Another note: the music is repetitive. I muted it as early as level 19, I think, and started to play my own music.
Changing the music once in a while will be 100% beneficial on every front, and will make the game more tolerable.

Inevitably, if I had to rate CTD on a scale of 1-10, it'd be around a 4, only because of the Rainbow Critter Bonus Level*.

*note: not entirely because of the Rainbow Critter Bonus Level

next we have CS: What To Do When Modding
--

CS: What To Do When Modding

here we go

oh gee

i couldn't see the intro screen text and also the last part cut off

treacherous

i like the concept of showing people how to mod

h-hypocrite

thanks

i fell off the side of the map

good idea

Mod Advice- Stop pestering Polar about Rave Story 3. It's not funny.

>

lel random xD

"Hi, can I steal this from you?"
"yeah sure"

?!

OH YOU BASTARD
THIS IS FROM THAT ONE MOD I MADE
SSR
LOL!

hi pummel

nice

it's Doukutsu, honey

i like this No Hate advice board

thanks

thanks x2

yare yare daze...

What To Do When Modding is... decent.

The advice was good, my cameo map was good,
the rest wasn't.

The level design could have been handled WAY better instead of repetitive 1-block-maps and the short-cuts in the First Cave were unnatural, unholy, and unpleasant to look at.

The music was Cave Story, and I wish it were a little more creative with the selection.

All in all, on a scale of 1-10, I rate it a 3.

here's dungeon stroy
--

H4CK3R STORY

here we go

pinky and big brain

hell yeah

WHICH CHARACTER DO I PICK
THEY'RE ALL SO--

...
okay im picking will i don't even care

d...dorites?

these maps are really neat

i died to a sand croc

w-what stairs

it's dat boi

"Never Shred Edible Wheat"
???

oh boy

"So what's your twitter?"

is this like a 90s canadian brand of soda orr

i'll always remember it as the hall of validation

WHAT ELEVATOR?!

me

the smallest divet

OH GOD BLARGO SCARED ME

whenever my parents talk about me

blargo is really annoying

you mean i have to explore more?
nooooo

e...easy peasy

welcome to the club

now he's just twitching in place
help

H E L P

heck yeah

same

uh oh

.

~fetch smackdown

>F 0 0 F

H4CK3R STORY (or Dungeon Story) is a great mod.

The music fits the retro 2002 atmosphere well (except for the blaringly loud bit at the end) and doesn't get excruciatingly annoying as time goes on.

The gameplay is innovative, and I've never seen it be done before in a Cave Story mod.

The characters all look unique and loveable (especially Will-- er, "The Ping" <3) and have interesting gameplay styles.

The only things that bug me is that "1337" mode is the standard mode and the ending was not satisfying.

Otherwise, I'd rate it a solid 9/10.

(more to come)

DoubleThink · Jul 16, 2016

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
you tried/10
the off-shade black in the Begin/Continue part is a little off-putting, and the title itself is a little MSpaint-y
not to mention you included Studio Pixel and the version number

I explained things like this in my first post in this thread, I literally made that with about 10 minutes left

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
i certainly hope you weren't expecting the player to grind up to level 3 for this
that took a while to do

No, you don't have to at all

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
facepic flickered before "The"

Again, I unfortunately had to put these in without playtesting. Also I forgot you need to zero out faces with <FAC0000. At least it doesn't look as though I put the wrong expressions in anywhere :droll:

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
either i'm doing something wrong, or this jump is way too precise

Alright uhh reading back through Discord, I kind of had this problem where vertical boost was a lot more easy to get distance with than horizontal boost and so that's what you're supposed to do here, I didn't even know this was makable by boosting left. I actually redid it a couple of times because it was so easy.

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
what the fuck
not-Misery teleported away when i did enough damage, so i started to fight the Twins
then a random block falls out of nowhere, summoned by Misery, and hits me for 10 damage

Yeah this fight's kind of a mess, I had zero time to try to fix the warping or change some of the sprites. The Twins have effectively infinite health but I decided to keep them shootable so you can still cancel their attack.

Also yes I do intend to continue this story at some point

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
I don't think I really saw any unique gimmicks unlike some of the other mods.

The entire thing is built around a miniboost mechanic (I don't remember seeing this as such before, it's not quite the same thing as a double jump) with a piercing weapon, I mean no I didn't turn the game into a completely different genre but it's not nothing.

Does the purple in these screenshots look way more vivid than the tileset in the actual game or is that just me? I noticed Windows image viewer doing it but I have no idea how my system could be changing uploaded screenshots.

Noxid said:
addendum: I have a version of my entry without encounters on the 3rd floor. Play that if you prefer or are having trouble but maybe dont count it towards the competition?? idk

No it doesn't, people can still play this ofc but please make sure to only consider the version available in the thread when voting.

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

(continued)
Post 1
Post 2

--

next up is uhh
---

FS_PF

here we go

are they walking backwards

*you're

the title screen doesn't look okay

TEH HETEROCHROMIAS!!! xDD
also christ that facepic is uhhhhhhh

when you press down the sprite ever so slightly shifts a pixel to the left
fix it

unnecessary slopes

unnecessary ladder

1. the checkerboard wallpaper doesn't match the rest of the house
2. neither do the appliances
3. WHAT IS THAT CRATE DOING THERE

grow the h*ck up

1. Mom?
2. that i'm should be I'm
3. if the surface is a place it should be the Surface; otherwise ignore me

1. what's on her ear
2. should be Alright, sweetie...

lyra's house is a mess

should be "Good morning, Pierce."

that's what I'M sayin'! kids these days...

this should be I'll, not i'll

should be "Well, don't go too far out."

hi sue

1. should be Morning, Pierce!
2. hi sue

should be Good morning, River!

should be I can't play right now, Pierce.

all these commas missing... that's the REAL mystery

pierce finally remembers how to knock when he tries talking to vinny
smh

this little animation here is really janky

bad

should be <MSGI shouldn't go into that part of the forest.<NOD<CLRIt's dangerous there.<NOD<CLR<END

1. KRISTY TOLD YOU TO AVOID HUMANS, PIERCE
2. that facepic is uhhhhhhhhh
3. I'M MAD

>

what kind of name is kite

this is what is going to get your species exterminated

SUDDEN FACEPIC CHANGE
NOT OKAY

I'D BACK AWAY TOO, SMH
HE AIN'T GOOD FOR YOU RUN TF AWAY

OH GOD

SAME TBH

the worst

i thought Pierce was a guy...?

"may have"??!?!?!?!
what brought you to this conclusion, pierce
you didn't extrapolate at all in between point A and point B so why did this suddenly come to you as easy as that

should be It's, not Its
ultimate tsundere

HELL NO

th-thanks

why is he happy in this one

1. should be Jesus Christ
2. where's he learn such language
3. CLAM DOWN
4. shouldn't you be clamming down, pierce
what a hypocrit

what a fake ass bitch

it's *Sniffle*

i swear pierce is a he

should be What happened?

uHM,,,,, LIEK,,,,,,, pIERCE WAS HURT BY A HUMAN?????????

i SWEAR

is lyra ryuuoutan now

should be "If they find us, they'll kill all of us."

should be happened

this bitch just bailed on somethin she just said she'd do
smh

humans really aren't your strong suit, huh

should be "I swear, if you're lying to me..."

1. should be (Kite obviously saw a Mimiga...)
2. wtf is that expression

1. MY PARENTS ARE DEAD
2. should be Mom and Dad

should be I'm not going to let them take you, too!

don't walk away from me bitch

edgy

should be Stay here, Kite.

this looks decent

This is a...
Well, it's not great, but it's passable.

The two main things you have to remember in a no-combat game is that graphics and dialogue are everything.
Unfortunately, those two components are severely lacking, thus making the game somewhat unbearable, in a way.

One: The facepics scared me. I mean, we all have a starting point, and this is as good a starting point as any, but the facepics just didn't cut it for me. They were bad, to say the least, but that doesn't mean you can't learn from it.

Two: The dialogue was laughable. There was a lot of commas missing, the story didn't really make sense, and the genders of certain people were confusing. However, there's potential here, and as long as there's no more senseless, lewd nuzzling in the future (they're kids, for Christ's sake), it could turn out to be a good mod.

Another thing that turned me off was that the tiles didn't match at all in some places and was Cave Story in every other place. Fixing these issues would help a lot.

Eventually, I'd have to rate it a solid 2/10.

what's next
oh dumb safu mod
--

~~hey~~

here we go
the intro is lightning

same

this tree looks so out of place when next to these mountain blocks

best mod 10/10

hey
hey
hey

what the fuck is this cat

wh

i like how the cat is a fucking menace

this pidgeon turns into a bug sometimes

that death screen was killer

i keep falling off the mountain things
help

the cat gun thing is not reliable at all how do i use this

safu nooooo

interacting with the cat makes a text sound, waits a second, then replays Meow! Meow! I'm a cat! Hello! I'm a cat! hey hey hey

ohhhh
tho tbh i shouldn't need a cat to tell me what another cat does :/

i can glitch out the cat orbs via alt tabbing so they stay with me infinitely
10/10

this is still really cool

THESE BLADE GAUDIS ARE REALLY ANNOYING

shh
can you hear it
the sound of fake blocks holding hearts

I KEEP FALLING
GOD

you can't seriously think this looks okay

?!?!?!?!?

?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!?!?!
i can fire here?!?!?!

i... i guess i finished it?

(idk what to put for the credit image so here's this)

n...nevermind

1. i never knew this existed
2. what

I JUST WANTED TO REFILL MY HEALTH

using the save point does this
!?!?!

(WE'RE DONE HERE)

"hey cat" would be a great game, were it not for the glaring errors and difficulty spikes that impeaded on it.

The sprites and tiles were very detailed, as is customary of a safu mod, but the tiles sometimes didn't blend well together (or at all) and the sprites were somewhat unfinished, specifically the parrot thing.

The cat gun thing was fun to use but confusing to control, and at the beginning you wouldn't even know how to use it without asking someone who did (or testing it). A small little tutorial thing would have been nice.

The music was spectacular, as is also customary of a safu mod.

But the enemies were kinda... ehhh.
The blade gaudis were really annoying to deal with, as were the soleils and the parrots.
Basically, everything was kinda annoying.

Also, there wasn't any story. At all.
I know it's not a strong suit of most people, but it could've helped this mod out a lot.

Baaasssiicccaaalllyyy, I'd rate this mod around a 6/10, if only because of the cat.

time for killjoy
--

KILLJOY

here we go

edgy

nice

also i'm enjoying this so far

very kirby esque also i died

died again! lol

the music stopped?

GOD
I WAS ENJOYING MYSELF, TOO

WHAT A

KILLJOY

hAHHAHAHA

KILLJOY is a neat little roguelike that has good kirby vibes and nice music.

A few things that bothered me though was the title screen, and the sprites/tiles.

The title screen felt unnecessarily edgy. Almost border-line A.4, and that's an achievement in itself.
Maybe try toning it down a little, so it doesn't look as weird as it does right now (circa July 15th, 2016)

The enemies also blended in with the tiles, making it hard to see them.
Enemies as in, the normal sized critters.
It's hard to kill things when you can't see them, and all that.

Anyway, it's a good mod. Around a 5/10, in my opinion.

(more to come)

Tpcool · Jul 16, 2016

Today there were two mod updates, so please redownload if you have an earlier version:
DoubleThink's Precious Thoughts (updated earlier today, as you may have already noticed)
thomasco2013's Lara (updated as this post was made)
Check the original post for the updated links.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 16, 2016

Oh jeez, time to clear things up.

DoubleThink said:
I explained things like this in my first post in this thread, I literally made that with about 10 minutes left

I kinda ignored that post and went straight into the mod since I had a huge list of mods to review. Sorry about that.

DoubleThink said:
No, you don't have to at all

I didn't mean to imply that it was mandatory to grind up to Level 3. I was just hoping that you didn't want the player to have that much DPS since it took a while for me to optionally grind up to Level 3.

DoubleThink said:
Again, I unfortunately had to put these in without playtesting. Also I forgot you need to zero out faces with <FAC0000. At least it doesn't look as though I put the wrong expressions in anywhere

Eh, the more you know. By the way, the facepics were pretty nice, though I think not-Misery or Opal could've used at least one or two of their own.

DoubleThink said:
Alright uhh reading back through Discord, I kind of had this problem where vertical boost was a lot more easy to get distance with than horizontal boost and so that's what you're supposed to do here, I didn't even know this was makable by boosting left. I actually redid it a couple of times because it was so easy.

See, I was trying to do it with the vertical boost after seeing how useless the horizontal boost was, but I was doing it too late. I actually had to do it a lot earlier than I thought I needed to.

DoubleThink said:
Yeah this fight's kind of a mess, I had zero time to try to fix the warping or change some of the sprites. The Twins have effectively infinite health but I decided to keep them shootable so you can still cancel their attack.

Good thing I didn't try to focus on killing the Twins then :muscledoc:

. I spent a few minutes fighting the Twins before getting low on health, which is when I decided to shift my fire back onto not-Misery.

DoubleThink said:
Also yes I do intend to continue this story at some point

ayy

DoubleThink said:
The entire thing is built around a miniboost mechanic (I don't remember seeing this as such before, it's not quite the same thing as a double jump) with a piercing weapon, I mean no I didn't turn the game into a completely different genre but it's not nothing.

Now here's the main reason why I wanted to reply. I'm sorry for implying that your mod lacked anything unique at all. That was wrong. Making a Booster that essentially gives you an air dash and designing obstacles around that air dash is pretty neat. The piercing gun is less a gimmick and more a nifty gun hack, though.