CSTSF 2016 Modding Competition Showcase & Voting Thread

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

(if i'm annoying feel free to point it out at any instance, kthnx)

(continued)
Post 1
Post 2
Post 3

---

heeeeeere's lara
--

Lara

here we go

S-Studio Pixel joined ModCon?!
brb emailing him why

awww there's already a profile.dat
gay

thanks

don't put enters after <CLRs pls

no sound effects... hm

should be Yeah, I know you are.

should be Yeah, I know, it's just...

should be Thank you, Lara...
tho some people don't use the comma here so WHAT DO I KNOW

should be I really appreciate the effort.<NOD<CLRTalk to you in the morning, then?<NOD<CLR
or something similar

should be Yeah. Night, Steel.

I CAN'T READ THIS

excellent

should be Screw this, wake me up already!

you keep adding enters after your <CLRs

this instance is fine, as it's for effect, but the rest aren't

that doesn't look like a knife

shouldn't be aback

NOO

i can reload this event if i walk back and forth

should be Hey, Steel.

fucking enter
plus
Yeah.<NOD<CLROh, right, while I have you on the phone...<NOD<CLR

should be Lara, who was that?

you know what you've done

at least center this

too cool to look at dead people

GOD NOW THERE'S THIS SOUND THAT'S REPEATING OVER AND OVER
GRAAAAHH

should be Hey, Steel.

you know what you did x2

should be Yeah, I know...

Don't worry, we will!

Alright, haha, see you soon.

i softlocked myself

same

Lara is okay.

The tiles and sprites are reminiscent of GBA games, and it pulls it off well enough. However the unfortunate thing that it falls into is that it all blends together. I couldn't differentiate spikes from grass, and background tiles resembled foreground tiles too well. Progressing was hoping that the way I went didn't immediately make me drop off into the abyss.

The facepics were taken from The World Ends With You (which is a good game), so I can't really say anything on them other than Steel has a really itty bitty waist.

The story was better than what I expected. It didn't make sense because it isn't complete, obviously, but it has a lot of potential to become something great.

The music wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be, but I could tell there was effort behind it, and hopefully, with perseverence, the music can become better someday.

All in all, it's a solid 6/10.

metrometrometronari
--

Metronari

here we go

ah
blaringly white
reminds me of movies nowadays

ba dum tshh

when i turn my back i turn black
gay

making the save point and the health refill the same NPC is... a good idea actually

same

also why is everything so ouch

when i run to the right sometimes my face gets cut off

same

i like this place

same

this puzzle could've been a bit harder than "press all of them while walking left then press the second one to the right"

oh? how's that?

the description ended abruptly
make sure to end all your <MSGs with <NOD<CLRs

hi balrog

when he walks his eyes disappear sometimes

a random cutscene happened to the right of here and it was jarring

i hate how one hit from a critter takes off half your Weapon XP

i relate to this door

my life

should be a . there

same

oh it's the nemesis

NO

WHY ISN'T IT WORKING

aww eating a happy candy made me happy

these water levels hurt

that elevator animation was jank

Metronari is an okay game.

The black and white atmopshere adds both positive and negative aspects to the mod, namely being creative and hurting my eyes. It's not a bad design choice, but it could have been done better.

The concept is silly.
If there's this maze called The Box and I have to escape it, why would I even enter it? At the beginning, we almost have a choice to enter it or not, so either the player character is fucking nuts and loves mazes or has no choice but to enter.
Neither is extrapolated on and thus adds confusion to the otherwise simple game.

The music never changed, even for boss fights, which made listening to it become tasteless after a while. It is good, though.

Nonetheless, I'd rate the mod, like, a 6/10 or something.

time to
uhh
what were we doing again
---

Final Level

here we go

oh god here we go

ok

BUT WHY

0/10 weed joke isn't funny

we Ama now

dear god
why do you look so intense

DIRTY COMMIE SCUM

we have abandoned god

no
you've told me literally nothing except that i have a mission to purify general mitch

this is racist

nice (nice)

same

was this necessary

i can relate to judith

*gets flashbacks to CTD*
NO

this is really pretty

that's yellow

Mega Man-esque in that this is the Yellow Devil stage

the Yoku Blocks also feels really Mega Man-esque

i just iframed myself through a yellow bar
phew

this all feels like mega man
tommy would be proud

"Last Save"
oh boy

Estrella?!

breakage of the fourth wall detected
plot twist

THIS is what he looks like nowadays... would be more fitting imo

SICK BURNS

A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES

"now about your weapon you're holding"
how about just
"Now about that weapon of yours..."

TORNADO FUCKUP
also kinda edgy

cool people don't look at dying people

this isn't very original
i mean the robo is and the art is but the gameplay concepts aren't

bye im closing the game now

this is insane

are you kidding me
i don't want to do all that again

THERE'S SO MUCH SHIT GOING ON

im

you...you bastard

oh

same

Final Level was pretty fun, despite having an impossible final boss.

The facepics were okay, the sprites look even okayer, and the tiles looked the okayest.
The Mega Man/anime vibes are the strongest vibes here, and it made the game enjoyable, if a little uncreative (see: Yellow Devil stage).

The music was certainly a blast, tho. It's cool, yo.

I'd rate that shit 'boutta 7/10. Dockin' points cause of that there impossibru boss and some forms of unoriginality, y'know.

(more to come)

DoubleThink · Jul 16, 2016

SeasonsOfDestiny said:
The piercing gun is less a gimmick and more a nifty gun hack, though.[/spoiler]

tbh weapons like this are actually really easy to make, all you have to do it slow the projectile and give it a load of hits (although basing it on the Machine Gun did complicate that a bit)

Also another thing I forgot:

Tpcool said:
Today there were two mod updates, so please redownload if you have an earlier version:

If something does have an update posted, it is preferable that you reconsider it based on the fixed content. Votes can be updated before the deadline just like the mods were.

Noxid · Jul 16, 2016

well I guess I'd better start providing my feedback too. I ain't gonna do any damn picture walkthroughs or point out every spelling mistake because that seems to be pretty well covered. but I'll try to give my overall thoughts about each mod and say what I liked or didnt' like. These are my own personal opinions, so you may disagree on some points.
I'm just gonna do them in the order they show up in my folder.

While it doesn't bring anything especially groundbreaking to the table, Autopilot is a nice quick romp. Playing through with no inputs (is it really playing if I don't do anything? idk lol) presents some nice choreography as quote is brushed around three nicely themed levels. I was initially a bit confused at the taking control part because I felt like reading the txt was vaguely cheating and I wanted to figure it out. So I found the 1HP at the first area and thought "ah, I just have to win blargo with more health". well, eventually I figured it out anyway.. but not before finding a fun way to cheese run-and-jump balrog.
After I figured out what I was actually supposed to do, it was pretty much a standard ballos fight except with memes so marginally better. It was easy enough with spur + SML.

Things I liked:
+ cool hands-off sequences
+ balrog getting wiped by environmental hazards
+ space jam

Things I didn't like:
- Not much in the way of new art to satisfy my thirst
- The plot was a bit underwhelming, if there was one.

Well, what can I say about this.. I admire the work you do injecting all this weird stuff into cave story, but for me it almost kind of pushes the limits of what can be really called a cave story mod. I mean, if using the game engine is only a formality then i'm not sure why it would be a mod in the first place. Oh well. Anyways, regarding the game itSELF, it suffers from some issues that a lot of people pointed out already like not being really fun. It feels more like a tech demo of NICE than a game, which is ok I guess. it IS different, I'll grant that much so I guess it earns a few points for being on-theme.

Things I liked:
+ cats
+ cheating and getting the high score
+ interesting new tech in the mod sector

Things I didn't like:
- lack of sfx and gameplay other than mashing shoot
- short length (although given above, perhaps that was merciful)

Well, this is an interesting one. Although submitted as anonymous, it's not too hard to tell who's behind it all and it gives it away in the end anyway. I actually like the premise and your VA and editing come together to form a pretty solid delivery. Although the gameplay is "just cave story", from what there is so far i can definitely say it's a fresh take on a tale we all know (perhaps a bit too well).

Things I liked:
+ goofy sounds & exaggerated characters
+ enough rewriting to keep me interested on a story i've seen a million times
+ the thoroughness of the voicing so far

Things I didn't like:
- sometimes the pacing of the textbox didn't match the dialogue
- pressing the button and advancing the script leads to bad (overlapping) things
- some of the humour was a bit too crude for my taste

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

(continued)
Post 1
Post 2
Post 3
Post 4

--

next we have uhhhh
whatever the fuck this says
--

here we go

same

this looks really gritty
also original oc donut steel

this textbox keeps reloading and reloading and reloa

60 fps is so fast
i can't

also why can't i interact with anything

thanks

why is this here

thanks game

after i died the music stopped

yeah LOL (no)

i wonder why i can't press down

dear lord
what is this weird, gross tile

this isn't supposed to blend together

thanks

aww innocent gaudis ;w;

oo, anti gravity fireball

i died and then all of a sudden im not in kansas anymore

okay this green boss guy deserves a tornado fuckup
so

it's sad how many times i've had to do this, whether it be my own incompetence or sheer fake difficulty

what the hell is this

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BLOCK

i had to shoot it an obnoxious amount of times to kill it?
sounds pretty bad

did you know there's +9 death spikes on this map

THIS GAUDI SON ISN'T GETTING RID OF THE SPIKES

i shouldn't need to ask for help

wow

i like the reverse physics thing

same

i just realized the music is slightly mixed

over?

excuse me
i couldn't read what it said
'Get me water', or somefin'.

Fetch Quests: The Game

hi mr. detective man thing

im done

what the fu

oh my god

anytime, buddy

i

that's

precious
that's so cute and sweet
im

i died and now i can't pass this
s-softlock...requiring me to... replay... everything...???

best friends forever

huh let's see how many spikes
inb4 1001 spikes

13 in the first little room alone

christ
22 spikes in this screenshot alone

20+

17+

31+

34+

23+

19+

17+

16+

26+

18+

19+

8+

18+

13+

25+

50+

34+

27+

= 417 spikes, all before this:

wew

you really love your spikes, huh
who are you, ~~zxin~~ xin?

hi ballos reskin

holy shit

he just spat blood out
edgy

???

the tileset looks gross

edgy

these names suck

no

"So You Have" is a gritty, yet okay mod.

The guns were basically reskins of the normal Cave Story guns, as were the map tiles. The times when the map tiles weren't entirely reskinned, they didn't look good, and in fact kinda ruined the atmopshere of the mod.

There wasn't story, and the places in which there was character dialogue felt out of place.
Also, the backwards text was annoying.

The only good part was when I counted all the spikes in the final playable map (417!!! What the hell?!?) and when the Gaudis climbed onto the player's back.
I loved that.

I'd rate it as a 4/10, if only because the spikes were too much, man, and the rest, albeit being good, just didn't cut it against 417 spikes.

so uh we have precious thoughts next
let's go?
--

Precious Thoughts

here we go

same

1.Studio Pixel
2.Preciouss Thought??!
3.Begin/Continue look odd

This is the place, alright.<NOD<CLRNo doubts about it.<NOD<CLO

dasu did so good

why are these spikes

oh this is grass

this doesn't blend well

what?!?

oh

snatched it

impossible

wow racist

n o

WOW

this is a complicated puzzle

what the

mimigmams

cute

the ultimate standstill

fuck you

what kind of expression is that

woah

same

QoTUE?!?!

i feel like i know this somehow

NOXID STORY

tertarro!

rave story!

uh

woah

finding lori

woah

my soul.jpg

WOAH

thanks

oh

imagiantion

#NeverForgetOpal

Precious Thoughts is really good.
Like, it's in the Dungeon Story tier.

The facepics, done by the wonderous Dasu, look simply amazing, the tiles don't look as bad as other mods (+ has the benefit of not being Cave Story), the sprites don't look too shabby, and the background isn't unbearable.

Some problems were the occasional glitch in the matrix (the final boss turning into Misery when he split apart) and the occasional grammatical error (thankfully few and far in-between), but otherwise the puzzles were innovative/interesting and the gameplay had me in a twirl, despite requiring a pixel perfect jump once in a while.

All in all, I'd say it's like, an 9/10.

we have ~~rave story 3~~ One Eye Story up next
--

One Eye Story: A Hungry Cat's Caper

here we go

im digging this title screen

i like the little looking up animation...

You recall that your younger brother always leaves leftovers, so going to him is a good idea.

you know what you did

why is everything so big

AAAA!!!!!! SAHN
ALSO Oh, hey, Sister.

I'm not sure you can jump that high, Sister.

TIME TO GO FIND SIMBA

some weird event stuff happens here

OH MY GOD

brother is always sleeping, smh

It whirrs, and is cold to the touch.

me too, dude

oh you had to jump
lol

OH GOD

i can relate

I'm incredibly biased on this one, as I'm friends with the creator and I also love the Saphie webtoon, but I'll try my best to not be as biased.

Basically, I love the game. The sprites look cute, despite being a bit flawed, all the cats look adorable, and the facepic for Sister looked spot on.

However, I wasn't really sure why the furniture on the 2nd floor was so tall compared to Saphie, yet the couch/bed Simba lays in in the Basement was so small.
These graphical enigmas are what confused me the most out of anything (besides the Balrog by the litterbox. What was that...?).

Also, the music could've used some tune-up, instead of being literally Cave Story, but alas.

Otherwise, I loved all of it. I'd rate it a spot-on 7/10.

(more to come! hopefully just one more post left, but who knows!)

Mint · Jul 16, 2016

People seem to be posting about the developement of their mods so I might as well do that too, note that there can be some spoilers for those who haven't played;

When the competition was first announced, I was mocking the possibility that I'll have a good enough mod in time, especially since I didnt have any ideas to use.
Not so long later, I came up with the idea to make a mod where you have the kinda gameplay of walking around and finding things that let you reach more things(which I always enjoyed myself).

As like some others , I had quite some ideas I eventually scrapped;
• There was someone supposed to be near the angry door, but I realized I suck at character sprites, so that was scrapped.
• The cat that gives you the tail was first not supposed to be in the chest, but I think the reason I scrapped it is obvious.
• The tail was originally to also include ears, but guess what the reason was to not do it.
• I was planning to have some sort of final boss, but sadly, I didn't have any idea(or time) and I didn't want to copy my old boss.
• I also planned for the balrog-like boss to appear multiple times, but limits happend, I also wanted multiple keys, but I didn't have enough time to make the main map even more split up.

Other than that, I guess I kinda surprassed my expectations(which were me not even making anything), so I guess I am happy with the result.

I might post my thoughts about everyone's mods at some later time, dephending on if I have enough to say and when I have enough time to do so.

Spirit · Jul 16, 2016

{continued}
Post 1
Post 2
Post 3
Post 4
Post 5

--

As the light of dawn approaches, a young dog prepares a final treck through the modded land of Modcon 2016.

But first... an obstacle approaches...!!
--

STARZZ

here we go
there wasn't a menu

ohhh that was cool

but why

holy shit

OH GOD IT'S RAINBOW CRITTER

this boss music is really repetitive

holy shit

the controls are really jank

wowzers

should be It became =Star Gun=.

holy shit

BLink was right in saying that the mod was lacking in any form of story, quality content, and length, though the small portion that I played was enjoyable, if very slippery.

The controls for the final boss were, as we say here in the rural town of Doggoville, "jank".
They were slippery and made it hard to control the character, thus being hard to kill the Rainbow Critter.

Nonetheless, it wasn't difficult, by any means, and it was certainly a lot of fun at the beginning powering through helpless critters and bats and dodging arrows falling from the sky.

I liked it. 6/10

The canine pants, his wrists aching, his mind fuzzy, his memories losing their fresh crispness.
Two more obstacles to come and go...
--

The Water Challenge

here we go
also fair warning i already heard some complaints about it so i may be biased in that aspect
i'll try not to be tho

you tried/10

what is this level design

this level is jank
this is poor level design, smh

i'm not sure how im supposed to pass the second water block?

considering the fact that i can't get past the second water block at all, i'm... i'm not gonna continue playing

This is probably the worst mod out of all of them. No offense.

The graphics are Cave Story, music is also Cave Story, level design feels like something that came out the mind of a 3 year old, and there obviously is no story.

However, if more than 6 hours had been spent on it, it could have been great.
It just isn't, though.

I'd say 0/10. Sorry.

The canine wipes his brow.
This is it.
The final one.
After this, he can cross the landscape of Modcon 2016 and return home to his lapyop and paint.net program, where he can spend all day drawing cats and whatnot.

But he still needs to get through this.
--

Valastos

here we go, for the final time

which one do i open

im opening launch game orgs, sorry

why is there already a profile.dat

this is cool

"drowsily wake your body"
?!?!

this hurts to look at

sign me the FUCK up

heath? did you mean: health

finally, a mod that gets me

i jumped off the side of the map LOL

this music hurts

You found =Shuriken=!

It looks like something was here.
(why didn't you just remove the sparkles after you got the item it's easy)

WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST DROP INTO

1. why include a creator's note
2. whith out? it's without

the level 2 shuriken looks cool

wh...why is the level 3 shuriken range so small

enemy spam the game

YIKES

these fire shits keep knocking down into the abyss

this jammin' music comes on and there ain't a boss
smh

It's vastly... not okay.

The graphics are horrid, the level design even more so, and the castle map was filled to the brim with enemy spam, as was every other map.

The music was blaringly loud, and hurt my ears a lot. It sucked.

Also, there's no story, and the grammatical issues were everywhere.

All in all, about a 2/10.

--

Finally, the canine arrives home. He weakly opens the door to his home, walks inside, and closes the door.

The end of his reviews has arrived.

(Note: These don't reflect my vote. They only influence it.

)

AutoPilot - 7/10
CatFall - 2/10
Live and Uncut - 8/10
CTD - 4/10
CS:WTDWM - 3/10
H4CK3R STORY - 9/10
FS_PF - 2/10
hey cat - 6/10
KILLJOY - 5/10
Lara - 6/10
Metronari - 6/10
Final Level - 8/10
So You Have - 4/10
Precious Thoughts - 9/10
Rave Bar - 4/10
One Eye Story: A Hungry Cat's Caper - 7/10
STARZZ - 6/10
The Water Challenge - 0/10
Valastos - 2/10

Precious Thoughts - 9/10
H4CK3R STORY - 9/10
Live and Uncut - 8/10
Final Level - 8/10
AutoPilot - 7/10
One Eye Story: A Hungry Cat's Caper - 7/10
hey cat - 6/10
Lara - 6/10
Metronari - 6/10
STARZZ - 6/10
KILLJOY - 5/10
Rave Bar- 4/10
CTD - 4/10
So You Have - 4/10
CS:WTDWM - 3/10
CatFall - 2/10
FS_PF - 2/10
Valastos - 2/10
The Water Challenge - 0/10

H4CK3R STORY - 9/10
Precious Thoughts - 9/10
Live and Uncut - 8/10
Final Level - 8/10
AutoPilot - 7/10
One Eye Story - 7/10

Wew! Finally done! ModCon 2016 has pretty much been a huge success, with a whopping 19 mods submitted, and I'm glad to have been a part of it!
Here's some sneaky developer stuff.

So, hey! I'm Spirit, as I'm sure everyone knows.
RAVE BAR was a concept I made up on the spot around a week or so from the deadline, but before then I had been working on the sequel to A.4, A.5, for most of the month. I had been fooling everyone into thinking I wasn't working, when really, I was!
However, not even a month-long work period (and the graceful week added on afterwards) was enough to finish this, so I had to think of somethin' else to submit quick, or else never be in ModCon 2016.

So here's some cut out stuff:
-I had planned on having the full Rave be available, plus more characters in different places. However, time restraints made that difficult, and also I didn't know who to add in.
-I never planned combat, but I did want a few morality questions involved in the mod. Obviously, that never happened, but a dog can dream for the future.
-I wanted more, basically, but it never came because I procrastinated too much.
-Also I wanted like more dialogue and stuff but oh well

Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself, and I hope any future ModCons will be just as fun! (and maybe not filled with drama

)

GIRakaCHEEZER · Jul 18, 2016

Okay I played through Precious Memories, here are some thoughts I had (and things I found):

My sprite doesn't really look as good as my facepic. Especially the oddly heavy eyebrows on the sprite?

I tried to cheese the bats to get invincibility so I could do this spike-jump thing easier, but instead the bats roasted me due to a lack of iframes here. Please fix this tsc event to delete the H/V trigger.

Especially because cheesing the bats does nothing (I lured one out to the left of the platform) due to the item pick up being a TSC event anyways. At least I got my damage counter above -127, I suppose.

This jump here is also kind of tricky and I'm really not a fan that the punishment for failure is death. Sure, there's a save point 5 steps away from here at least, but death spikes feel way too harsh for how tight the timing on this jump/dash is.

This Yes/No dialogue seems really unnecessary as there's nothing else to do in this room after you get all the keys. And there's a health refill AND save point right after here.

This jump was really REALLY hard until I learned/remembered that the up arrow overrides the left arrow with the booster 2.0. Maybe make this easier to do while only holding 1 arrow key at a time?

This part is just not very fun. Especially when you land on a press, it moves back to its original position BUT it doesn't move you, and then it immediately slams back into kill mode, killing you. As general advice, insta-death traps are just not fun in general, and these were never really designed to be passable by the player (only when on the rocket originally).

Oh hey another TBC, I feel like this is a bit of a "theme" here at modcon.

Anyways overall it was alright, the part where we saw memories of old mods was neat (although I can only name maybe half of them). I'm kind of interested to see the ending, but that antagonist really had little to no build-up so fighting them felt kind of like "oh hey I'm the bad guy" i.e. very sudden.

Thomas Xin · Jul 18, 2016

Here's my votes; I don't have time for decriptions/thoughts atm, sorry. Ranked from best to worst.

1 - H4CK3R.STORY, because of the screen hack mostly. Also the mod was the most original out of the 19.
2 - Critter TD, because honestly, I think I did put a lot of effort into this, and apart from possibly hacker story this is the most original.
3 - Precious Thoughts, because of the storyline and stuff, but it was hampered by lack of time probably.
4 - STARZZ, mostly because of the assembly hack boss, with a fitting atmosphere, and because of the Rainbow Critter meme
5 - Σο ψου Χαμε, because of the ideas and modifications to the vanilla Cave Story things. But it wasn't that good because the ideas weren't creative enough.
6 - Autopilot, TBH this was actually a pretty good mod, just boring after watching it multiple times, and not enough content...
7 - The Final Level, because of how the storyline was designed. But I would've liked it better if there was more than just one bad ending.
8 - Cat Gay, because of cat! Also the orbiting projectiles was kinda neat. But other than that, there were no other weapons...
9 - Metronari, because of the rather new ideas. But it got a bit boring after a while due to everything being black and white.
10- Valastos, because it was a good mod, but the colours and sprites were not very nice to look at.
11- CatFall, because of the use of NICE/Lua inside Cave Story. Would have been better if you kept the demonstrations tbh!
12- One Eye Story, because it was a good idea, but the ideas did not really fit in with each other and was really confusing.
13- What To Do When Modding, because it had elements of good in it, but was mostly stating the obvious, as well as having bugs itself. Also not very creative.
14- KILLJOY, because of the 'random' rooms, but also with bugs. Was rather fun though.
15- Lara, because it wasn't very visible with everything green, also it didn't have much action apart from some recoloured and boring bosses.
16- Pierce Feverdream, because there wasn't any player-controlled action at all, just loads of dialogues and cutscenes. The story was alright, though.
17- Rave Bar, because it also didn't have action, and although it was funny, it wasn't fun to play.
18- Live and uncut, do I even need to describe this? Literally the only good part is the voice.
19- The Water Challenge, mainly because it was obviously rushed and had almost nothing, but it had some elements of good. However, it had no originality...

I'll now give my own developer thoughts;

I originally planned to have the entire thing done in ASM, with the player being able to place towers anywhere on the map, but that really had serious issues with how the towers would fire, also with removing towers. It would also have been possible to barricade the entrance with towers to prevent critters getting through. Also if critters were allowed to go through towers, that would cause other problems, like abusing how towers shoot bullets and using them to force the critters to go through and in doing so take damage from all the bullets.
So therefore, I did it with TSC. I wanted to have different levels for each map, however the amount of TSC ended up crashing the parser, so I instead put up 30 consistent waves for each map.
To get the player past the boredom resulting from the repetitive waves, I thought of having the player 'unlock' specific towers to be places. I also added Fast Forward mode for the player to be able to cruise through rounds.
I added a bonus level, mainly because there was an extension. Also I thought it would be a creative idea to add to a Tower Defense game.
I wanted to add other stuff like other levels where you play as critters, but there really was only enough time for one.

BLink · Jul 18, 2016

My thoughts because I can

BIASED (not my official vote)

1 - H4CK3R.STORY duh
2 - Live and uncut FUNNY
3 - The Final Level Great story; ok level design; and it's omg complete
4 - CatFall so much potential....
5 - Cat Gay Awesome stuff; too bad it was so short and kinda broken
6 - STARZZ I CANT BELIEVE I'M DOING THIS
7 - Lara I liked the story though the graphics were kinda bad on the eyes

UNBIASED (as possible??)

1 - H4CK3R.STORY duh
2 - The Final Level Great story; ok level design; and it's omg complete. ~~and has my new waifu~~
3 - Cat Gay Awesome stuff; too bad it was so short and kinda broken atthe end.
4 - STARZ I CANT BELIEVE I'M DOING THIS
5 - Critter TD cool assembly hacks even though I sucked at it and had no fun playing it at all. -.-
6 - Σο ψου Χαμε I didn't really like this one either for any particular reason... and I couldn't beat the last level but the factory was cool; and it's the most complete mod in this entire contest outside of the final level and critter DT and it has the longest playtime and that playtime was for the most part very decent.
7 - Lara I liked the story though the graphics were kinda bad on the eyes
8 -Metronari It was pretty ok, but he formula got old kinda fast... also right before you get the spur you can do down the water tunnel and go OOB
9 - Killjoy next not sucky mod on the list; not much to say about it except the main character looks like a MLP character.

I didn't rank Precious thoughts because I just literally cannot tap boost for my life. I tried for like 15 minutes to get past the first obstacle to no avail....
and the water challenge I couldn't bet past the first room of that one either...

And I guess time for some of my dev notes... oh boy...

Basically the entire first two weeks were me filing around with an over ambitious project; the only thing that got saved from that was the gravity physics for the 2nd phase of the boss and the title screen (that's why it kinda looks out of place)

as of now it's super broken but here's a screenshot...

also 10 million asm hacks offscreen

Other than that I did everything I wanted for STARZZ for the most part; if I had more time I would have made more rooms to blow baddies up; proly from everwhere in teh vanilla game before you meet the boss on like the balcony at night or something like that.

The boss was originally going to teleport more fluidly in the final phase but time constraints and have more attacks and be more balanced overall.

DoubleThink · Jul 18, 2016

GIRakaCHEEZER said:
I tried to cheese the bats to get invincibility so I could do this spike-jump thing easier, but instead the bats roasted me due to a lack of iframes here. Please fix this tsc event to delete the H/V trigger.

I'll assume this is a general comment for the future because I can't really change things like that right now as per tourney regulations. I'll be updating the whole mod at some point, especially the later sections.

GIRakaCHEEZER said:
This Yes/No dialogue seems really unnecessary as there's nothing else to do in this room after you get all the keys. And there's a health refill AND save point right after here.

Maybe??? I thought people would prefer to have some control rather than just whack the event and be sent on their way.

GIRakaCHEEZER said:
I'm kind of interested to see the ending, but that antagonist really had little to no build-up so fighting them felt kind of like "oh hey I'm the bad guy" i.e. very sudden.

This mod's actually finished (well, not quite, but that is the proper ending point), the TBC is ideally going to be for another mod entirely.

I don't suppose anyone has found the Life Pot yet? :chin:

GIRakaCHEEZER · Jul 18, 2016

DoubleThink said:
Maybe??? I thought people would prefer to have some control rather than just whack the event and be sent on their way.

You could probably just let people open it and then let them walk through, since from what I can tell there's no reason they need to go through it via cutscene right after they open it.

Tpcool · Jul 18, 2016

Anonymous vote (the person who wanted to submit it anonymously had a good reason to, so I've allowed it):

1. Precious Thoughts
2. Metronari
3. Σο ψου Χαμε
4. Critter TD
5. STARZZ
6. Killjoy
7. H4CK3R.STORY
8. hey
9. One Eye'd Story
10. Lara
11. Pierce Feverdream
12. The Final Level
13. Autopilot
14. Valastos
15. Cave Story - Live and Uncut!
16. catfall
17. Cave Story - What To Do When Modding
18. The Water Challenge!
19. rave story 3

In addition, would anyone be in favor of moving the end of the voting period to the end of the month? It shouldn't make a huge difference either way, but having it be the end of the month would be easier to remember, and we have a lot of mods this time around, so a few extra days might be nice to have.

Hina · Jul 18, 2016

1. critter td
2. h4ck3r.story
3. some greek name or whatever that was
4. killjoy
5. the final level
6. autopilot

Cibryll · Jul 18, 2016

Precious Thoughts
STARRZ
Σο ψου Χαμε
(I'm assuming it's meant to be read as "So you care")
H4CK3R.STORY
One Eye Story
Metronari
Lara
catfall
Critter TD
Autopilot
Pierce Feverdream
Valastos

Spirit · Jul 18, 2016

here's my actual votes pls no bully

6th - Live and Uncut
5th - One Eye Story
4th - hey cat
3rd - AutoPilot
2nd - H4CK3R STORY

Special Mentions- Metronari, KILLJOY, hey cat, RAVE BAR

1st - Precious Thoughts

EDIT by DT: Update as requested

19th - The Water Challenge
18th - What To Do When Modding
17th - Fever Dream
16th - Cat Fall
15th - Valastos
14th - Lara
13th - RAVE BAR
12th - Critter Tower Defense
11th - So You Have
10th - Metronari
9th - STARZZ
8th - KILLJOY
7th - Final Level
6th - Live and Uncut
5th - One Eye Story
4th - hey cat
3rd - AutoPilot
2nd - H4CK3R STORY

Special Mentions- Metronari, KILLJOY, hey cat

1st - Precious Thoughts

xavier2918 · Jul 18, 2016

1. Precious Thoughts
2. H4CK3R.STORY
3. Metronari
4. hey
5. Autopilot
6. Critter TD
7. Σο ψου Χαμε
8. STARZZ
9. Killjoy
10. The Final Level
11. Lara
12. One Eye Story
13. Catfall
14. Cave Story - Live and Uncut!
15. Valastos
16. Pierce Feverdream
17. Cave Story - What To Do When Modding
18. The Water Challenge!
19. RAVE BAR

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 18, 2016

I might as well submit my vote to get it out of the way. It may be changed sometime before the end of the voting period if I happen to have a change of heart or think about the ordering more thoroughly, but until then these will do.

1. H4CK3R.STORY
- Honestly, without the battle sequences it would have been nearly impossible to tell that it was Cave Story. That kind of says something about its uniqueness. I didn't have the patience to play through it with all three characters since the battle sequences got a little stale, but playing it and watching two other streams of it were adequate, I think.

2. The Final Level
- The level design was empty at times and the 4th wall breaking was cringetacular, but I'll be damned if that final boss wasn't creative. The only downside to it was the TSC eating your invincibility frames; if that wasn't an issue it would have been a lot better.

3. Autopilot
- Call me biased if you must, but this mod is something that is unique to Cave Story and is 100% complete unlike a number of other mods in the contest. I have a feeling that others are looking down on it thanks to the nature of its easter egg, but that wasn't intended to be the main focus of the mod. That honor belongs to the intended method of progressing through it.

4. Precious Thoughts
- Despite being rushed as hell, as was admitted by DT, it was pretty nice. The design was fairly questionable at many points, but it stuck to the airdash mechanic until the last 1/3rd or so of the mod.

5. Critter Tower Defense
- Heaps of ASM and flashy tricks don't give you permission to make terrible design choices. I would rank you lower, but I can't ignore that it is unique. It would be unreasonable to not take that into account.

6. cat gay
- As per any other safumod, this mod was packed full of custom sprites, music, and weapons. Unlike the other safumods, however, this mod's weapon wasn't as straightforward to use. Instead of being a tommy gun or a finger, it was a cat. During the entire time I was playing the mod, I never figured out that you had to hold the button to make projectiles orbit around you. If I had, it probably would have been more enjoyabe, but alas, you didn't so much as hint that to the player.

7. STARZZ
- Same thing as CTD; heaps of ASM and flashy tricks don't give you permission to use terrible design, though in this case it's less level design and more controls/balancing. The main part of the mod, the boss, was as slippery as a greased pig in phase 2 and the lasers in phase 3 has almost no telegraphing.

8. KILLJOY
- I was looking forward to this mod since I enjoy roguelike games. Sure enough, it behaved similar to games like Rogue Legacy in which it drew from a pool of random rooms. I just wish it were more complete and polished: it ended too quickly, some rooms' enemy placements were unfair, and some of its levels didn't take the level 3 Machine Gun into account.

9. Cave Story - Live and Uncut!
- Ah yes, another "Cave Story, but Slightly Different" mod. However, this mod relied entirely on its usage of voice acting to carry it, which it did with moderate success. Not everything received voice acting, much to my dismay, and your humor was a little too rough around the edges for my taste. Other than that, it was pretty decent.

10. So You Have
- This mod was definitely less unique and more Cave Story. It followed the classic metroidvania formula of: enter location > get new gun or ability > fight with new gun or ability > use new gun or ability to progress to access new area > get new gun or ability > etc. There's also the absolutely disgusting design that was the final level of the mod; over 400 spikes crammed into one tunnel is not acceptable. I would rank this a little lower, but the fact that you made everything upside-down in not-Grasstown was pretty neat, even though the power critters freaking out was probably not intended.

11. Lara
- The main gimmick of this mod was everything being in a Gameboy-esque green color scheme. While this is respectable, it ultimately hurt the mod since many things were difficult to make out at first, such as chests, walls, and death spikes. There are also an assortment of other minor bugs that I don't feel like going too deep into.

12. Metronari
- The main gimmicks of this mod were its strict white/black color scheme and maze-like design. The colors, or lack thereof, weren't as much of a bother as Lara's green was, but it still looked very lazy to me and ultimately got boring after a while. It felt as if I wasn't making any progress, constantly going through all these similar rooms. Also, the fact that you have to backtrack so far once you get the Jetpack is a big NO for me.

13. One-Eye'd Story
- It's the first time I've seen a mod take place in a setting such as this, but it was still fairly lacking. One of the few sources of dialogue contained a <TSC error, the stairs' slopes were kind of messed up, and it wasn't exactly clear where you needed to go at times. The last one is slightly my fault, though.

14. catfall
- It was kind of like Hullet Bell from last year, only not nearly as much fun. The only sound in the entire game came from the same BGM track playing constantly throughout it. It's also nigh impossible to beat on your first run thanks to the final level being so unbalanced.

15. Cave Story - What To Do When Modding
- The mod contained some useful, if slightly common sense, advice, but the mod also failed to abide by it. Intentional or not, falling out of the mod is not okay, and the same applies to the other don't's that you didn't immediately fix afterwards.

16. Valastos
- While the mod is blatantly incomplete and very unpolished, it does have some level of gameplay. It's not great gameplay, sure, but it's at the very least playable.

17. RAVE BAR
- The only thing this mod has over Pierce Fever Dream is that I like some of its facepics more, really. Other than that, it was just a walking/talking-simulator.

18. Pierce Feverdream
- The only thing this mod had going for it was its music. That's it. Other than that, it was a walking simulator featuring a mimiga molesting a human. I probably would have ranked this a little higher if you put more effort into the seemingly 100% story gimmick by fleshing out the "Yes" option, but you didn't.

19. The Water Challenge
- The mod was rushed out in roughly 6 hours and its quality reflected that.

Tpcool said:
1. Precious Thoughts
2. Metronari
3. Σο ψου Χαμε
4. Critter TD
5. STARZZ
6. Killjoy
7. H4CK3R.STORY
8. hey
9. One Eye'd Story
10. Lara
11. Pierce Feverdream
12. The Final Level
13. Autopilot
14. Valastos
15. Cave Story - Live and Uncut!
16. catfall
17. Cave Story - What To Do When Modding
18. The Water Challenge!
19. rave story 3

I am legitimately confused by the unbearably poor taste this vote possesses. I have a feeling I know who it is given how low some mods ranked in comparison to others, but I'll keep that to myself.

Slither · Jul 18, 2016

Wow, what a terrible thing to say, Seasons. No wonder they submitted it anon.

SeasonsOfDestiny · Jul 18, 2016

Doors said:
Wow, what a terrible thing to say, Seasons. No wonder they submitted it anon.

You are not wrong; it is fairly thorny. However, it is still my standing regarding a ranking that scrambled. I won't push the matter, and I hope you won't either.

Noxid · Jul 18, 2016

more revs incoming

This is an interesting entry for me, because I really didn't see it coming. A tower-defense "style" game in the cave story. And I gotta admit, it's fun to play - for at least the first half hour. My main issues with this mod were replayability and balance, and though they were addressed somewhat in the last patch i'm not sure it's still hitting all the right buttons for me. Levels are repetitive and you're never really "rewarded" with anything new for progressing - First Cave is as fun as it gets and it's kind of downhill from there. I used modtester to play a few of the other levels but I wasn't really motivated to finish any of them.
As well, the SFX were somewhat problematic. Eventually it just becomes a wall of noise.

Things I liked:
+ interesting, new concept
+ It's fun, for a while
+ I am a cube that flies

Things I didn't like:
- poorly explained controls
- balance and progression issues
- I had to mute it

This is kind of a cute idea, like a hands-on demonstration of basic game design tips. However, I'm not sure the examples are always illustrated as well as they could be. Like, start map is nice, don't trap the player. But then first cave has a big hole in the middle?? and the part where it says "don't let the player fall off the map" lets you fall of the map which is bad. it would be nice if after explaining some of the bad design choices it had a thing that would "fix them" (<cmp a bunch or whatever).

Things I liked:
+ positive message
+ nice idea

Things I didn't like
- Execution is a bit lacking
- sometimes unclear what's bad on purpose and what's bad by accident

Final Level is a mod that throws you into the middle of a story you're never given a lot of chance to understand. It feels very megaman-inspired, and the gameplay is solid for the most part. Some people said it was too hard but I didn't have TOO much trouble at any point. As well, it's got changed assets which I always enjoy seeing. I had some issues with the writing itself, the strange mannerisms of the characters and the cookie-cutter plot. As well, the fourth-wall wankery didn't really impress me much. Still, it was at least fun to play.

Things I liked:
+ nicely executed cutscenes
+ decent platforming segment with some elements lifted from megaman
+ cool boss

Things I didn't like:
- self-inserts
- not really understanding the story