CSTSF 2016 Modding Competition Showcase & Voting Thread

So um, have my ranking votes (and some input on the mods).
UPDATE: I was able to complete almost all of them, there's still a couple more that I need to finish!
EDIT: One of the mods is now moved down.
EDIT 2: More notes on 12th place.
EDIT 3: More notes on 4th place.

Spoiler

1. H4CK3R.ST0RY
- This was the obvious choice. Sure, it's a bit ASM heavy, but it's actually really enjoyable. Also, how often do you get to see RPG-style battles in a Cave Story mod?

2. Autopilot
- Okay, let's get the easter egg out of this evaluation, because I'm pretty sure this is what most people here have been talking about. This mod must've been tested very heavily, considering all the events that happen while you're not pressing any of the buttons. Even the normal boss battle was amazing, considering you don't have a weapon on you!

3. The Final Level
- Pure bias over here. Apparently, this mod was given waifu points by a certain anonymous person. Brownie points aside, this mod is less complete than Autopilot, that's for sure. And trust me, you guys would've hated the TSC boss even more if I kept it at its original scripting (plus the Quick Man beam at the bottom). As for the whole ??????? room thing, I hope that whatever future project I have in mind will make up for that. Hopefully the potential DLC plan isn't the downfall for that project.

4. Precious Thoughts
- I really loved how this mod flowed in terms of gameplay. Despite the difficulty in the portal area of the mod, this is completely made up by seeing all the scenes from other mods and the battle, which isn't really hard if you know what you're doing. I can't wait to see what the sequel brings in store for us! ^w^ In terms of personal ranking, this mod deserves its place!

5. Critter Tower Defense
- Ah, yes. This is made by the same guy who made Rise of Ballos. And I gotta say, this really makes your "this is my first mod" for RoB more believable. I actually really enjoyed this mod. However, this can be a bit too repetitive, due to there being 8 levels in this mod. And yes, I know there's the fast forward, but that doesn't make the mod enjoyable anymore. If anything, this mod would probably be for once in every while if you choose not to use the fast-forward button.

6. Lara
- Okay, I gotta say this, you've definitely did a better job at implementing the Game Boy palette in a mod than I ever would have. I really loved the flow of the mod, though the bosses in this mod could be nerfed for those who aren't good at Cave Story. Also, look, Kenzo! Your Rain NPC is being used!

7. STARRZ
- As much as it was fun using the Star, the whole boss battle was actually pretty hard. Specifically, in the floating room. I actually had trouble in that part. I'm just glad that my HP refills itself before the second part of the battle.

8. Metronari
- Now, I love Zelda. And this mod would actually make a great level for a Zelda-themed mod. But, to be honest, how you're supposed to go to the room is rather vague. There was no obvious visual clue telling me that I could go up there. Also, it would've been nice if the whole easter egg affected the entire ending.

9. Killjoy
- This is kinda biased, but this mod actually did a better job at being a Safu-styled mod than Hey Cat. Sorry, Safu.

10. One Eye'd Story
- As much as how the story and gameplay went, it was really neat! However, I couldn't progress further in the mod due to the TSC bug in the basement.

11. Cave Story - Live and Uncut
- The new voiceovers by [REDACTED] sure give Cave Story a fresh start. It's a neat concept, really. But it's still just Cave Story.

12. Greek Letter Mod
- You know the positive stuff I put in about this mod? Well, that was all drowned out when I saw the Hell level in Jon's stream. The cave part was nice. The Mossy area was passable. nwotssarG was just pushing it. And then comes the Hell level, which is just pure spike hell with little to no health regain. Given how much of the mod is all right and which is a pain to deal with, it's pretty much 50/50 overall.

13. Hey Cat
- This mod is really dependent on the Curly cat entity, because you can only shoot through it, and sometimes, the entity can't really attack the enemies you wanted them to attack. So you get hit anyways.

14. Pierce Feverdream
- This is a bit biased. Really, this mod deserves to be tied with Rave Bar. I would've rated this much lower, actually, if Kenni didn't take any of my advice to not put in any actual sex or blood and gore in the mod. Of course though, he said that he will add both of those later in the mod, for now, this mod is at this placement.

15. Rave Bar
- I really enjoyed this mod because of the in-jokes. However, the in-jokes are also the mod's downfall (aka TNO 2014 Syndrome).

16. CatFall
This was pretty much a Lua showcase, it would've been more fitting for it to be part of the NICE demos, tbh. Also, the Cave Story parts of the mod run at 1 FPS.

17. Cave Story - What to do when Modding
As neat as the concept was, it could've been much better on some steps.

Last Place: Valastos/Water Challenge
I couldn't really get past the beginning parts on either of them. I'm bad with water physics, and the enemy placings in Valastos give me an aneurysm.

 

Spoiler

5. Greek Letter Mod
- This mod has a great atmosphere, and how the debug save was implemented was nice. I have no idea how to get past that one boss though. I don't think anyone here has even posted a strategy on how to get past that boss, aside from using Doukutsu Trainer.

Alright my famicoms, time to lay down the sick strats.

Spoiler: sick strats

When you near the bottom of the three-floor boss arena, the boss will ambush you. Instead of letting it push you back with the invisible wall and possibly damage you, immediately run back and jump up to the second floor.

Before it makes it up to the second floor, stand in the middle of the room to the left of the slope on the floor. Do not, and I repeat DO NOT, go up to the third floor; the boss will teleport behind you, unsheathe its wall-like body, and crush you against the very end of the room.

When the boss flies from the right side of the room to the left, don't do anything other than dodge it if you're in its direct path. When it flies from the left side of the room to the right, fire at it a few times with your (hopefully) Level 3 Fire Spit until it gets too close; at this point, jump over it and, if you feel like it, take a potshot or two at it before it hits the right wall.

Merely rinse and repeat, and you have yourself a dead blob thing.

If this wasn't "that one boss" you were talking about, I apologize.

 

You are correct on which boss I was talking about. Thanks, fam.

 

felt like doing more because otherwise I'd be working........

Spoiler: Pierce Fever Dream

This is the first mod to make me feel physically uncomfortable in a long time, so props for that. I don't even entirely know what to say about it other than I'm kind of glad you didn't include some of the things you were purportedly planning to because then I might have ended up on some sort of list. I wouldn't typically try to discourage someone from their creative vision but please if it has to be suggestive at least don't involve characters who are minors. I sympathised with kite tbh.

Things I Liked:
+ new music/graphics

Things I didn't like:
- non-consensual nuzzling
- dubious design choices (LARGE BOX)

Spoiler: hey

CAT

ok so apart from cat this game has kind of like a lot of flaws that are hard to overlook. The <IMG is buggy (still dunno why sorry!!), it's really short, the cat is hard to understand (I guess that's fair) and other small stuff like the swan turning into a bug. However, I do appreciate the inclusion of the Pepper Ann theme song. It has nice aesthetics which is to be expected from a safumod, but a bit disappointed the rest didn't follow through.

Things I liked:
+ cat
+ cool assets
+ cool weapon

Things I didn't like:
- lack of explanation on how to play
- bad ending
- difficulty all over the place

Spoiler: Killjoy

In keeping up with the roguelite craze of two years ago, we have what appears to be a PRNG room-based cave story mod. I like the concept but it could stand to have a deeper pool of rooms, also I fell off one and it didn't have a falling event so I had to reset manually. As well as some of the issues mentioned by other people (spawning with critters on top of you, chests giving nothing) I didn't really understand the aesthetic and it would be cool to have at least some kind of introduction so I know what's going on.

Things I liked:
+ randomized gameplay
+ Not too hard

Things I didn't like:
- What is going on???
- some minor bugs
- short/repetitive

 

I guess I should start telling my thoughts about every mod(aside from my own of course), so here we go;
(also side note: The order of my reviewing will be reverse alphabetical, because why not?
And don't forget spoilops are unavoidable)

Spoiler: Valastos (By ???)

This is already quite something... interesting.
One of the notable things is the difficulty of the mod, if you don't go for easy mode by checking the sign at the start(which some people wouldn't do) you will play with just 3 lives, which is pretty tough when there are things that can hit you for more than 3 damage.
Choosing to do easy mod maakes everything quite playable though, but sadly, the shuriken has a bad range at level 3, which means you are in a bit of trouble if you level too much.
The second area also has it's shortcomings;
• There seem to be enemies that suffer from a incorrect spritesheet use, making it look a bit weird.
• The boss fight looks like it's unfinished, so there is just a abrubt ending.
The chest at the start also leads to an obviously unfinished area, so it looks like the mod has suffered from time constraints.

In terms of gameplay, the mod isn't the strongest, but the backgrounds and the tilesets look pretty good, and the knights in the second area look good too.
The music is also pretty nice, most notably the second area's.

Overally, this mod has it's downsides, but the upsides balance this out, making it pretty allright to me.

Now it's time to go for a swim and see how the Water Challenge is.

Spoiler: The Water Challenge (By Bionicobot)

At first glance, it looks like a mod that uses vanilla CS tilesets/sprites but tries to make that up with a challenge that mostly runs on water physics.
This isn't really new though, and the difficulty is also quite high.
Due to this difficulty, I sadly haven't been able to fully complete the mod, so I don't have much to say.
It's really too bad you couldn't complete your other mod, else you would have had something better.

Now onto the Final Level. No, not the final mod, silly!

Spoiler: The Final Level (By TLincoln)

This mod seems to put the player right into the middle of a story.
The first map of the mod seems to be literally cook.pxm, except with a few things added(else there wouldn't really be something to do wouldn't there of course.)
The story didn't really hook me, to be honest, partially because most of it was explaining.
The stage itself was quite allright, the regular CS-themed enemies didn't really feel right, and the quick man beams never really hit the player if it's still moving, which made it a bit less of a problem to the player.
During the moving block section near the beginning, the player is unable to be harmed, I don't think I need to explain why this is not good news.
The boss is pretty easy especially when you have 100 lives, but this combined with the boss' high health means it's also a bit boring.
Then comes the second phase, and you better hope you didn't let you guard down too much.
The boss' second phase is pretty difficult, everything will come up at you at once, especially the missiles. But my biggest concern is the beam in the middle, which will pretty much end everybody who doesn't notice this.
Losing from the boss'second phase is pretty bad considering you will have fight the first phase again. Sure, the cutscene won't be as long, but as I said before: the boss is quite boring so that isn't so great.
The end is a bit disappointing in my taste, but that's just me.

For the stage itself, the mod feels (thanks to a little help of the 60fps hack) pretty fast-paced, and with the strength vs the general health of the enemies, it felt pretty nice.
Although some things from vanilla CS were still present, the custom things were pretty nice, although Judith's hair gave a bit of weird contrast to other things.
The boss' second phase's difficulty was pretty action-filled, which was pretty nice too.

Overally, this is pretty good, although there isn't really much that I find unique enough other than the boss.

Usually after a final level, there sometimes is a post game world or dungeon, sometimes these like to be rainbowy and starry and shit, so the next mod will fit this well.

Spoiler: STARZZ (By BLink)

Oh, this is interesting, the mod immediately starts i a modified first cave, but the main thing is that the player will find a Starman in the starting room, which (like as how it worked in the games it came from) made the player invincible and destroy anything they come in contact with, which often can be very fun.
After a while, the player will (unfortunately for them) encounter a critter which comes into contact with another Starman, resulting into a rainbow critter(how fun).
The fight with it is pretty easy, but split in three phases.
The first phase can easily be cheesed by hugging it in the hole in the right wall.
The second phase is a lot harder, particulary because of the weird no-gravity physics.
The third phase felt a bit easier, but the random beams didn't have any visible warning before appearing, at least not for me.

The boss fight was pretty interesting, and seeing the Starman in action in Cave Story is pretty nice too.
I hope you can fulfill those promises you made in the ending message!

That's all for now! I'll post more tomorrow starting with the greek-named mod.

 

Okay I decided to play Σο ψου Χαμε and oh boy what an experience this was:

Spoiler

Why is there no death animation? The game just freezes for a second and then reloads the save. Seems kind of unnatural and out of place. (Note: this happens if you don't have a save after the titlescreen)

Making a save on the opening cutscene before reaching the titlescreen seems to actually work, since it just runs the titlescreen cutscene again. It's a bit funny to keep pressing "load game" and just get nowhere, though.

I can touch the invisible wall here while the sign's text is onscreen. At least I can't go offmap, I guess?

At first I thought these automatic door transitions for the cave mouth here was kind of neat, but it's a little annoying since I'd like to walk past it without having to jump over.

Also if this save system works everywhere, why not just have it auto-save on map transitions? Having to press the "save" button every 5 minutes breaks up the pace of play.

The new sound for exp bounces is kind of annoying. I'm not sure why you changed it in the first place, but the sound seems a bit too "long" and "loud" for something that's going to be constantly playing as I play the mod. Are they supposed to be jumping?

I'm not sure I'm digging these new sfx for leveling up and picking up the exp either.

So instead of savepoints I'm just going to get reminders to save? Is this really very different from having normal savepoints?

Oh boy, I can save on top of enemies. This isn't fun. At least there's a short invincibility period upon spawning I guess, so this isn't guaranteed damage.

I stopped here for a moment just to listen to the music. It's not very good. It's almost "bad", or at least bad enough to warrant just not having it in the game at all.

Spooky.

Oh boy. Time to test something.

No wait, I can't actually die on these spikes, or get past them at all. If you're just going to wall this off, can't you at least put a wall instead of spikes?

I am very confused by this boss. For some reason it pushes me to the right, even if I'm on the upper level??
And if I go all the way to the top, it insta-kills me? Is my game hard-locked now?
The boss kills me in 2 hits. This seems a little unfair. And it's taking so many hits.

No, you know what? I'm not gonna fight that boss. I'll save glitch my way out of the fight instead. I did this by walking to the left, saving, reloading, and then repeating until I escaped the boss trigger.

Upside down grasstown is kind of neat, but it's odd how the exp still falls down instead of upwards. This is probably the best part of the mod.

This is a cute idea for little text sections that don't matter, but it's annoying to read a long text prompt like this when it's backwards. Especially with how it only stays up for 3 seconds, so then I have to trigger it again to try and keep reading it.

What kind of old man needs a whole bucket of water to drink? Maybe he should've given me a water bottle? Not really an issue or anything, just something I noted.

Why does everyone want me to do favors for them in this game. Couldn't there be some more plot-oriented reason for me to go on these fetch quests, other than for "favors"?

The music here is really not good. I'd recommend just using an original CS song over whatever this is.

Also these enemies are really really tanky, I'm not sure why you would give them so much hp. They're also kind of lazy looking, graphics wise (weird mishaped purple blobs?).

This led to me finding a weird exploit though, where after killing a single enemy I left the map. And when I came back, they were all gone! Guess they got scared after I took one of them out.

This spike room isn't very fun, especially with the screen shaking for no reason. If I have to do precision platforming like this I'd prefer the screen to remain calm at least.

I can't even see where I'm supposed to jump to next from here. This is not fun.
Like if there was one part where the save system would have really been appreciated in this mod it would have been here, but for some reason you hate the player and take it away for this section alone.

No seriously not being able to save on this map is a sin. I'm getting out doukutsu trainer now, after 30+ minutes spent here.

Look at all this fun I am skipping. I am surprised that there are even more spikes, and I have no idea how you expect people to get past them all with no saves.

I've done over 1000 damage to ballos, but his hp bar isn't even halfway down. How much hp did you give this guy??

Jesus christ, I could break the damage display if I kept continuous damage on him for 10k (which seems possible with his hp)

Dropping infinite blocks on me? This is almost comically bad.

These are also undodgeable if you go towards a wall to dodge them, since they can wall you in.

I have no clue how you expect people to beat this without cheating, even with cheating it took over a minute to kill the first phase. God forbid anyone play this normally. (Thank god there's only the first phase)

Oh hey I won. That's nice.

Nothing like White People and Big White People being the enemies here. Maybe you could have some more creative names? Or something that sounds less... "racist"? (I'm not sure what to call this, to be honest)

I'm surprised this mod has as many votes as it does, given how impossibly hard it becomes near the end. I can only assume people haven't actually finished this mod, at least not without cheating. If the difficulty didn't ramp up to 100 at the end (and you could actually SAVE past spike hell), and the green boss wasn't stupidly hard, this mod would be alright. But those difficulty spikes kind of kill the experience for me.

 

We interrupt your ModCon 2016 voting period with this unofficial public service announcement:

While it isn't necessarily required to beat a mod before voting on it, it is highly recommended that you either try to do so, even if it requires using the Ultimate Doukutsu Trainer, or watch someone else do it. Who knows? Maybe the mod won't be as good as you think it is once you get to a later portion of it?

Don't forget that your votes aren't set in stone until the end of the voting period, either. You can always revise them up until that point if it's necessary.

Spoiler

If Cool or DT wanted to say anything similar to this and I sniped them, please disregard this for something more official. Just trying to put it out there is all.

 

ugh god voting time ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh

TL;DR version of my vote:

Spoiler

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

Opinion-y version of my vote:

Spoiler

alright, let's get this party started folks

1ST: H4CK3R.STORY
I already knew Noxid was a Magical Hax Wizard of Olde, but this is kinda nuts. I'm pretty sure i can safely say no-one thought we would eventually make a first-person cave story mod, but here we are.
Not only is the tech impressive, the gameplay is imaginative and great. With puzzles, secrets, and references, this is exactly what i wanted to see this modcon.

2ND: The Final Level
This was overall a great mod. While it WAS short, the one level it had was well done and had great music. The self-insert and fourth wall breaking was kinda weird, but it managed to fit into what story there was.
Oh and the final boss. That was really cool.

3RD: Critter TD
By far the most entertaining mod in the contest, though it ever so slightly suffers from difficulty problems and the lack of differing content. What there was was really fun, though. Watching waves of critters bounce along the levels was very satisfying.

4TH: Autopilot
Autopilot was neat, and I'm sure it took an assload of testing to make it. Games like these generally tend to impress me, but they are done A LOT.
The secret was nice, though I feel like it should have been something different, something that works with the mod's style better.

5TH: Precious Thoughts
This was a nice mod, though very... Cave Story. The other weapon was neat, however it felt like leveling them up didn't do much, if anything.
The boosting also made for difficult platforming, but it was a nice mechanic.

6TH: dumb idiot safu cat gay hey mod
I'll be honest: I was expecting more out of a safumod. The graphics, as usual, are stunning, and the level(s?) you progress through are well-designed and very pretty.
The cat gun was cool, but VERY hard to control properly. also holy fuck safu that was hard like chill out man shit

7TH: Cave Story: Live and Uncut!
this is possibly bias because i have the humor of a 2 year old
Ordinarily, this would go straight into the trash for being another cave story, but this was something special. The effect was even better with the 'anonymous submission'.

8TH: Rave Bar
yeah okay this is total and complete bias lmao
NOT because i'm in it, more because i get the jokes. My only complaint is that i would NEVER ban polar why would you think that D;>

9TH: Metronari
how'd you know i like metroidvanias? what are you, a stalker?
The graphics make my eyes hurt and theres only one song that plays the whole mod, but the clever map changing and level design is great.

10TH: Killjoy
you have forced my hand
Without sounding narcissistic, i believe killjoy was alright apart from the bugs, lack of content and overall rushed-ness.
Hopefully i can fix this shit soon.

11TH: STARZZ
This mod was really cool up until the boss fight. In fact, if you made a mod that was primarily based off of the first part of the mod, then somehow implemented difficulty, it would have been better.
The boss fight is IMPOSSIBLE to control. I admire the asm, but damn.

12TH: Σο ψου Χαμε
nice name. This mod was littered with poor design choices and bad music, but the asm was alright i guess???
The backgrounds were a nice touch but sometimes they looked awful. and the final level is hahahahahahahahahah don't

13TH: Catfall
Catfall was uhh????????
first off, the game goes WAY too fast for it's own good. The final level is straight up stone-cold retarded.
I appreciate the funky text and nice graphics but the music and gameplay just can't hold up.

14TH: One-Eye Story
yeah okay i like cats but that is literally all this mod has to offer. Plus cats are NOT that small.
i eventually got stuck but the level design is sub-par and theres not much depth to it that i've found.

15TH: Lara
Well to start, making the graphics all gameboy-like sounds like a great idea, right? No. Never ever.
The music is also literally painful to listen to. I'm sorry but i had half a mind to mute, seriously.
oh yeah and as much as i hate calling something cringey, taking character sprites from TWEWY was pretty cringey

16TH: Pierce Feverdream
god jesus this is just not okay
you know what? this was pretty okay at the start, and the music was good!
and then the thing happened and please just don't like really

17TH: Valastos
hahaha talk about sketchy, first time I downloaded this firefox AND chrome both thought it was a virus
the graphics look like they were scribbled in MSpaint, and the enemy placement and world design is overall just bad.
Plus theres a chest at the beginning of the mod, which you can climb into. Climbing into it promptly softlocks the game.

18TH: The Water Challenge!
ok see no
challenge mods of ANY variety are not original or unique in any way, so I'm not sure why this would be a good mod for this contest
not to mention the awful tiling and lack of ANY custom sprites.
I originally thought this was the worst one, until I played...

19TH: CS: What To Do When Modding
Holy moley. You know, I get it. You want to make a mod that helps people make better mods. But it can be pretty hard to do that when the mod itself is bad, and even does the very things you say NOT to do.
I understand that you have to show the kind of level design that's bad in mods, but ironic or not, the tilework in this mod is absolutely atrocious.
I was gonna be merciful and give this mod 18th, but it's fate was sealed once I actually managed to escape the mod and play the original CS. That's just poor testing.

Well, I guess that's it.

Overall, we had a lot of quality mods this year compared to the ones last time. I had a great time participating in this year's contest, and i look forward to the next.

 

Spoiler: @TLinc

- I really loved how this mod flowed in terms of gameplay. Unfortunately for myself, I was unable to get into the later areas of the mod, as I couldn't get past the Press puzzle.

The first jump is easier if you hold right to make it onto the block. If you mean the falling puzzle, there are multiple ways to do that (you can land on the presses if you need to). It's easier than the final boss of your mod is anyways.

Great to see a good number of votes coming in already Also happy to see that most of you liked PT, it means a lot. I really wish I'd had just one extra day to work on it

 

Spoiler: Greek Word Mod Review

Honestly this is probably the only Mod I'll 'review' for this competition (unless I see a lot more reactions from other peeps in the Discord group, or requests). Needless to say, the Mod takes a nosedive in quality in the Hell section. The save feature has caused some bugs too. The mod altogether is very sluggish to go through as you have to shoot and wait, shoot and wait until enemies with inflated HP Pools die. It's monotonous.

Please, for the love of god, try and finish the mods before giving a review. Be entertained by my mini-review and video showcasing mod footage.

 

Welp, time for some more mods, starting with the interesting sounding greek mod;
(note, I'm not an expert on this kinda language, but for ordering purposes I'm considering this begins with "so", and don't forget that spoilops will happen)

Spoiler: Σο ψου Χαμε (By ???)

One of the most noticeable things in the mod is the fact that interacting with things goes automaticly by passing by, this sadly also affects doors, which is a bit inconvenient for the player at times.
Apparently, this (maybe?) led to using a different way of saving: By using the debug save feature.
Now I'm not saying debug save is bad on it's own, but if a mod uses it as the only way to save, then that isn't so great. This is partially because a mod does not have much control over debug save.
In my opinion, it'd be better if you had to use an item to save(as this can be limited with flags and such).

When I got to the part with the moving blocks, I really noticed that the first weapon you get(which is the only weapon you'll have at that moment) is pretty underwhelming, especially if you don't level it up first.(and by the time you get to the moving blocks, it's likely still level 1)
There's also a short freeze before you move onto the first moving block, before the bats start moving and the music changes to Eyes of Flame for some reason. The freeze is really bad(unless you want to simulate the Wii version of CS loading music).

Once I got to some green area, there were green enemies that blend a bit too much with the stage itself, which can be quite surprising at first(although it is less of a bother once you get used to it). The music in this area, by the way, is not that bad, but it doesn't really feel fitting.
I noticed here that when talking to NPCs, you sometimes can't move too far away until the dialog is over. Note that this isn't THAT bad considering it prevents the player from cheesing through spikes, but considering you start a dialog by touching a npc, passing them by is a bit of a bother.
After talking to the gaudis, I was unsure where I was supposed to go, this is because I wasn't made aware of a block(that blocked my way to a new part of the area) that had disappeared.
The boss that appears after obtaining the reverse fireball is actually not too bad, although the beginning part pushes you to the right even when you are on a floor above it, it takes a few tries, but I actually liked it.

The music in upside-down Grasstown is uh... I have no words for it to be honest, although the beginning isn't really that nice, as well as a few parts which include some high tones.
The power critters are a bit messed up, and there were cases where they made crazy jumps that end unwary players, and they sometimes keep bouncing after this.
The Mannans(the weird things that shoot when you hit them) next to Santa's house are really a problem, partially because of the block that will block your fireball from killing most of them, which isn't so great. But other that that, the upside down Grasstown isn't that bad.

The factory area had a nice idea behind it, but killing one enemy was enough for the mod to count the area as 'cleared'.
Also the Sharp shooter releases a not-so-fine sound when it's empty.
Apparently after that, you are supposed to go all the way back to the Gaudis, who would have cleared the spikes, but there isn't any indication that they have until you go there??

This brings us to the final area, and boy, it isn't easy.
There is one leap of faith that's almost impossible if you don't know what to do, especially since you don't expect almost the whole floor to be just spikes, which is bad.
After this stage full of difficult jumps, a load of spikes and a few surprise enemy appearances, the boss is a bit overdone.
The boss isn't THAT bad, but after an overly long stage, it kinda is. Especially considering the boss has a huge amount of health.
The ending feels a little underwhelming, but there wasn't much story to begin with anyway.

This isn't a bad mod per se, but the difficulty is higher than most mods. A nice thing is that the difficulty isn't all focused on spikes(except at the end). Note that the mod is also quite lengthy, which is nice for such a mod.
The music was pretty allright, although it sometimes didn't feel like it fits(and also some parts of the grasstown bgm weren't so very nice).
My favorite part was the boss in the green area, by the way.

Time to take it easy now and do something more slow-paced.

Spoiler: RAVE BAR (By Spirit)

If I should be honest, there isn't much to say here.
It's basicly the kind of mod where you can just talk to people and that's it.
It mostly is based around certain forum members and the bar from Rave Story.
As far as I know(and feel free to prove me wrong if I am) there aren't many mods where you just talk to people, so I guess this mod is unique.. in a way?

Sure, funny stuff is fun, but there are also some more serious-looking things that can be enjoyable, a bit like the next mod.

Spoiler: Precious Thoughts (By DoubleThink)

This is a pretty interesting mod with a pretty interesting story.
I presume the story is based on a girl(or woman? I'm not sure on the age) that stumbles on a different reality where memories are preserved, but again, I'm not really sure.

Part of the mod make use of the short booster the player has and one time also uses one of the weapons for a bit of a 'puzzle', some of the parts are a little precise, but passable.
Sadly, the boss at the end doesn't really like the room it's located in, and sometimes tends to teleport somewhere outside(and the fact that it can drop a block on you sometimes doesn't blend well if you can't see it coming because the boss is offscreen).

Overally, I really like this mod, I don't see much mods use a short booster in the way this mod does, which is pretty nice.
The ending also made me want to see more, so if you are going to continue this, good luck!

The next mod has gotten quite some attention for a certain reason.

Spoiler: Pierce Feverdream (By Kenzo_ITN)

As far as the mod goes, this seems to be a story-focused mod.
The mod starts really calm, mostly a young mimiga that decides to go outside to play, nothing wrong with that, right?
Well, things go wrong when she meets a human(whom she hugs), and eventually gets hurt by the human(who doesn't fully trust the mimiga) when trying to say sorry later on.
This leads to someone from both sides thinking the other side will come to kill them, and gets ready to fight.

Although the mod is short, it got me kind of interested to see how the rest of the story goes.
The mod seems, although short due to obvious time constraints, pretty well tested, with the only real issues being the large box and one slope that has no solid tile behind it.
Is this unique in a way? Ehhh, maybe the story is? There isn't really anything notable besides that, so...

And that's it for now, next time will start with One Eye Story, will there be Pirates? Who knows!

 

I suppose I should review some mods myself.

Greek letters mod: (Supposedly "So you hate" but I don't know greek):

Spoiler

This mod is not the best in my opinion. For one the use of debug save only and the auto-interact is pretty stupid. It's cool at first but just gets annoying, especially when trying to read text, because it refreshes every 3 seconds. The first area is ok, other than the moving blocks area. For one there's a very awkward pause and music shift at the start, and the actual section can be pretty BS unless you've taken the time to grind your weapon up to at least level 2. For no explicable reason the enemies here do a lot more damage and have a lot more HP than the previous ones, even though they look identical. The weird green area is kind of eye-searing, especially in the tiny window you're forced to play in because of debug save. The enemies also look exactly like the environment, which is not ok.

The boss here. Oh boy. Really don't like this boss. It's a cool concept but badly executed. The boss kills you in 2 hits, which is insane. It's also a very confusing boss. It's easy once you get the pattern but I actually had to go to the Discord for this one after spending about 20 minutes dying over and over because the game gives you no clue as to what the pattern is.

The upside-down grasstown area is, once again, a really cool concept but badly executed. Stuff here has WAY too much HP, even for the llaberiF. The music is cool, it's just the grasstown theme with the notes flipped vertically, but it wasn't "cleaned". Vertically flipping songs tends to leave them with spots where they just turn into audio garbage due to the way the pitch shifts. In this instance it causes some parts of the song to have a very high pitched ringing noise that is painful to the ears. Also, the power critters are glitchy as hell. Sometimes they just spaz out and bounce around randomly, leaving it very possible to just get instagibbed and have literally nothing you can do about it.

The factory area is nice, but it has two serious flaws, and one minor one. Minor flaw: Music here is garbage. Sorry, but it is. Half of it sounds like badly compressed fart noises to me. Major flaws: The weapon you get here makes a serious ear rape noise if it runs out of ammo at level 3. I legit thought something on my computer crashed when it made that sound. Flaw 2: If you leave the area after killing one of the enemies and come back, the game deletes all the others because it thinks you've killed them all, leading to a pointless area. Also, there's a spot where you can get stuck in a block due to improper slope use.

The hell area is where the quality goes from ok to shit. It stops being "unique" and starts just being another overly generic hell area that is absurdly difficult and extremely unforgiving for no real reason. I stopped playing here, but supposedly the final boss after this is really bad too.

Autopilot:

Spoiler

This one was cool, but it's just an auto-level. Nothing much to say here. I tried to find some of the secrets but I got bored and didn't. Take this review with a grain of salt.

Pierce feverdream (this review is aimed more at the mod creator):

Spoiler

This was an ...interesting... one. I'd like to see what you do with it Kenzo. The only issue I have with it other than an oddly placed slope (honestly can't remember where) and the upscaled box looking like shit, is a personal issue. I have a bit of a problem with the scene in this where you kind of, if you want me to be honest, molest a young boy. I guess the excuse is that you're a little kid too and don't know any better, but that honestly makes it worse. If the characters aren't aged and you plan to make more scenes like this I might not play the final version due to moral issues. Sorry.

OneEyeStory:

Spoiler

Didn't finish this one because it softlocked on me and I lost interest afterward. If you talk to the big brother cat downstairs without killing all the fuzzies in the stairway then the game doesn't end the event correctly and it just shows the word "Charcoal" and softlocks.

Catfall: Cool idea. Not much else to say. The music room is EXTREMELY laggy for some reason.

Precious thoughts:

Spoiler

This one is really good. I actually didn't finish it, and I really should, but I can already tell this is probably my favorite. Good writing, good tilesets, and (mostly) great puzzles.

The water challenge!:

Spoiler

Wasn't a big fan of this one. Might have to do with me being bad at the game, but I didn't find it very fun. Very cool concept but needs more refining and work.

Killjoy:

Spoiler

This one was very interesting. As is it's WAY too short to really review, but I'd like to see what the creator does with it.

Valastos

Spoiler

This one is bad. I'm sorry it just is. The graphics are blah, the shuriken is unreliable at level three, the game came with 5 DIFFERENT EXECUTABLES with absolutely no indicator as to which you're supposed to use, and I suppose I used the wrong one because when I got to the temple area it was full of floating drolls with horribly broken sprites that instakilled me. Not to mention the near-impossible to read text, bad grammar, broken events, and other random nonsense. Also literally none of the areas were renamed. The temple is called the Egg Corridor.

Final level:

Spoiler

I honestly think this is part of a series and I missed the other parts, so I'm just gonna review it as is. It's pretty good. The section with the Megaman instakill lasers is cool, but even less forgiving than the sections in the actual Megaman games and took WAY too many tries. At least it's short. The boss is cool, but there's a weird bug where you have little to no invincibility frames here, so the boss's actual difficulty is massively increased because he can just chain attacks to where you literally can't do anything.

Metronari: Cool idea, came across a little bland but fun overall. Like to see it expanded on and refined.

Cat gay/hey: What the actual s**t? In actuality this one is a ton of fun and really hard, but I was so confused it's not even funny.

Lara: Really cool, would love to see it finished. The Gameboy color scheme is unique, but kinda hard on the eyes at times.

CS - Live and uncut: This one was really funny. The sounds can overlap very easily if you skip through text, but otherwise bug-free. Would love to see more.

BLink's mod: Yes.

Hacker story/dungeon story: This is a unique one. Didn't play too much but very cool what I did play.

Rave bar: Not much of a game. More or less an inside joke-fest about these forums and the discord group. Nothing really to review.

Overall, lot of really fun mods.

 

Autopilot:

Spoiler

This one was cool, but it's just an auto-level. Nothing much to say here. I tried to find some of the secrets but I got bored and didn't. Take this review with a grain of salt.

Spoiler: Response to Review

I don't blame you; it's a little difficult to say anything other than "wow, auto-level." I tried to give the player a few hints as to the secret's locations: the note in the OP of the mod, here (which I guess you didn't see because you got it from this thread instead?), and the extra bit of dialogue at the end of the main portion of the mod. It was meant to be a fun little extra to the mod, similar to how Catfall has that music player in a side room, so I don't think it would impact your review too heavily.

 

heeeeeere's some more feedback!!

Spoiler: Lara

There's been mixed feedback about the stylistic choice to have a 4-color palate for this mod, and I probably lean towards the "not great" side of it. I don't think that this is necessarily a bad idea, but the execution needs some refinement. Too many details crammed into the small colour space lends to things getting muddled and it's hard to tell things apart. If you're going to use a limited colour space, the assets really need to work with it.

As for the game itself, not a whole lot of major complaints that haven't been aired already. It was a bit annoying to die to igor a few times like that, but I got through it without too much trouble after that. I found it weird that the knife was already way more damaging than the pistol when you get it. As well, the dialogue was a bit stiff to me.

Things I liked:
+ Interesting attempt at an aesthetic

Things I didn't like:
- Hard to tell what things were at times
- Not really enough time to relate to the characters

Spoiler: Metronari

I honestly liked this mod a lot. Yeah it was a "metroidvania" like cave story but it's very distilled and not really that cave-story-like imo. Apparently I missed all the secrets! oops. Well, it reminded me a lot of the old 8-bit exploration games (perhaps in some points very bluntly as the zelda dungeon theme loops for the hundredth time) but I always did like that kind of gameplay. I didn't mind the backtracking that much either, although I didn't expect the ending to come just like that!

Other than that some minor issues.. the intro door coming back after I die and respawn, disappointment that the switch gun actually only affects exactly one switch, and the abuse of fire whirrs. As well, it could do to have a less... "abstract" environment to give the player something interesting to find as they explore this area.

Things I liked:
+ Vintage aimless-exploration-gameplay
+ Black-and-white graphics
+ decent length

Things I didn't like:
- lack of variety in enemy types
- a bit too easy to die
- Not much to look at

Spoiler: Precious Thoughts

For a one-month project, this seems like quite an ambitious undertaking. Two big areas with nice challenges and a boss fight is more than I think most mods can boast. I enjoyed each of the four quantum gemerald challenges, and I don't think any of them were unfair. The Mystic Moon press jumps upset me a bit though. Overall I think your mod might have caused the most fatalities outside of <greek letters>.
My only real gripe with this is that it doesn't stray too far from the "cave story mod" formula (apart from being finished lel). The aesthetic is cave story and the custom guns are cool (I esp. love the dynamic between slowball and fastshot). The Hall of Memories is a really neat touch also, although I feel bad about how many I was able to recognize >_>

Things I Liked:
+ good balanced content
+ A story that I can almost make sense of
+ Cool complementary weapons

Things I didn't like:
- The final boss felt a bit rushed
- Who is the antagonist? huh??
- I don't really get the feeling of "Something that's never been seen before"

 

I suppose I should review some mods myself.

Greek letters mod: (Supposedly "So you hate" but I don't know greek):

Spoiler

This mod is not the best in my opinion. For one the use of debug save only and the auto-interact is pretty stupid. It's cool at first but just gets annoying, especially when trying to read text, because it refreshes every 3 seconds. The first area is ok, other than the moving blocks area. For one there's a very awkward pause and music shift at the start, and the actual section can be pretty BS unless you've taken the time to grind your weapon up to at least level 2. For no explicable reason the enemies here do a lot more damage and have a lot more HP than the previous ones, even though they look identical. The weird green area is kind of eye-searing, especially in the tiny window you're forced to play in because of debug save. The enemies also look exactly like the environment, which is not ok.

The boss here. Oh boy. Really don't like this boss. It's a cool concept but badly executed. The boss kills you in 2 hits, which is insane. It's also a very confusing boss. It's easy once you get the pattern but I actually had to go to the Discord for this one after spending about 20 minutes dying over and over because the game gives you no clue as to what the pattern is.

The upside-down grasstown area is, once again, a really cool concept but badly executed. Stuff here has WAY too much HP, even for the llaberiF. The music is cool, it's just the grasstown theme with the notes flipped vertically, but it wasn't "cleaned". Vertically flipping songs tends to leave them with spots where they just turn into audio garbage due to the way the pitch shifts. In this instance it causes some parts of the song to have a very high pitched ringing noise that is painful to the ears. Also, the power critters are glitchy as hell. Sometimes they just spaz out and bounce around randomly, leaving it very possible to just get instagibbed and have literally nothing you can do about it.

The factory area is nice, but it has two serious flaws, and one minor one. Minor flaw: Music here is garbage. Sorry, but it is. Half of it sounds like badly compressed fart noises to me. Major flaws: The weapon you get here makes a serious ear rape noise if it runs out of ammo at level 3. I legit thought something on my computer crashed when it made that sound. Flaw 2: If you leave the area after killing one of the enemies and come back, the game deletes all the others because it thinks you've killed them all, leading to a pointless area. Also, there's a spot where you can get stuck in a block due to improper slope use.

The hell area is where the quality goes from ok to shit. It stops being "unique" and starts just being another overly generic hell area that is absurdly difficult and extremely unforgiving for no real reason. I stopped playing here, but supposedly the final boss after this is really bad too.

Autopilot:

Spoiler

This one was cool, but it's just an auto-level. Nothing much to say here. I tried to find some of the secrets but I got bored and didn't. Take this review with a grain of salt.

Pierce feverdream (this review is aimed more at the mod creator):

Spoiler

This was an ...interesting... one. I'd like to see what you do with it Kenzo. The only issue I have with it other than an oddly placed slope (honestly can't remember where) and the upscaled box looking like shit, is a personal issue. I have a bit of a problem with the scene in this where you kind of, if you want me to be honest, molest a young boy. I guess the excuse is that you're a little kid too and don't know any better, but that honestly makes it worse. If the characters aren't aged and you plan to make more scenes like this I might not play the final version due to moral issues. Sorry.

OneEyeStory:

Spoiler

Didn't finish this one because it softlocked on me and I lost interest afterward. If you talk to the big brother cat downstairs without killing all the fuzzies in the stairway then the game doesn't end the event correctly and it just shows the word "Charcoal" and softlocks.

Catfall: Cool idea. Not much else to say. The music room is EXTREMELY laggy for some reason.

Precious thoughts:

Spoiler

This one is really good. I actually didn't finish it, and I really should, but I can already tell this is probably my favorite. Good writing, good tilesets, and (mostly) great puzzles.

The water challenge!:

Spoiler

Wasn't a big fan of this one. Might have to do with me being bad at the game, but I didn't find it very fun. Very cool concept but needs more refining and work.

Killjoy:

Spoiler

This one was very interesting. As is it's WAY too short to really review, but I'd like to see what the creator does with it.

Valastos

Spoiler

This one is bad. I'm sorry it just is. The graphics are blah, the shuriken is unreliable at level three, the game came with 5 DIFFERENT EXECUTABLES with absolutely no indicator as to which you're supposed to use, and I suppose I used the wrong one because when I got to the temple area it was full of floating drolls with horribly broken sprites that instakilled me. Not to mention the near-impossible to read text, bad grammar, broken events, and other random nonsense. Also literally none of the areas were renamed. The temple is called the Egg Corridor.

Final level:

Spoiler

I honestly think this is part of a series and I missed the other parts, so I'm just gonna review it as is. It's pretty good. The section with the Megaman instakill lasers is cool, but even less forgiving than the sections in the actual Megaman games and took WAY too many tries. At least it's short. The boss is cool, but there's a weird bug where you have little to no invincibility frames here, so the boss's actual difficulty is massively increased because he can just chain attacks to where you literally can't do anything.

Metronari: Cool idea, came across a little bland but fun overall. Like to see it expanded on and refined.

Cat gay/hey: What the actual s**t? In actuality this one is a ton of fun and really hard, but I was so confused it's not even funny.

Lara: Really cool, would love to see it finished. The Gameboy color scheme is unique, but kinda hard on the eyes at times.

CS - Live and uncut: This one was really funny. The sounds can overlap very easily if you skip through text, but otherwise bug-free. Would love to see more.

BLink's mod: Yes.

Hacker story/dungeon story: This is a unique one. Didn't play too much but very cool what I did play.

Rave bar: Not much of a game. More or less an inside joke-fest about these forums and the discord group. Nothing really to review.

Overall, lot of really fun mods.

I presume that you intentionally played every single mod except mine?
For what purpose?

 

I presume that you intentionally played every single mod except mine?
For what purpose?

Please don't assume drama. Nobody wants it

 

Please don't assume drama. Nobody wants it

If you think you're so cool for saying that, maybe you can give me a good reason that he did this, no？

 

I doubt it was on purpose

Anyway I'm almost done playing through all of these, soon I'll put up my feedback/vote post and then get to work on the technical rankings

 

If you think you're so cool for saying that, maybe you can give me a good reason that he did this, no？

The reason I didn't put yours on there is because I played it a while ago and simply forgot to. I actually almost didn't put hacker story on there either because I played it a while ago. Sorry.

 

Here's some reviews I guess, i'll post more and a vote list later on.

Spoiler: Hacker Story

Hacker Story
-This mod was very impressive. This really shows the potential of how far you can get using ASM in Cave Story, breaking all of the boundaries that the original game had. When I played it however it was not the most current version (pink walled version), but it seems as though the game is essentially the same aside from various bugs or cosmetic additions. I really enjoyed having the choice between 3 characters, as that feature really brings in the replay value in the game. Each character had their own specific quirks which brought upon new experiences each playthrough. I'd really like to see more being added to this hack, or perhaps even as a brand new standalone game in general.

PROS
+Replay value is present.
+The idea works and the game plays decently.
+Interesting story going on.
+Very knowledgeable use of Assembly hacking, providing a brand new game using a shell of an already existing game of a different genre.
+Neat combat system, very akin to Zelda II or something similar in that regard.
+While music wasn't made by the developer, the tracks are fantastic. Props to GIR for a theme-fitting, immersive score.

CONS
-Hardly any items to pick up. One of the most rewarding things about dungeon crawlers are the items, and unfortunately the only item that can be picked up are Dorito chips that can't even be used but only for scoring purposes. While scores are great and all, first person games don't mix very well with scoring. As a reference to take note of, ID's Wolfenstein 3d did something similar with the "arcade-like" scoring and yet it wasn't all that great and was scrapped for their next first person project. A shop/currency system would be a neat addition, or perhaps more weapons/equipment for the characters to use specific to them.
-Battles/obstacle encounters do get redundant. While it hasn't happened to me all that often, watching Dunc go through the same computer obstacle room 50 or so times was a little exhausting to watch.

This is a great mod and hopefully it'll strengthen up later on in the future if it's still something in the developers interest. There's hardly anything negative I can say about it other than a lack of items and some cosmetic things. Awesome!

Spoiler: Greek Words

So you care/hate/die/whatever
-This mod is very "eh". There are some elements in this submission that I particularly like, but the execution of all of them are done very loosely. Immediate elicitation of events for things such as doorways are a huge no-no. Sometimes I end up getting myself stuck in a loop entering and exiting doorways. Picking items up with this immediate event system is acceptable, but it sure does raise alot of negating issues in the mod. Now that things are all dynamic this way, there are these invisible barriers that appear
each time an event pops up to prevent the player from being invincible out in the playing field. The dynamic idea sounds neat on paper, but it really shows that it really doesn't work well in the game itself. The music.. percussions were atmospheric? What I'm saying is that the drums sound alright, and they work for the setting. However, the sine instruments used for the chords and whatnot are just unbelievably grating. Hearing that Ballos battle with the instrumental arrangement of what seems to be a beta track from Cave Story made my ears hurt real bad, I almost thought my ears were bleeding. Level designs are ok, but everything just feels very sloppy, clunky and off. There's no transition after death, shit hiccups around in certain places, and the spritework are pretty shoddy. Also, that hell level.. no thanks. With portraying challenge in a game such as Cave Story, you need to keep in mind what type of demographic is going to be playing your mod. Sure, worrying about people is not the way to go when developing games, however this challenge is relentless. Needless to say though, the hell area looks kind of neat. I kind of dig the whole google-imaged backdrops to some extent. The glowing bleeding eyes are pretty dope.

PROS
+Interesting ideas. I like what was kept in mind about this mod and where it was headed. It definitely had this whole lovecraftian vibe to it with the upside down grasstown and whatnot.
+Some backdrops looked cool. I liked the cave one especially, since it really melded in with the vanilla first cave tileset nicely.
+Has some sort of length to it. I enjoy playing a mod that has a bit to offer, and this one delivered that with it's longevity value.

CONS
-The music isn't very good. I've heard much worse music in org format, but this would definitely need some revising especially with the instrument use and volume levels. In some cases, just having the original Cave Story music would suffice enough to be acceptable. I would rather listen to gestation or oppression
in some areas.
-Sprites are primitive and clashing. Some sprites such as the weapon icons look great though.
-Game gets hard at very sporadic times. Have some buildup and ready the player up before tossing them into these random curves of challenge.
-The save function is absolutely useless. Many times have I forgot that I could save using this debug function since saving using an entity instead is second nature to me in a Cave Story game. Perhaps using this debug save feature would work on something very different, but for a mod that plays exactly like Cave Story, what's the point?
-Dynamic events cause problems. It's executed poorly and the invisible wall thing feels very tacked on. I could also imagine how it's more of a burden for the developer to add all this extra work just to make talking to a npc a dynamic thing. If you can't move anywhere, then what's the point of movement at all? Also that doorway problem.
-Certain sound effects are very loud and below average in quality. The exp sounds aren't great, especially when the thing bounce. Having one exp shard bounce is tolerable but when there are like 15 of them bouncing about the sound channel goes off the charts loud. Leveling up sounds neat, but it's missing something crunchy probably.

Good effort!

Spoiler: Autopilot

Autopilot
-There's something really neat about this mod. In fact, I don't think there ever was a Cave Story mod out there that did something like this. (*EDIT: There is actually, I just wasn't around to see "Don't Let Go" from the previous contest years ago) Much like the 900,000 levels that are made in games like Mario Maker or Mario World hacks, this mod is all a hands-off experience.. somewhat. Watching all of the entities do their magic without putting any finger moving efforts was fun and somewhat relaxing. Personally, I wouldn't have the patience to playtest a mod like this so it's something I applaud for. The Cthulhu secret was a nice little touch that applied a gameplay oriented sequence near the end with some goofiness. All in all this was a working experience and there weren't any problems I had with it while playing. I would like to see another mod using that whole "Choosing your weaponry+trinket combo" idea as a gameplay mechanic; I really like that type of class-based gameplay shit.

PROS
+Fun to watch, and very relaxing.
+Impressive amount of playtesting and entity placement/knowledge of what they do to the player character with hands-off gameplay.
+Very bug-free. There's not a single mishap seen in this mod, or at least that I know of in particular.
+Secrets.

CONS
-Short. It would be cool to see more of this going on with more entity manipulation; perhaps more boss battles with hands-off gameplay.

Nice!