Lost Machine - a short atmospheric mod for Modfest 26

A short story about a lost robot waking up a year after disaster
Has two endings, a bad and good ending
Winner of Modfest 26

This mod is heavily inspired by a Cave Story dream I had a few years ago, with most of the areas and layouts being as closely of a recreation to the original dream as possible

Spoiler: Screenshots

minor known issue: on teleport from Ghost Town to Cave Path if you jump too high you can completely jump off the side of the map lol, will be fixed in the next update

Spoiler: Download

Doukutsu Club

(Original soundtrack can be found on Soundcloud and Bandcamp)

 

Heh, did aikyuu inspire you to post a mod that you had circulating around Discord and Doukutsu club but hadn't made its way to the CSTSF yet? Looks cool, I'll try to set aside some time to play this tomorrow.

 

Heh, did aikyuu inspire you to post a mod that you had circulating around Discord and Doukutsu club but hadn't made its way to the CSTSF yet? Looks cool, I'll try to set aside some time to play this tomorrow.

Since I won Modfest I was planning on posting it here anyway but Aikyuu was the reason I decided to post it today, lol

 

This was a fun little mod. The music was good, and it had a simple but effectively grim tone. It's not a showstopper, but the extra hacks and touches, along with the respectable level design, keep it interesting. Between the dark ambiance and weapon mechanics, I'm sensing a bit of influence from OpenCS, is this the case?

Spoiler

I like the little touches to the gameplay, such as the ambiance in the background, and the main character starting to walk in the direction of the next room when you transition.

I really liked the atmosphere of Ghost town. I'm not sure why, but I have a thing for rainy atmospheres in 2D games, there's something pleasant about it. I liked the way the rain drops stopped based on what was covered and what wasn't. I guess JakeV is the one who deserves credit for that one.

I really liked the Lush Cavern. The music was good, and the camera effect when you first enter is something that I haven't seen done much in CS mods. I didn't realize this until I re-entered the room, but the music for the Lush Cavern doesn't seem to loop. If you stick around there long enough, the music just stops. Is this on purpose?

When I talked to Hermit gunsmith, it became pretty obvious that that was the choice between the good and bad endings that you were talking about. I was a little bit bummed out by the fact that both of the endings are pretty grim. I got the "good" ending first, thinking I had gotten the bad ending first, and then was even more disappointed when I got the bad ending by ascending to the surface of the island, only to realize that the other ending I had just gotten was the good ending, and that this is the bad ending, which is even worse. However, when I say I was disappointed, I don't mean that in a "poor quality" kind of way. It's clear that that's the tone that you were trying to set for the mod, and for that purpose, it worked.

I liked how there's a little bit of extra content to play through on both paths that you can choose.

Overall, decent little mod. Not long, and not anything too grand, but it clearly had some work put into it, and I'm not surprised that it won modfest.

 

This was a fun little mod. The music was good, and it had a simple but effectively grim tone. It's not a showstopper, but the extra hacks and touches, along with the respectable level design, keep it interesting. Between the dark ambiance and weapon mechanics, I'm sensing a bit of influence from OpenCS, is this the case?

Spoiler

I like the little touches to the gameplay, such as the ambiance in the background, and the main character starting to walk in the direction of the next room when you transition.

I really liked the atmosphere of Ghost town. I'm not sure why, but I have a thing for rainy atmospheres in 2D games, there's something pleasant about it. I liked the way the rain drops stopped based on what was covered and what wasn't. I guess JakeV is the one who deserves credit for that one.

I really liked the Lush Cavern. The music was good, and the camera effect when you first enter is something that I haven't seen done much in CS mods. I didn't realize this until I re-entered the room, but the music for the Lush Cavern doesn't seem to loop. If you stick around there long enough, the music just stops. Is this on purpose?

When I talked to Hermit gunsmith, it became pretty obvious that that was the choice between the good and bad endings that you were talking about. I was a little bit bummed out by the fact that both of the endings are pretty grim. I got the "good" ending first, thinking I had gotten the bad ending first, and then was even more disappointed when I got the bad ending by ascending to the surface of the island, only to realize that the other ending I had just gotten was the good ending, and that this is the bad ending, which is even worse. However, when I say I was disappointed, I don't mean that in a "poor quality" kind of way. It's clear that that's the tone that you were trying to set for the mod, and for that purpose, it worked.

I liked how there's a little bit of extra content to play through on both paths that you can choose.

Overall, decent little mod. Not long, and not anything too grand, but it clearly had some work put into it, and I'm not surprised that it won modfest.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it

Spoiler

I like the little touches to the gameplay, such as the ambiance in the background, and the main character starting to walk in the direction of the next room when you transition.
small fact, the character transition was a little tricky to pull off, what I did was turn the H/V trigger into a quote NPC set to direction 11 (which auto teleports it to the player) and begins the walking animation. By default direction 11+ faces right, however for when you backtrack to the left with direction 11, you face right briefly and then start walking left. I was stuck here for a bit so I asked around the CSMC if it was possible for it to face left and (Brayconn I think) created a hex patch that allows direction 10 to face left

I really liked the Lush Cavern. The music was good, and the camera effect when you first enter is something that I haven't seen done much in CS mods. I didn't realize this until I re-entered the room, but the music for the Lush Cavern doesn't seem to loop. If you stick around there long enough, the music just stops. Is this on purpose?
The music is not intended to loop for the Lush Cavern, the only tracks in the game that loop are the title screen version of Rainfall 2 and Crimson (boss music)

When I talked to Hermit gunsmith, it became pretty obvious that that was the choice between the good and bad endings that you were talking about. I was a little bit bummed out by the fact that both of the endings are pretty grim. I got the "good" ending first, thinking I had gotten the bad ending first, and then was even more disappointed when I got the bad ending by ascending to the surface of the island, only to realize that the other ending I had just gotten was the good ending, and that this is the bad ending, which is even worse. However, when I say I was disappointed, I don't mean that in a "poor quality" kind of way. It's clear that that's the tone that you were trying to set for the mod, and for that purpose, it worked.
Yeah, I thought it might end up being a little confusing, but I tried to make it apparent in the dialog that the escape happened a while ago, and it would've been unlikely you'd be able to finish your escape when no one's there to give you a ride off the island.
Also, yes, I do use "good and bad ending" to describe the two endings, although both of them are more or less "bad", with one being "slightly less bad" than the other, I guess.
This is also not immediately obvious in gameplay, but in the good ending, the quaking is only triggered again upon entering the room, causing a repeat of the quaking disaster that happened a year prior, but once you defeat the Core, the quaking ends, along with any future quake disaster on the island, at the sacrifice of yourself being forever trapped in the room, which is why I consider it the good ending. You might have figured that out on your own, but I figured I might mention it anyway since some other people who played it were a little confused

I liked how there's a little bit of extra content to play through on both paths that you can choose.
I made sure it's possible to backtrack all the way to the beginning of the game no matter how far you get into it, mainly done so it is possible to get both endings in the same save file
I'm also planning on adding a little extra replayability by making it possible to play through the entire game without a weapon, might even add a reward of an even more powerful weapon in the good ending route :thinking:

 

Spoiler

I liked how everything came together. Maybe too good for a small mod! Like having those songs that you'll never hear completely, unless you take your time to enjoy the atmosphere instead of charging through. Kinda wished there was double the map areas to take in the sights longer and explore...

My playthrough led me to the summit first, then the abyss... A bit anti-climatic lol, but as Hayden said, it fit the tone of the mod. One year too late, as they said! lol Makes you wonder what CAve Story 1 year too late would have been like... If Quote overslept his awakening lol. Ahem... getting off track. So, after the "good" ending, I loaded again, and made my way back to the empty village looking for anything new and returned to the start point and quit.

So again, great balance with the mod. Just wanted a bit more to explore, or more story to give me an excuse to hang around.

Least favorite part was the Summit I guess? Thought it was odd the summit was made of stone building blocks. Maybe just me? Also the enemy colors didn't match the aesthetics, or at least that was my impression last night. Probably need to see it again to confirm. The flying birds and drolls fit the area well though imo! (And seeing skeleton enemies... does that mean they died?) Loved the music again btw.

Favorite part... hmm... Not sure... Everything else besides the Core? (Though, after your explanation on the quake in the above post, I like it more... Seemed a bit ambiguous at the time. Did, I just awaken and chase the thing outside to rampage? lol) Well, if you pin me down I'll say the Grassy cave as #1? Village is a close second, robot graveyard third, and dark caves next. But in reality. liked them all!

PS on an unrelated note: I still haven't finished that map for 100 worlds, ran into some minor irl injuries >< Probably should try continuing

 

I like the little touches to the gameplay, such as the ambiance in the background, and the main character starting to walk in the direction of the next room when you transition.
small fact, the character transition was a little tricky to pull off...

I wouldn't have guessed. It's always funny what little things end up requiring a creative/hacky solution to get them working right.

The music is not intended to loop for the Lush Cavern, the only tracks in the game that loop are the title screen version of Rainfall 2 and Crimson (boss music)

That's an interesting stylistic choice. Any reason or rhyme why you decided not to have most of the music loop?

Spoiler

This is also not immediately obvious in gameplay, but in the good ending, the quaking is only triggered again upon entering the room, causing a repeat of the quaking disaster that happened a year prior, but once you defeat the Core, the quaking ends, along with any future quake disaster on the island, at the sacrifice of yourself being forever trapped in the room, which is why I consider it the good ending. You might have figured that out on your own, but I figured I might mention it anyway since some other people who played it were a little confused

Spoiler

Yeah, I figured that it was a heroic sacrifice of sorts that would put an end to the quaking. What's interesting though, is that you mentioned the quaking is only triggered again upon entering the room. Is that implying that all of the times that the island quaked in the past, it was because someone entered the room, and ended up not destroying the core? I didn't catch that part, that's an interesting twist.

I'm also planning on adding a little extra replayability by making it possible to

Spoiler

play through the entire game without a weapon, might even add a reward of an even more powerful weapon in the good ending route :thinking:

That's an interesting idea, I might consider playing it again if something like that gets added.

What I also find interesting is the incentive structure that gets created by modfest. It creates an incentive to pump out smaller mods that otherwise probably wouldn't have been made. And then once modfest comes to pass, the incentive to polish/update/complete the mod seems to significantly decrease. How much does this usually end up taking away from longer-term passion projects, such as 100 worlds? I guess maybe not much is taken away in the case of 100 worlds, since a lot of those levels are getting submitted by other users.

EDIT: 2000th post! "Life begins and ends with Nu."
Wow, I finally made it. 2000 posts. Despite the decreasing activity on these forums, I managed to hit that milestone before reaching my 10-year anniversary of joining these forums. Guess this is the last time that I'll be editing my posts with celebrations of post count milestones.