Matt does helping things for the modding community

As I said, I believe presentation of a story has much more significance than gritty details, "even though those still do effect it". If you can design your game around your story succesfully, especially when telling a complex one, then you should be able to make it much more interesting.

It's also fair to mention that an amazing story told correctly can make an okay game great. I didn't want to say it in the post because people tend to use things like that as an excuse for a bad game, but it works. Like ff6. It was a pretty okay rpg, but with all the different characters with flaws and conflicts, and a villain and dialogue that made the player seriously think about their moral views on life, it made the game a pretty great one. Even if you don't care for the game or it's story, you can't deny that alot of people do.

This is probably the reason I shortened that post alot. It's long enough as is. : P

EDIT: As an afterthough, I don't believe Cave Story had the most well developed plot to use as a comparison. I mean, Pixel himself said he had a hard time writing it. While the game is perfect in leaving alot to the player's imagination, I feel it would have been interesting to get either more or less details about Quote's past. That is to say, him and Curly coming to the island to stop the demon crown guy before makes sense, but if we DIDN'T know that, we'd get a really good sense of mystery, and would come to wonder more about the character. Since we DO know, I feel like something about that is unfinished. The fact that they just came to fight the guy and then something happened to them should have more detail because that by itself is a bit underwhelming. i mean it makes sense, but it isn't something you really care about because it's almost predictable.

My god I'm negative. Cave Story is good. It's more of a succesful call back to older games that captures their best and fixes their worst than a story driven title anyways. I'll go get my 3ds and pick up th eshop version.

 

While we're still on the topic of story, I have enormous love for what I guess I would call the Mother or Mystic Ark style of writing. Maybe it's too indirect for most folks, because I don't often see it get a lot of credit. It's an ideal blend of cleverness and simplicity, combining boundless wit and creativity without sacrificing the sense that there's always something serious going on. I find that they are a great example of the notion that the purest emotions are conveyed using as few words as possible, valuing profound imagery and language over the classical style of grandeur and sweeping dialogue. Metalogz's old mods Magic~ and The Future were really good examples of this style. Shame the latter only got a single release :< My attraction to this style isn't just because I like cleverness but also because I hate waste. Take Schism, the original posterboy for 'good writing' in CS mods. I really like the underlying narrative, but I can't stand reading it because it's buried under pages of blah and trying-too-hard humour. Immersion is impossible when a game is constantly pushing me out all the time.

I think the most important thing when it comes to writing is coherency, not just in terms of written language but in terms of having a proper start, middle and end (or multiple thereof) and being free of self-contradictions. The most essential part to have figured out before starting work could very well be the ending; it gives something to always be working toward and makes it easier to avoid writing oneself into a corner. Running out of ideas is probably the most common reason for abandoning a mod, and several of the currently completed ones have rather unsatisfying conclusions. My style of writing is very haphazard and probably not a great example to follow, but one thing I'm always doing is going back and looking at how to improve things, or where to add new things in. This is very difficult to do when someone isn't properly comfortable with what they're working on.

 

I'd definately like to see some people take that kind of inititive. I was hoping to try and get more into that, but maybe another time. Story often changes alot while making a mod, it's gonna be hard to get people to not let it break the story.

Schism was good, but I do agree that that form of storytelling needs to stop being emulated as much as people try now. It would be great to see a mod that didn't use the text box, but had characters interact without speaking, or even something mysterious like Metroid. I suppose it's jsut natural for people to go for that writing style their first try.

 

It would be worthwhile to add in something about the importance of complexity relative to, say, mod length. Minimods and challenge mods in particular are supposed to be quick and easy to make, such that the creator doesn't get hung up on the details.

 

Ooh. I mean, you can have some pretty in depth short mods or some pretty simple long ones, "Compare Noxid's Island Contest entry to Ollie's The Show"

 

The Show has a lot of new art and music, which are things a lot of modders struggle with (like me :<). Certainly there's plenty of room for flexibility, but we should be careful not to give the impression that complete overhauls are ever expected or demanded, especially if as you say we want to encourage more minimods.

 

Oh yeah. If you're making a mod, there's no shame in taking things from the original game.

 

Oh, maybe you should critique my mod(s) too. Go on, I want to see that.

 

Oh, maybe you should critique my mod(s) too. Go on, I want to see that.

It might be an imposition so if I were you I'd feel weird about asking, but ... I think of everyone here, HyMyNameIsMatt seems to be THE person you want constructive criticism from in this particular arena.

 

I'm planning to make a seperate thread for that. With videos used instead of just typing. Fraps powers, go!

Randolf, just so you know, I have played Haunted House story, and I would have ALOT to say.

Heh, when it comes to critiques you should know I don't do everything myself. I take my opinions through people I trust so they can tell me if I'm overthinking things or whatever else.

EDIT: Update bitches.

 

Hey, if you are working on a mod or have released a mod, I won't use it for reference without your permission. If you would like to give me permission to use your mod in reference in an above post, please let me know, and I'll be sure to mention the context it's used in to you if it is negative. It would be a good opportunity for you to apply changes to your mod if you so desire.

Oh, uh. I would like to volunteer my mods for being any possible examples of instances of a mod's shortcomings if needed. I'm seeing all these common shortcomings and thinking of other people's mods, and I would be a hypocrite if I was doing the same in my own without realizing.

Critique matters, and I'll be gentle.

Don't be. Be as blunt as you need to be.

 

Ah good. I'm blunt in good taste. Just beware, I use words, like, "terrible" and "god awful" very loosely.

 

If you would like to give me permission to use your mod in reference in an above post, please let me know, and I'll be sure to mention the context it's used in to you if it is negative. It would be a good opportunity for you to apply changes to your mod if you so desire. Critique matters, and I'll be gentle. Use ranges from pictures to in depth analysis, regardless, I'll warn you first.

I'd like to volunteer Shane's Cave Story 1, Shadow of the Stars, Cave Story Re:coded and The Curse of Il'andri'iel.
Also, you don't need to be gentle, be as blunt as you need to be.

(The reason I haven't mentioned Cave Story - Time Warp is because it's the most horrible mod I've ever made and that I have a *lot* of things to fix there. As in, the entire mod. Just recolouring stuff is silly, after all. I guess it's to be expected that it's horrible, seeing as it's the first mod I've made.)

 

Aaah D: I'd prefer it if the critiques took place in the matching mod thread, like they usually do. That's kind of what they're there for Putting it all here will quickly create clutter.

 

I was gonna make a new thread. But alright. I didn't know that thread existed.

EDIT: Wait, I'm dumb. Yah I get it. I shouldn't start typing when I've been up for 5 minutes. >.<

 

I've often whined and complained about the state of Cave Story modding in that special whiny way exclusive to stuck up modders who claim to be in the middle of creating the most awesome and immersive and story-driven Cave Story mod in the universe whilst at the same time refusing to share it with the community.

It's far easier to knock up a bunch of maps with "OH, NO! THE DOCTOR MAGICALLY CAME BACK TO LIFE AGAIN!" for a plot than actually sit down and write a decent plot with lots of incidental conversations and non-wanky reflections on the human condition.

It's also really easy to just resprite all the Cave Story bosses and throw them at the player for no logical reason in order to pad out the mod's length.

 

I was gonna make a new thread.

I just had a thought that you might want to review some abandoned mods, in which case you shouldn't bump their thread obvs. You could put those in Mods General, because it can always afford more discussion.

 

Yah, will start soon. Right now I'm working on a master piece with Noxid and a friend.

[EDIT] update, go check out the level design post!

 

Super duper bump

Got all kinds'a new topics up in here, go read em. Now.

 

@ Half custom gfx/music: Ehhh, I don't really know about this. First of all, a lot of mods are some type of reworking of the original CS, so it's not really unfair for them to include parts of the original (e.g. like Pokemon B2/W2 do). The argument about "hey that's from ____" breaking immersion can also be applied to the second most common type of music used, which is that from other games. Taking those away would limit music options very severely, and really hearing them wouldn't be that different to hearing a track that isn't played much in the original (e.g. Last Cave or Labyrinth Fight, even though we old hands have all probably heard them a zillion times by now). As for graphics, I would say that not all graphics are of the same importance. One could easily use the same tilesets or backgrounds without breaking immersion, or at least without doing anything more than giving them a new paint job. Full customisation is something to be considered, certainly, but it can be put a fair way down the list.

Speaking of lists, you know what would be really useful? A big list detailing how difficult a certain thing is to implement in a mod. That way anyone can look at it and see immediately how difficult it's going to be to make their idea(s) a reality.

I have a thread to make!