Mimiga's Adventure: Elements' Awakening (DEMO v1.2.2.0!)

After two years of lazy work and one concept change, I'm more than gald to finally present you...



Currently the mod can be downloaded only on Doukutsu Club and itch.io by clicking on the link below:

Doukutsu Club page​

itch.io page​

(current version: v1.2.2.0)

* * * * *

The timeline is taking place after Island's crash on one of continents called Mira. Mimigas, after the events of Cave Story, who were lucky enough to survive hard landing, decided to begin a new, peaceful life on new territories.
That was, until several years later, when a new wave of Mimigas' local bloodshed took place on South Mira Coast, with one remaining survivor, with the name of Gem.

Do you have what it takes to let Gem avenge for the loss of his past life and, possibly, save the entire Mimiga race from extinction once again?

* * * * *

What it can offer:​

- Melee-style combat! You have only your trustworthy blade to defeat any enemy standing in your way. But worry not, you have some options for long-ranged combat as well!

- Secondary Items! You can use another item along with your weapon. Just select it from your inventory and press "Use Item" key ("Shift" by default) to activate it. Remember, some items' resources aren't infinite and you have to restock them after some time.

- Magic! Now you have mana meter, which is required for a number of items. You can replenish it from defeated enemies.

- Shop! Here you can spend earned Cions from foes to buy and upgrade your equipment or refill items. Shops can be found across the whole Mira continent.

- Reworked inventory! Now your inventory is expanded to be included with following tabs:
ITEM: Secondary items you'll get in your journey can be selected here;
ARMS: Ditto, but with various types of weapon;
ARMOR: Ditto, but with equippable armor;
ACCESSORY: Ditto, but with equippable accessories.

- Quests! Keep track of Mimiga folk asking for your help easily! You can select active quests from your inventory to read additional info.

- 9 unique + (1 returning) bosses to defeat! Made from absolute scratch, these bad guys will pack a punch with their brand new attacks!

Some minor additions:
- Russian and Japanese localization (temporary disabled until further notice)
- Multi-save files support (up to 3 slots)
- Four selectable UI styles to your liking
- Map rework
- BGM/SFX volume controls (added in v1.0.1.0)

* * * * *

Credits and Special Thanks to people who made this mod possible:​

Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya - Creator of Cave Story
Clownacy + others - CSE2
JakeV - Used assets from TSCExtended and muCave
ikuyo - Used assets from Cave Story Tweaked
My friends, CSMC Discord Server - Feedback & motivation help
eli, yellow, mizuno, Dredged Crusader - Playtesting
jed37 - Melee blade hack for Freeware, who laid the foundations for melee combat rework
ItsYee - Help with text fixes.

* * * * *

Screenshots:​

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

Those screenshots look amazing and definitely sell the uniqueness of the mod! I'll have to set aside some time to play this.

 

This looks ver interesting and original. Definetely going to try it out!

 

So I tried it out, and gotta say it's very well made and original. Keep it up.
But I kinda stuck at guardian boss fight, it become hard when its HP drop lower. Maybe a easy mode ?

 

Hey Nadav! I know it's been almost 2 months since you posted this thread here and the response on these forums has been sparse, but I just wanted you to know that I've had playing this mod on my to-do list since I first saw this, and I just recently found the time to play this mod, so hopefully this feedback is still valuable to you, and you don't feel as if posting here about this mod was a waste.

This is an incredibly well-made and polished mod. It's been a while since I played a mod with this much thought put into the characters, dialogue, and level design and world building. The music fits well with the mod, the unique look and feel shows that you really put forth the effort to make this mod your own creation, and the art direction really shows a great level of care and creative passion that I haven't seen in a mod in a really long time.

You managed to give the mod a fresh feel, and yet it still felt very connected to the Cave Story universe. What really made this mod stand out for me is the characters and world building. I don't know that I've ever played a Cave Story mod before that had such well-made face pictures that are so detailed and do such a good job of capturing the unique personalities of the characters, even when I'm still just getting to know them. The polished dialogue helps a lot too. Even though the English is a bit broken at times, it's very clear that it's not out of some immaturity or sloppiness that you would see from some 11-year-old who comes on and pumps out a half-witted fever dream of a mod; the story was obviously very well thought-out and written in your native language (I'm guessing Russian?), and what I'm playing is obviously the English translation of that.

The combat style was interesting, and something that not many Cave Story mods have tried. It took a bit of getting used to, but it ended up being pretty fun once I got the hang of it. The difficulty is well-curated. I died quite a few times in my playthrough, but I rarely found myself feeling frustrated or feeling as if I was killed unfairly; on the contrary, I would always be able to identify why I died or lost health so quickly, and come back and get markedly farther the next time around. This is a sign of well-made difficulty in a game.

The aesthetics re-use a lot from Cave Story, and yet you still take on your own unique style with the tilesets, scrolling backgrounds, gameplay hazards, and enemies. I especially thought that the statues that come to life and attack you were clever, although I did find them to be a little bit annoying at times.

The custom sound effects were also pretty good. Although I noticed one of them at least isn't original. That one being the jump sound effect, which is taken from WTF? Story, if I'm not mistaken. Nice little homage to GIRakaCHEEZER.

If I had to highlight one major area where there's room for improvement, it's on navigating where to go next, and teaching the player certain mechanics:

Spoiler

I'd have to say my biggest complaint is that it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to light up those torches in that underground room with the four corners. I found myself going to all four corners and no knowing what to do, thinking I had hit dead ends, and that maybe I wouldn't be able to light them up until later in the game, or until I had explored the right area. It wasn't until I explored the 4th one that I realized I needed to figure out what to do to light up these torches. I eventually figured out to light them up with left shift, but I think it should have been easier to figure that out. Maybe it would be good to have some sort of tutorial or practice area where you are faced with one torch, and need to light that one torch to progress, so that the player learns that's how you light torches, and understands how to do it before they reach a point where any backtracking would be incurred by not understanding it.

Also, at first I was a bit confused by the situation with the old Mimiga who told me to go kill the big critter for him. It wasn't obvious to me at all at first that I was supposed to go through his fireplace, and it was only by accident that I ended up going through it and realizing that's where I was supposed to go next.

Another minor issue with the torches, it seems that the "cutscene" of the statue becoming a Mimiga has a glitch. The first torch I ever lit up was the bottom right one, and when I lit it, the camera showed the corresponding statue changing. But then I saved my game, exited out, and when I loaded it again, none of the statues appeared to be Mimigas. But then I went and did the bottom left torch, and then the camera showed the bottom right statue changing. But then I came to the area where the statues were, and the bottom right and top left statues were changed to Mimigas. I think this area needs a bit more testing.

That face picture of Melissa when she's being interrogated by that swordsman; is that supposed to be a picture of her tied up? I could kind of tell what was going on in that picture, but I feel as if there's room for improvement in visually showing that that's what's on her body. The picture makes it look less like she's tied up and more like she's wrapped up in a blanket.

Overall, really fun mod, I enjoyed it a lot.

So, I would like to make a proposition. I see the last version of this mod was in May, are you still up for releasing new versions of this mod? If so, would you like any help with refining the grammar of the English translation? For most of the areas that don't have proper English grammar, it's pretty easy to tell what thought you're trying to express, and it's still pretty clear what the characters' personalities are like. It's really just a matter of having a native English speaker go over the whole thing and smooth it over. Would it be okay if I put together a table of all of the areas where there is improper grammar, and submit a proposed proper grammar equivalent, and you could use that to improve the English translation?

 

Hi Hayden. I'm glad you decided to check this mod.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for feedback and criticism given in your post. I worked for so long trying to come up to some good way to tell a story I had since the middle of mod's development and seeing this was a proof for me that the spent time was worth it.

While reading it I wanted to answer some notes so here they are:

Even though the English is a bit broken at times, it's very clear that it's not out of some immaturity or sloppiness that you would see from some 11-year-old who comes on and pumps out a half-witted fever dream of a mod; the story was obviously very well thought-out and written in your native language (I'm guessing Russian?), and what I'm playing is obviously the English translation of that.

Yeah, the parts of the story I came up to were originally written in Russian (and yes, it is my native language) so what you've seen was indeed a translation (which I thought was pretty perfect lol).
What was kinda ironic is that I aimed to complete it purely on English and then re-translate it into Russian and Japanese.

I died quite a few times in my playthrough, but I rarely found myself feeling frustrated or feeling as if I was killed unfairly; on the contrary, I would always be able to identify why I died or lost health so quickly, and come back and get markedly farther the next time around. This is a sign of well-made difficulty in a game.

The testers (especially yellow) did a great job with noting where I went wrong with bosses, their attacks and stats, same thing with basic enemies. In the first playtester's build bosses had about 1.5-2 times more HP and hit like trucks so it was actually a good idea to initialize the playtesting phase so the mod wouldn't be like Calamity Mod with it's number inflation on it's earlier versions.

If I had to highlight one major area where there's room for improvement, it's on navigating where to go next, and teaching the player certain mechanics:

Spoiler

I'd have to say my biggest complaint is that it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to light up those torches in that underground room with the four corners. I found myself going to all four corners and no knowing what to do, thinking I had hit dead ends, and that maybe I wouldn't be able to light them up until later in the game, or until I had explored the right area. It wasn't until I explored the 4th one that I realized I needed to figure out what to do to light up these torches. I eventually figured out to light them up with left shift, but I think it should have been easier to figure that out. Maybe it would be good to have some sort of tutorial or practice area where you are faced with one torch, and need to light that one torch to progress, so that the player learns that's how you light torches, and understands how to do it before they reach a point where any backtracking would be incurred by not understanding it.

Also, at first I was a bit confused by the situation with the old Mimiga who told me to go kill the big critter for him. It wasn't obvious to me at all at first that I was supposed to go through his fireplace, and it was only by accident that I ended up going through it and realizing that's where I was supposed to go next.

Spoiler

After some time I thought (and kinda saw) some players had troubles with them as well so I tried to place a sign that would hint the player to light the torch in version 1.0.2.0 but I overlooked missing <MSG command on it's event and patched it out in next update. Apparently that didn't help as you still had a trouble with them. Indeed, a tutorial would be helpful but then I need to come up to how it would be appropriate to show the Lamp's ability to light torches without breaking the player's immersion.

About old Mimiga and his pathway: I thought it was already straightforward of him telling that the path to West Yomi Valley is lying through his chimney, then proceeding to extinguish the fire just for Gem to go through it...

Another minor issue with the torches, it seems that the "cutscene" of the statue becoming a Mimiga has a glitch. The first torch I ever lit up was the bottom right one, and when I lit it, the camera showed the corresponding statue changing. But then I saved my game, exited out, and when I loaded it again, none of the statues appeared to be Mimigas. But then I went and did the bottom left torch, and then the camera showed the bottom right statue changing. But then I came to the area where the statues were, and the bottom right and top left statues were changed to Mimigas. I think this area needs a bit more testing.

The sanctuary was put into developement hell for a quite of time so I just wanted to deal with it as soon as possible just to progress with it's story further. Furthermore, for so many times I tested it out I have never encountered it (didn't even think that players would do the described actions). I should look what's causing it and address it in next update.

That face picture of Melissa when she's being interrogated by that swordsman; is that supposed to be a picture of her tied up? I could kind of tell what was going on in that picture, but I feel as if there's room for improvement in visually showing that that's what's on her body. The picture makes it look less like she's tied up and more like she's wrapped up in a blanket.

The "tied/wrapped up" Melissa is just wearing her clothes (specifically a brown shirt), I didn't know how to make it better at the time and so decided to leave her as-is.

So, I would like to make a proposition. I see the last version of this mod was in May, are you still up for releasing new versions of this mod? If so, would you like any help with refining the grammar of the English translation? For most of the areas that don't have proper English grammar, it's pretty easy to tell what thought you're trying to express, and it's still pretty clear what the characters' personalities are like. It's really just a matter of having a native English speaker go over the whole thing and smooth it over. Would it be okay if I put together a table of all of the areas where there is improper grammar, and submit a proposed proper grammar equivalent, and you could use that to improve the English translation?

Yes, I'm up to release some more versions before getting to work on Gem's full plotline. Currently I'm working on his moveset overhaul that would make combat and exploration even more dynamic and fun (I hope). I wish I could place a gif as preview in posts but I don't know how to do it without relying on attachments.
Also, I wouldn't mind to get any help with grammar polishing. I know my knowledge of this language is not perfect (as I rarely get to contact with native English speakers normally even when I'm spending all of my time in this environment) but at least I'm trying my best. So yes, it is okay for you to put a table.

And I think that's it for this reply. Thank you again for playing the mod (and other people who tried it), I'm looking forward to actually finish it! ^^'

EDIT: I think I know how to do it now so here's the preview of what have been done for future update (at least as for June 12, 2023):

Spoiler

 

Even though I haven't gone out of my way to play any CS mods since mid-late 2019 I saw this mod, and it instantly popped out to me.

I saw the screenshots, mainly the map, and said "yeah, this mod has 100% effort put into it, I have to play this.

So I must say, first of all I love the flair in this game. From the text colour being able to change for *effect* to textboxes appearing on the left and right side depending on where somebody is standing in a cutscene, to the aspect ratio bars in cutscenes, to the entire map and menu reworks, to having two slashes the main character swaps between for swings; this mod really REALLY doesn't feel like another dredged up mediocre piece. This one really stand out for going the extra mile in almost every aspect. What sold me the most was the idle animation. It said that you have new ideas, and aren't just bound up by the constraints set by mods from the last decade.

I could go on about the trinkets in this mod (oxygen meter, parallax backgrounds, the ability for a huge critter too knock something out of a tree, boss animations, lighting ect ect ect) but I'll jsut leave it at that. this mod has SO MUCH stuff in it that I absolutely adore, and it really lets the player know that it's something that you really care about making.

I can also say, without any doubt that this is already one of if not the best mods with custom boss fights that I've played. They are really well put together, compliment the mechanics, and actually give a challenge. The bosses have phases, and let you learn how they work as you get better at the boss fight, getting further in. Unlike most mods, I did not defeat the bosses in one or two lives, the last boss of the demo took me 30+ deaths to beat, and it was a very hype moment when I finally did, because it felt like I earned it. Very well done.

I think this mod is absolutely on the next level, and anyone reading this should play it.

The game wasn't a constant high however, there were some parts where there was some mild dipping, that I'll go into now;

Please note that this is my opinion and you should always do what you think is best.

Spoiler: some divulgence into actual areas in the game

Spoiler

The first would be the layout of the dungeons: There is progress and you follow the formula of Introduce mechanic > expand upon the mechanic, but it's fairly linear, and it felt I was spending a bit too much time just waiting for blocks to fall, and defeating the mimiga statues. Things moves forward more when the lava part was introduced, but it was a bit late, and the lava didn't do anything other than serve as a death spike, and the fire spitters were just a more advanced version of the drips from the celling. I think adding one more enemy and *slightly* reducing the size of the dungeon before the lava area would make the area slog less. I would suggest making some fire slime, or magma rock creature, but I'm obviously not familiar with your lore you have setup, and I'm just spit-balling tbh.

The second dungeon doesn't have any changes at all in it. It's very repetitive, and while it is a good test of strength, and the enemy variety is better. Some change of scene through part of it (maybe a slightly outdoor section so you can see the moonlight? You are going up in the dungeon mostly, so seeing some windows and fighting the boss at the end in a less drab place would be nice, you have some very pretty lighting effects back in the starting village so why not put them to use here?!

As for combat, it's a really nice rework. I really appreciate how it's more melee focused, and how you still have more ranged options with the sword charge. There is however, one thing I *really* think should be tweaked. It's the strafing, or more importantly, the auto strafing.

When you start swinging your sword, your direction locks for a little bit, and you can't turn around. This is really good, and necessary for some enemies *however* it was a bit burdensome in some parts, especially during the last boss. I was trying to turn around to hit foes behind me, but I would instead not turn around, and then I would bump into a foe instead of slashing it to make the way through. It's a bit cumbersome not being able to slash again the other direction as quickly, and having at least a toggle to make strafing mapped to a button (possibly CTRL or SPACE?) in the menu would be a very good idea. giving players more control is usually better than having auto mechanics get in the way for those who do not want it.

Other than that, all I can say is stuff related to the dialogue. It's rather rough, but I did find some lines very humorous such as "How did it went?" and it made me start to contemplate how inconsistent and messed up English really is.


I hope this information finds you well, and you end up finishing this mod! You've made it two years in already, and you are doing very very good. I hope you continue to find joy in making this mod, and let it be one of the best dungeon/boss/melee CS mods to exist.

 

The first major update just got released, v1.1.0.0!

What you can expect from it:

Spoiler: Changes and additions

- Overhauled moveset!
Gem can now perform some moves in attempt of making gameplay more dynamic and fun.
Here's what he can do:

Spoiler: Dash

By doing this move Gem will thrust down extra fast, allowing him to make surprise attacks or dodge attacks efficiently.

Spoiler: Swirl

Gem will perform swirly swing, allowing him to break out of enemy cornering or collect many pickups.

Spoiler: Dodge Dash

Got yourself in not very good situation? There's a solution for you in Dodge Dash! It allows you to ignore all danger while being mid-air.

Spoiler: Walljump

It's always fun to keep bouncing from the walls here and there, so Gem trained himself to do the same thing!

- Overhauled Rage Mode!
Gem's aura became stronger with months of practicing, allowing him to pack more enhanced attacks instead of just increasing his strength. Each attack has it's own empowered version.

- Tutorial!
Just to get familiar with new gameplay mechanics Tsuko decided to give Gem some valuable lessons he knows.
It's optional but recommended for new players.

Some minor changes:
- New title screen
- Many QOL changes
- Two new bosses
- Bug fixes

It supposed to be another minor update, but it has almost 60 changes to it, so it would be better to raise it's tier to major one.
While releasing it though I noticed some issues in it. Sorry for rushing things up, few of them will be fixed with new bug-fix version.

Thanks for understanding and your support. Have a nice day and comfortable gameplay!

 

i love the artstyle so much it looks so niceee good job

 

Alrighty. This mod. This freaking fantastic mod.


This is one I've seen for awhile now, and by face-value alone, it looked great. I played it a little bit several months ago, but didn't finish it. In fact, I didn't get past the starting village. I can't exactly say why, but in all honesty, this mod's gameplay style doesn't appeal to me.
I'm not a fan of melee combat, spells/consumable power meters, or movement combos, all of which this mod puts at its very foundation.
Now, mind you, it implements these features well, so if there's anyone who reads this and likes those gameplay mechanics, well, you'll enjoy it a lot better than me.

After some time had passed, I expected people to talk quite a bit about this mod. After all, it was a heavily polished Cave Story mod with new mechanics, plots, and NPCs. It has all the right ingredients, I figured the general community would go bonkers for that. Well... things were pretty quiet, at lest for my expectations.

Now that I've got a break, I figured now would be a good time to play this mod and review it, because as we all know, being critical of a work is extremely important, if not more important than the work itself, because all the time and effort in the world by the creator mean nothing if the reviewer happens to dislike it. (do you smell sarcasm? Good. Because that was.)



Ok. Review time.

First off, there is an impressive amount of detail in this mod.
Here's some of the notable features I noticed while playing the mod that aren't needed, but all add together to make a shiny-polished experience indeed:

• Character voice tones change depending on who's talking.
• Text color changes when important aspects are mentioned.
• The screen goes into theatre mode whenever player movement is locked, adding to dramatic effect.
• In the village, you can talk to the other Mimiga NPCs, but if one is in front of something important like a sign or door, you interact with the object instead of the NPC.
• The PC blinks when walking and looking up or down, and progressively becomes damaged as HP declines.
• The PC's weapon swings from either side, instead of just using just one animation. When I spam it, it makes me feel like I'm in a sissy-slap-fight with whatever foe I get close enough to keyboard smash on. (This is a compliment by the way.)
• When you do a powerDash™, Gravity applies to how long you roll along the ground, including on slopes. I amused myself perhaps too much trying to roll Gem down the biggest hills I could find.
• Wall pushing animation for when the PC walks into a wall. (Which when I saw it, thought it would be great for use with physics puzzles)
• Direction change smoking when the PC "skids" to a halt and moves the other way.
• Sprite rotation and scaling are used extensively to enhance bosses and enemies
• There is tinted lighting and shadow effects throughout the mod.
• Layers mode has been re-fitted to make parallax backgrounds composed of tilesets.
• Subtle level-design hints, like arrowheads in the wall around where you need to use the bow
• Localizations other than English (I don't speak anything other than English, but it is nice that they're there, especially for an "unfinished" demo)
• Rock-Solid menus with intuitive navigation. (And as I've made a few CS menus in my day, I know the code for these gets really messy really quickly)
• Polished-out death sequence
• Intriguing intro splash-screen that only happens when the program is first launched.
• Custom enemies and bosses with their own dynamic movement patterns. (OK, this one is a bit more essential than the others)

I made it all the way to the first boss before the difficulty curve exceeded my skill level and I started doing my favorite videogame activity: Cheating profusely.
With this particular mod, I didn't touch the datafiles, but I modified the save file to give myself all the hearts, money, and consumables I cared to fit into a 4 byte integer.
With the bombs, arrows, and money, this was obviously excessive relative to this short mod's few places to use them, but without the money, I don't know how long it would have taken me to get the materials needed in a legitimate manner.

With the lives however, I needed every last 255 of them. As I progressed in the game, each boss's hp count got progressively larger, but my weapon selection remained the same. I think it may have been easier if the sword was at level 3, but with all the damage I was tanking, it hardly got to level 2. Additionally, the bosses followed a trend of having very quick attacks with only small breaks in between, meaning I could only get a few 1 damage hits in before the boss started lobbing crap at me again.

Now I state this again, that this type of game is not my forte, as well as videogames in general, so I'm probably doing something wrong, or missing a heavy-hitting combo or something. All I know is that I got the impression that all the enemies were very tanky relative to my feeble sword. Towards the end of the mod, I started using my extravagant bomb arsenal more than the actual sword.
In the game sprite-sheets, I saw something that looked like a riffle. Now, if I got to play with that...


Now, to disclose some of the problems I discovered while playing this thing

Spoiler: Problem areas

It's already been stated that the English translation is a little rough, so I won't beat a dead horse. I just find it odd, since in all times I've seen you talk or type, I haven't noticed any sort of grammar issues like the ones in the mod. They can easily be overlooked, though.

With the addition of wall jumping, there are new opportunities for soft-locking the game. I discovered one such area in the cave entrance in the Mimiga temple, where you can wall-jump up the top of the entrance hole and fall off the side of the map.

Additionally, I encountered some strange TSC glitches toward the end of the demo. This image is one of two that I experienced when fighting the plant critter. The event problems didn't seem to mess up any flags or backend processes, though.


IIRC the other happened when I collected the key.


This next bit isn't a problem so much as it is a funny inconsistency.
If Gem is the only mimiga with a reputation for being violent, then why is there an entire store dedicated to selling murder weapons? And why did they run out of stock? Who else is buying these things? What dark secret is that weapon vendor is hiding?

So all in all, this is a solid mod, even if it is just a demo. It sets a pretty good benchmark of final quality I should aspire (and often fail) to reach, even if the gameplay style isn't my favorite.

 

This mod is mindblowing and I'm so excited to play it again! You did a real good job on this update, please continue working on this!

 

The v1.2.0.0 update is finally here after 9 months of work!

Long story short:

Spoiler: Short list of changes

- A bit of new content after defeating former demo's final boss.
- New quest system: now you'll be able to get quests and keep track of active ones with the ability to check upon their additional info if selected
- Elemental resistances: some of the enemies will now have the immunity to one elements and weakness to the others. You better watch out with them though, as elements of the same type will heal the enemy!
- Status effects for Gem: many of them may heavily impact on Gem's well-being via poisoning, slowing effects, food, etc.
- New HUD style.
- A few new weapons.
- A few new bosses (plus secret one, I wonder if you can find them ;3).
- Many QoL changes.
- Many bug fixes of varying severity.

Thanks for your feedback throughout the lifespan of MA:EA, looking forward to make it even more EPIC than it already is!

 

游戏难度非常高，好像从上次更新了之后，剑气范围越来越短了，但相对似乎提升了攻击力（虽然我更喜欢射程长一些）
The difficulty of the game is very high. It seems that since the last update, the range of sword energy for remote attacks has become shorter and shorter, but it seems to have improved the attack power relatively (although I prefer a longer range)