Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogatari

EDIT: I have actually been working on this from time to time! In about 2 months, I have created 3 more levels! (No, I'm not very productive. I want to get at least one more done over this winter break...)
I introduce spikes and keys. Let me know what you think and give me suggestions of new puzzle elements; I have a bunch already but feedback always helps!

Download me!
I removed all sound effects; except for grabbing a key and text. Also, I NEED someone to make or send me an epic .org; it can sound like elevator music or anything really; I need something, at least for now.


Original Post:
Well, see, I had this idea a few weeks ago. If any of you have ever heard of the game Shift, the puzzle platformer on Armor Games, the iPhone, etc, I was watching a friend of mine play it one day and thought of Cave Story. I wondered: What would happen if I put these two together??

Well, after a few weeks of heavy school work-filled weekends, I decided to use my modding skills to create Shift Story!

...rather, begin to create Shift Story. Currently, only the first level (ripped straight from Shift 1) is existent. After a bunch of graphics editing I rendered the health and exp bars invisible. (not a great fix because now the numbers 1 and 0 are invisible in the Air counter and in the version number. Since I don't know how to hack the actual GUI of the game, I just made all of the graphics black. Not the best solution, but the easiest.

Now, for some screenshots!

The title screen:

--

The intro level (no shifting in here!)

--

The first level!

--

The same spot after shifting in the first level!


--


I want to thank GIRakaCheezer and Noxid for helping me with a few noobish TSC problems I was having.

Gameplay of the REAL Shift:




Play the REAL Shift.



DOWNLOAD

Have fun, and let me know what you think! (it's REALLY short)

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

Nice idea, I can't wait for the rest of it.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

Nice. I'll have to try it out.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

My only complaint (and a minor one at that) Is the sudden jump when you shift, how the screen doesn't rotate or anything. But i could get use to that. Make some epic org to go with it, and you're set!

Oh, also, the walking noise slowy drove me insane. COnsider removing that?

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

My only complaint (and a minor one at that) Is the sudden jump when you shift, how the screen doesn't rotate or anything. But i could get use to that. Make some epic org to go with it, and you're set!

Oh, also, the walking noise slowy drove me insane. COnsider removing that?

Screen rotating is, unfortunately, impossible with the way I'm doing this. I was considering using a Flash effect between each shift, but, I figured that would get even more annoying.

As for an epic song: I know I need one, but I can't make music in CS for the life of me...I'd need to either copy a midi of an already existing shift song, or get someone else to make it.

Removing footstep sound effects...hm. I would need to consult Noxid or GIR or someone who knows how to handle sound effects, because I honestly have no idea how.

Thanks for playing!

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

You're welcome.

@screen flip: If there is any way at all to make this happen, I highly recommend it. If not, then hey, it works.

@footsteps: all you have to do is replace the WAV of walking with a blank WAV, not a very difficult hack. A vast improvement, though.

One more thing:
I loved the clear text boxes, however it presents some visibility issues.
•My suggestion: make the text box filled in black, with a white border perhaps. Make the boundries visible, and the text as well.
•A more complex suggestion make a "print" tsc command, that prints text at coordinates X,Y. A midly difficult hack.
•An easier, simpler, and more true to the original suggestion: just draw the text into the tileset. It would make it look just like the original game, plus you can do neat stuff like upside-down text (like in the original game)

the last one is the best option, IMO.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

A very good concept for a mod.

An easier, simpler, and more true to the original suggestion: just draw the text into the tileset. It would make it look just like the original game, plus you can do neat stuff like upside-down text (like in the original game)

Agreed.

 

You're welcome.

@screen flip: If there is any way at all to make this happen, I highly recommend it. If not, then hey, it works.

@footsteps: all you have to do is replace the WAV of walking with a blank WAV, not a very difficult hack. A vast improvement, though.

One more thing:
I loved the clear text boxes, however it presents some visibility issues.
•My suggestion: make the text box filled in black, with a white border perhaps. Make the boundries visible, and the text as well.
•A more complex suggestion make a "print" tsc command, that prints text at coordinates X,Y. A midly difficult hack.
•An easier, simpler, and more true to the original suggestion: just draw the text into the tileset. It would make it look just like the original game, plus you can do neat stuff like upside-down text (like in the original game)

the last one is the best option, IMO.

A: I'm PRETTY sure Cave Story uses .pxt for sound effects, not .wav.

B: I was thinking about doing this, but the problem is there is only so much room in each tileset. (I would end up copy pasting each tileset into the next one (Cave, Gard, etc) and just adding new text. For 40 maps, and like 2/3 have text on then, I just don't think there's enough room. (I use a combo of Photoshop elements 6 and Ms paint for tileset editing; both of then suck at text.)

Simple solution: Use <MS3 instead of <MSG; text box will appear at the top. I can't make the textbox clear, because if it happens to be placed onto a white section of the map, it'll be unreadable. Sorry.

 

A: I'm PRETTY sure Cave Story uses .pxt for sound effects, not .wav.

B: I was thinking about doing this, but the problem is there is only so much room in each tileset. (I would end up copy pasting each tileset into the next one (Cave, Gard, etc) and just adding new text. For 40 maps, and like 2/3 have text on then, I just don't think there's enough room. (I use a combo of Photoshop elements 6 and Ms paint for tileset editing; both of then suck at text.)

Simple solution: Use <MS3 instead of <MSG; text box will appear at the top. I can't make the textbox clear, because if it happens to be placed onto a white section of the map, it'll be unreadable. Sorry.

you misunderstand, I think.
The text box should be black, NOT clear.
Also, the pallette has plenty of room, and you could just make other tilesets, it would definitely be worth it.

 

A: I'm PRETTY sure Cave Story uses .pxt for sound effects, not .wav.

Then just replace the .pxt in game with a blank pxt file. Shouldn't be too hard if you use SeaTone's pusher and puller for replacing sfx (which is available on the tribute site).

Also, I changed the title for you.

 

Thank you for making this thread :> This mod has a heap of potential. In fact the idea of a puzzle mod has been really underused in general. I'll definitely have to look into that, yessum.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

you misunderstand, I think.
The text box should be black, NOT clear.
Also, the pallette has plenty of room, and you could just make other tilesets, it would definitely be worth it.

No misunderstanding here: the problem is that Cave Story interprets pure black AS clear -__-. I tried to get as close as possible to black without it actually being black...


I could try, It's just quite annoying to use like every tileset. I need to make room for all of the items I plan to use as well, and even then each piece of text would need to be doubled; one upside down and one upright. Painful.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

No misunderstanding here: the problem is that Cave Story interprets pure black AS clear -__-. I tried to get as close as possible to black without it actually being black...

i think he knew that, he just meant reallyreallyreally dark gray or blue or brown or something, like Pixel does for eyes.

I could try, It's just quite annoying to use like every tileset. I need to make room for all of the items I plan to use as well, and even then each piece of text would need to be doubled; one upside down and one upright. Painful.

you know you could make new tilesets...

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

I tried the mod out, I could write a long review but I'm lazy so I'll just say my one complaint. Sometimes it would shift on my first click, but that's understandable because entities work in weird ways.

 

Re: Shift Story - Tenzuru Monogotari

No misunderstanding here: the problem is that Cave Story interprets pure black AS clear -__-. I tried to get as close as possible to black without it actually being black...

oh.
The text box comes up clear for me.
If you want it to be black, make it absolute black, then add 13 green on the sliders, like pixel does.

I could try, It's just quite annoying to use like every tileset. I need to make room for all of the items I plan to use as well

are you planning on making more items than in the original shift?
Because those would not take up too much space.

and even then each piece of text would need to be doubled; one upside down and one upright. Painful.

copy text>paste text>rotate 180°

it would take time, but isn't the point of a mod to make it good? o:

 

oh.
The text box comes up clear for me.
If you want it to be black, make it absolute black, then add 13 green on the sliders, like pixel does.

What do you mean it comes up clear for you?

I'll try the black + 13 green idea. Sounds good to me.

are you planning on making more items than in the original shift?
Because those would not take up too much space.

Let's see...I have 12 tiles dedicated to doors, have 4 dedicated to spikes, need 1-2 for those key things, need 1-2 more for a new item I'm planning to add...

Plus the 6 already dedicated to regular tiles leaves actually quite a bit of room...then consider that both regular and upside down, the text will take up 8 tiles or so per message. That leaves room for like 5 messages per tileset, maybe more?

I like the textbox idea; it's so much easier...but still, we'll see.

copy text>paste text>rotate 180°

it would take time, but isn't the point of a mod to make it good? o:

We'll see...I like the idea, I just don't know if I could make enough room and both of my image editors suck for text editing. Still,
It's a possibility.

 

Quick status update: I finished the second level! It introduces spikes and ups the difficulty curve a little. I've got a few interesting ideas for later levels (never seen in a Shift game before) and I am pretty sure they're 100% possible to do with TSC, no issues at all.

I suppose I'll submit a demo every 10 levels or so; I need 2 maps per level, there are 94 maps altogether, minus 2; one for the intro and one for the ending level, which leaves you with 92 maps; 46 levels. 4 demoes and then the final game. I have no clue how long it'll take me; the second level took maybe an hour of work (had to add sprites and such).

Any questions? This mod will get pretty challenging; that's for sure.

 

I really really like this game. I havn't seen a full on puzzle game made from Cave Story, and since you have the basic idea down this is really promising. I don's believethe tile sets would too hard for you, you only really need one, and if you want to add text to any of them, make a copy of the tile set, add the text and use that one for a map. The playability is there, I think youjust need to experiment with music, "you'll fail alot before you make something nice."

 

I really really like this game. I havn't seen a full on puzzle game made from Cave Story, and since you have the basic idea down this is really promising. I don's believethe tile sets would too hard for you, you only really need one, and if you want to add text to any of them, make a copy of the tile set, add the text and use that one for a map. The playability is there, I think youjust need to experiment with music, "you'll fail alot before you make something nice."

I'm doing this text thing after EVERYTHING else is said and done. At the rate I'm adding things, I don't know if I'll have room for text in any tileset. Textboxes are the "story" in Shift Story, and they have such a small effect on gameplay that I don't find them at all necessary. Not really worth the effort, if you ask me.

Level design is in progress. If my friend designs a level or two, I'm at 10 levels. These are drawn in a notebook, not put into the game. I even have a giant Quote sprite as a level. It's looking awesome.

While keys are coming back, rotating locks will be very scarce. They're painful (coding wise), to be honest.

 

I updated the main post with a link to my first demo! It has 4 levels. It's a bit harder than I imagined. Give me feedback!