The Official CSTSF Discord Group and CS Modding Community Modding Competition! (MODCON '17)

It's that time once again, folks! Welcome one and all to...
The Official Cave Story Tribute Site Forums Discord Group and Cave Story Modding Community Modding Competition!
(aka modcon 2017)

Modcon is the annual Cave Story Community Modding series where you work hard, submit your entry, and earn fabulous prizes!​

To start things off: this contest is a collaboration between the Cave Story Tribute Site Forums Discord Group and the Cave Story Modding Community. All official announcements will be made in the first server, and the most important announcements will be mirrored in the second server as well as in this thread. Please join one or both servers if you intend to enter the contest! Most discussion will be happening in these two servers. We encourage you to join and to ask for feedback and advice as you work on your entries.

The organizational panel for this contest is composed of duncathan, BLink, Tpcool, and EnlightenedOne. If you have any questions, come find any of us on Discord, or send a forum PM if you really need. Discord is preferable, however.
In addition, we've had help from diachromatic/Doors and Polaris in our discussions, as well as input from DoubleThink, who will be in charge of judging.

Prizes!

Spoiler

This year, prizes will be awarded in a brand new way. In previous years, prizes were awarded based on a combination of a panel of judges and a community vote. Both of those factors will remain, but they will be separated. The primary awards (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) will be awarded only by the scores assigned by the judges. In addition to these primary awards, we will now have a brand new people's choice award! The community vote will decide which mod has the most merit, and will earn the prize!

Pending the success of the people's choice category, we hope to expand the category to have as many prizes as the primary category. This is unfortunately not feasible this year, but we hope that in the coming years it will be.

With that in mind, allow us to elaborate on the prizes:

Spoiler

Less than 20 entrants

Judged category   |   People's Choice category
1st. $30          |   1st. $30
2nd. $15          |
3rd. $5           |

20 or more entrants

Judged category   |   People's Choice category
1st. $45          |   1st. $45
2nd. $25          |
3rd. $15          |
4th. $10          |
5th. $5           |

What's more, all entries which earn a cash prize will have their mod streamed by duncathan to help show the winners off!
If any additional non-cash prizes (steam keys, art commisions, etc) are donated, they will be awarded on a "first-dibs" basis starting with 1st place, then the people's choice winner, then the rest of the winners in order.

Contest Rules
(look at these!!!!!!)

Spoiler

1. Asset modification and creation (graphics, sound, etc) are allowed and encouraged.
2. ASM hacks are permitted.
3. External loading of .dll hacks via NICE are permitted.
4. External loading of .dll hacks via Clownacy's hook are not permitted. Inquire for more details.
5. Assets made before June 1st, 2017 are allowed.
6. Complete .pxe, .pxm, and .tsc files made before June 1st, 2017 are not allowed.
7. Direct collaborations (joint efforts with intent to split the prize) between modders are not allowed.

Submissions and Scoring

Spoiler

Judges and scoring rubrics are to be determined. The judging panel is being organized by DoubleThink without direct input from the organizational panel for this contest to prevent any conflict of interest.

The final deadline for entry submission is September 1st, 4:00 PM CST (not CDT). It is advisable to make at least one submission a week or more before this deadline so as to gather feedback and make adjustments before the deadline. Mods can be submitted via PM to EnlightenedOne or via Discord DM to Enlight#4349. You may elect to submit your mod under a pseudonym or anonymously. You may also post a forum thread for your mod, so long as you notify Enlight whenever you release a new version for submission. You may submit your entry as many times as you would like until the deadline.

The community vote will be detailed as we approach the deadline. Watch for more details!

Now that all that administrative nonsense is out of the way...

It's time for The Theme!

Spoiler

This year, our theme is tropical!

• Mods must be centered around a tropical theme. Participants may interpret this as they wish.
• Mods must be short, focusing on quality over quantity. Try to aim for less than 20 minutes.
• The contest is designed to improve modding design practices. As such, fundamentals (level design, art design, sound design) are the focus in this contest. Try to better yourself in order to create higher quality content.

Remember: modcon is a time of year to bring the community together and embrace what brought us here. Modding might be described as the "lifeblood" of these forums, and we wish to nurture the modding community and watch it grow into something even more amazing than it already is. We strongly recommend once more that you join the Cave Story Modding Community discord and the CSTSF Discord Group (links are further up in the post) since a whole bunch of the active modding community is in there. Show off your works-in-progress for the contest! Get feedback and advice! Helping out others is what keeps the community alive, so be sure to take part in it with the rest of us. Finally, above all, make sure to have fun. That's what video games are for, isn't it?

Good luck, everyone!

 

oh boy another modcon time to start on my 10th mod

 

I'll be participating.

 

HECK THIS WHAT 10000 FEET UNDER ISN'T TROPICAL THEMED PFFT SCREWIT TIME 4 NEW MOD!!

 

SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

 

Oh wow, three months? Sounds like a strangely long time, but it's a lot better than being too short. Anyways, I am very eager to participate even if I'm already juggling another mod. Tropical could be pretty fun to design for.

 

I will see if I can get some open-source beach tilesets or pineapple sprites released for anybody to use to get the ball rolling.

(Or just throw grass skirts on everyone in NPCRegu...)

 

Will you post the submissions and/or results here as well?

 

Will you post the submissions and/or results here as well?

Since I'm gonna be the one receiving all the submissions (including anonymous ones), I'll be compiling an archive for the judges and for the public pretty much right after the deadline hits (and when I'm assuming the community vote will open). Entrants are allowed and actually encouraged to openly post threads and demos to receive feedback, and I guess in a case-by-case basis we could possibly have those compiled here while the event is underway.

As for it actually being in the thread itself... I wouldn't know. Dunc is kinda in charge of the event itself and community voting, BLink with prizes, me with submissions, and DoubleThink with judges, of course with all of us working with each-other. I would like to think the most logical thing is the OP being updated with these as the time rolls on.

 

Alright uh
Because of all the arguments there's been going on with ASM and DLLs and unfair advantages, I will be offering to make ASM hacks for those who are either experiencing compatibility issues with NICE (Probably unlikely), others' ASM hacks, or just want a new ASM hack altogether. Please note, however that I will not accept requests to make a new Clownacy DLL loader, simply because of the way it's organized (The DLLs are loaded by DLLs loaded by an ASM patch). I will usually be able to complete hacks that any of you request from me; NPCs, weapons/bullets, tiles, GUIs, etc, but keep in mind that I have other things to do, as well as my own submission to the modcon. I am doing this for the better of the community, and to make this modcon more fun and fair for all participants.
So basically, instead of rambling about ASM being unfair, consider asking me to make a patch for you. Some others (for example BLink) might also be able to help you with smaller, usually NPC hacks, when I'm offline or busy.

 

Interesting, so we actually have a theme this year huh
I'm assuming since NICE is allowed then the injection-style dll stuff i did for you've got mail would also be fine? Not sure what the limitation is

 

Interesting, so we actually have a theme this year huh
I'm assuming since NICE is allowed then the injection-style dll stuff i did for you've got mail would also be fine? Not sure what the limitation is

Yes it is, because it's only Clownacy's hook that is not allowed, to prevent people who don't know anything about it taking advantages of others who have compatibility issues with the hook.

 

While I shan't make any discussion about the contest rules yet, I am going to make something very clear about the site itself right now. I am not remotely going to tolerate the the level of argumentative screwery that took place here during last years' proceedings, and infractions/tempbans will be thrown around as much as I have to to keep discussion at least semi-civil. I should think I have shown by now that nobody is beyond reproach when I make statements like this, including anyone who wants to try to backseat or act like they have authority that they don't. Between what happened last year, the over-aggressive state of discussion on a lot of other sites and my own current personal situation, my patience for pointless arguing is lower than it has been for several years and I will not take kindly to its testing.

To attempt to sum up what I particularly don't want to see, don't use negative language or feedback in a way that discourages open discussion (i.e. keep it impersonal), don't be inflammatory or passive-aggressive and avoid personal accusations. If you're bad at handling or avoiding that sort of thing, keep it off the forums. You have more control than you think, particularly when it comes to responding to someone else. I really don't want to indirectly push all of this onto the Discord channel either (although it's probably going to happen there anyway), but one way or another contests can't keep happening like this. There's almost no worse time for constant arguing than when we're supposed to be trying to put our best foot forward as a community. I never want to end up on the warpath, if the whole event can run smoothly without intervention I'd be over the moon. Hopefully everyone will catch this so they can't say they weren't told, even though I'm not going to be targetting anything outside what would usually be considered acceptable in the first place.

Now have fun

 

Rip Zxin's reviews. Rest in spaghetti, never forgetti.

 

In addition to DT's comment, we will also be very strict in maintaining a certain level of civility within our Discord servers when it comes to this contest. Play nice.

 

While I shan't make any discussion about the contest rules yet, I am going to make something very clear about the site itself right now. I am not remotely going to tolerate the the level of argumentative screwery that took place here during last years' proceedings, and infractions/tempbans will be thrown around as much as I have to to keep discussion at least semi-civil. I should think I have shown by now that nobody is beyond reproach when I make statements like this, including anyone who wants to try to backseat or act like they have authority that they don't. Between what happened last year, the over-aggressive state of discussion on a lot of other sites and my own current personal situation, my patience for pointless arguing is lower than it has been for several years and I will not take kindly to its testing.

To attempt to sum up what I particularly don't want to see, don't use negative language or feedback in a way that discourages open discussion (i.e. keep it impersonal), don't be inflammatory or passive-aggressive and avoid personal accusations. If you're bad at handling or avoiding that sort of thing, keep it off the forums. You have more control than you think, particularly when it comes to responding to someone else. I really don't want to indirectly push all of this onto the Discord channel either (although it's probably going to happen there anyway), but one way or another contests can't keep happening like this. There's almost no worse time for constant arguing than when we're supposed to be trying to put our best foot forward as a community. I never want to end up on the warpath, if the whole event can run smoothly without intervention I'd be over the moon. Hopefully everyone will catch this so they can't say they weren't told, even though I'm not going to be targetting anything outside what would usually be considered acceptable in the first place.

Now have fun

In addition to DT's comment, we will also be very strict in maintaining a certain level of civility within our Discord servers when it comes to this contest. Play nice.

Fantastic posts guys. It would be highly preferable to also attempt to prevent any sort of arguments within the discord servers as well. Things can be volatile while competitions and prizes are in the ring, but as a community we should all make sure that this is for having fun and bringing the community together as a whole. Any sort of reoccurring toxic arguments, flaming, or belittling is not permitted in the CS Modding Community Discord Group. Me, Enlightened, Txin and the rest of our staff will be taking this into account for our server.

Hope you guys have fun, sounds like this is going to be a good contest this year. So, let's keep it that way!

 

Hey, I've made a generic "beach" tileset for anyone who wants it, but I can't figure out how to save it with a separate name from the original tileset I edited (just renaming the files doesn't work).
If anyone knows how, I can get it renamed and fully useable really soon, and post it here for anyone who needs some help getting started there.

 

Hey, I've made a generic "beach" tileset for anyone who wants it, but I can't figure out how to save it with a separate name from the original tileset I edited (just renaming the files doesn't work).
If anyone knows how, I can get it renamed and fully useable really soon, and post it here for anyone who needs some help getting started there.

Oh yeah, in order for a tileset to work, you need the pxa file with the same name.

 

Oh yeah, in order for a tileset to work, you need the pxa file with the same name.

Oh yeah. I'll do that, and upload it in a bit, then.
EDIT: Copying the renamed tileset over to a different mod doesn't seem to be working, even with matching pxa, pxe, and even tsc files. Not sure what I'm missing.

 

Did you also make a copy of the .pxa file that corresponds to the original bitmap? The bitmap should be PrtName.bmp and the .pxa file should be Name.pxa, like Name part is the same in both files.