The Witching Hour

~ The Witching Hour: Cave Story Mod ~

Here's a mod I've been working on recently.

Download Links
Witching Hour Demo 1.21
Witching Hour Demo 1.2
Witching Hour Demo 1.1
Witching Hour Demo 1.0

Mirror Links
Demo v1.21
Demo v1.1
Demo v1.0

Screens:

Comments/suggestions/feedback and such are welcome.

 

Ooh shiny!

I enjoy the artwork and resprites, they (especially the main character facepic) are really nice!

I'm not exactly the best respriter, JEALOUS!

 

Woah, looks nice.

Too bad my mom spilled OJ on my laptop so I won't be playing this mod lol

 

Downloading...
EDIT: Cool mod with nice music and graphics. I am stuck at the portal puzzle - please help. I`ll write a review when I finish the mod.

 

Ooo new mod -downloads-
EDIT: Really nice art grannys facepic could use a little work though
Darn angry faced obelisks... Well when will mods cease to amaze me? Never I suppose. Keep up the good work. I haven't finished it yet.

 

Woah, looks nice.

Too bad my mom spilled OJ on my laptop so I won't be playing this mod lol

The $1,000 Orange Juice

Not something to lol about.

Sorry about that, man.......

 

Looks good. Downloading...

 

The $1,000 Orange Juice

Not something to lol about.

Sorry about that, man.......

Yeah...The laptop had a more sentimental value since we had it for almost five years. Well a new one's comming up next month (too bad it's widescreen). Anyways I'm having trouble in the puzzle too, any tips?

 

Maybe the puzzle is too difficult (does involve a bit of trial and error).

Some hints if you're really stuck:

Spoiler

-You cannot start the puzzle without the Wand of Portals.
-One book located inside the room with the bookshelves contains clues as to how to solve the puzzle. The other two contain historical information.
-Each portal must be set in a certain order. If you screw up the order, the puzzle resets (sorta).
-You can save in the middle of the puzzle. It should always be solvable no matter what you do.

 

Thanks, I tried the hints but still stuck. I`m terrible at puzzles. Want to continue playing the mod though...

 

I beat it! Took awhile, but that clue you placed in the library barely seems like a clue at all unless you look at it in the right context

Anyways things I liked:
-Assembly hacks, which there could've been more of but they were good
-New music was good
-Storyline was good too, and felt like it was progressing at a steady pace
-New cave graphics in the mountain town area
-Enemies in the forest area were cool, although the floating eye/ball thing is a bit fast horizontally, you might want to slow him down. Also the spikey jumpy dudes seemed hard at first, but then I realized that because they jump and bounce off of walls there are inevitably some places they can't reach.
-The fairy portal puzzle. Was pretty interesting.

Things that could use some improvement:
-The outside of the library/hotel looks a bit plain, might want to use some new graphics there.
-The background of the forest area kinda bothers me, since it looks a bit too 2D and repetitive.
-The second boss, the "evil eye" or something. It was a good boss, but it was a tad plain in its attack patterns. Maybe make it spawn some entities or something else.
-The fairy portal puzzle. You should try to make it more obvious, maybe have an npc hint at which book you're supposed to use or something.
-The mountain town village music sounds a bit weird, like you messed up on the notes or something. It's the music from Zelda Oot (Goron City) right? Try to fix it a bit I guess, since yours didn't sound quite that natural.

[EDIT]: Also the crossbow arrows shouldn't accelerate like the missiles. They should reach their maximum speed instantaneously, since that's more or less what a real arrow does.

 

Okay.....
I'm stuck on

Spoiler

the portal puzzle.
I've revealed the hidden tenth portal and the 2 blocks in the center, but all the other portals do is take away the bottom block. What do I do?

 

I think it's bad that I haven't even finished playing A Lost Land yet D: Anyway,

ED SPEELERS

-New music! Always a bonus. Can't quite place the title screen music, but the first cutscene sounds like a Moonsong remix, and then... SoM!
-Hey she's even called Luka! And HOLY CRAP IS THAT 7TH SAGA? I just finished playing that the other day.
-The facepics are nicely done, I really like anything hand-drawn. First boss battle is pretty standard, the thingies that give you exp are a nice though.
-First dungeon has really good enemy placement, especially with what I shall now refer to as the Evil Fuzzies.
-I'll wait until the end to comment on the story. In the meantime, a moving options room? How considerate!
-In the portal puzzle, you can activate one of the portals repeatedly to spawn endless copies of the second portal. As for the puzzle itself, I managed to solve it eventually. It's cool how it saves your progess... once you figure out that it actually does
-The way the second boss makes it hard to judge his attacks is really well-done, and I like how his eye flashes while he moves. The arena's a bit plain though, some hazards or an uneven floor would make it a really energetic fight.
-AUTUMN FESTIVAL WOO WOO
-Nice portal effect, but now I can't remember where this desert music comes from >_>
-That first jumpy face Skeleton-wannabe thing is placed really awkwardly, you pretty much have to wait for him to shuffle down through the thin passage before you can shoot him properly, but I guess there's a save just after that.
-Minor nitpick about the Crossbow in addition to what GIR said: they normally shoot bolts, not arrows

The story and dialogue so far is well-written and interesting; considering fairies abound it could be a lot lamer. The hacked enemies all have really fresh attack patterns, the challenge level is pretty balanced, and the new graphics and designs are tight. It's fun to recognise all the music, but they sound a bit out of place sometimes and a few of the instruments don't match up so well. The number of changes and effort you've put in in such a short time is really impressive though, this is a big step up from A Lost Land (not that it was bad or anything). I didn't know you could hax like this! I await the next update and FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF SOUND.

Speaking of ALL, I'll might be able to update the Quickie Guide this week, provided I can finish off all the mods I need to. My contest entry will have to wait until the holidays though methinks

 

I am impress.
Quite.

Anyways:

- First boss was fun and challenging, for a Balrog (Power Room) edit. Though is it normal for said Balrog to hyper-accelerate towards you?
- Portal puzzle was easy. Almost too easy. The book in the library helped.
- Those hyper-accelerated fuzzballs of -10 are pretty awesome in their own right, though the placement of the first one makes it pretty easy to avoid.
- CURSES! CURSED AGAIN! Nice touch. Really screws over easy mode, too. (To make it worse, you could have them <ZAM you while on hard mode. Or for a REALLY nice touch, make them pop out of nowhere, right in your jump path. XD)
- Oh wow. Queen Jelly boss. Half-expected it to drop =Eyeball Juice=, though. XD
- "Wet sand? In my desert?" Really, though. Nice touch on that. Though it became apparent pretty quickly that it just changes your gravity. I kinda wanted to see SMB3-like sand. ^^;
- A crossbow... That fires self-propelled bolts... Up to 3 at a time... Nice touch having it dropped by an enemy, though.
- With this one ring... Heh. Seems like everything but the crossbow gets a speed boost.
- Eye candy... Lots of eye candy. Very well done graphics.
- Music was pretty meh. I dunno, though... Maybe turning my speakers on would help. -_-''
- Your avatar suddenly makes more sense. Are there more spellcards? O:

All in all very nice so-far. I had more troubles with the first boss than anything else, TBH.

Keep at 'er.

EDIT:

Okay.....
I'm stuck on

Spoiler

the portal puzzle.
I've revealed the hidden tenth portal and the 2 blocks in the center, but all the other portals do is take away the bottom block. What do I do?

Spoiler

1 block means wrong.
2 blocks mean right.
3 blocks mean you did that one already.

 

All right. Thanks to everyone who has commented and made suggestions.

So, I'll probably be changing Granny's facepic during the next update, since I didn't put much effort into it the first time (seriously, drawing old ladies is not something people practice a lot). I'll also look at the ORGs and try to fix up some areas.

Oh yeah, since some people are struggling with the puzzle, I'll eventually make easy-mode affect puzzles (so that the solution will be a lot more obvious if you chose easy mode).

For now, if you're stuck on the puzzle, look at the spoiler part of Dragonboots' previous post, since that'll help you a lot.

EDIT: It's nice to see that someone's played enough SNES games to recognize some of that music.

 

I won!
Yay! I beat the mod! For now.
looking fwd to the next demo!

 

Now I`m completed the mod, so here is the review:

The things I liked the most are:
-the beautiful music creates nice game-atmosphere
-artwork (facepics, sprites, text boxes...)
-nice dramatic effects (e.g. when Isis kidnaps the old-lady)
-2nd bossfight
-gameplay and difficulty
-speed ring

Constructive criticism:
-According to my mind when Isis drops to the ground the sound effect is too deep (more suitable for a heavier object).

Sidenote:
-Thank you for your message. When I read the book in the library I instantly knew that it is the solution for the portal puzzle; but I foolishly thought that the 3 sons were representing the 3 portals in each of the 3 rows (and not the boxes) - that made me stuck. While this puzzle was solvable I don`t recommend overusing puzzles in a mod meant for the wider audience - they doesn`t have much patience for them. For example I know some people who abandoned playing an addictive CS mod - Jenka`s Nightmare - because of the puppy-feeding puzzle.

Overall:
This mod is extraordinary in many ways and really fun to play, keep up the good work

 

I know many people who abandoned playing an addictive CS mod - Jenka`s Nightmare - because of the puppy-feeding puzzle.

I almost did for a while

Vercci's got a walkthru of that now, though...
Why do you use ` (accent) instead of ' (apostrophe)?

 

Ahh, I never got around to telling you how much I love this mod!! I was gonna write a big long review, but it's no longer fresh in my mind, so I guess I'll just wait until the next demo release.

Also, I'm having a bit of a premonition of some of the music from this mod appearing in my next org medley .

EDIT: Eh, I guess I'll make a few comments after reading through other people's comments to refresh my memory, but I'll save the big huge review for next demo.

-Aww, music isn't original? Well, that's okay I guess but I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one who uses original music anymore...
-The difficulty of the first area seems a bit high for a first challenge level (in fact, I actually found it to be more difficult than the desert). I would suggest doing one of 3 things: add another savepoint somewhere, increase starting HP, or decrease damage on those jumpy/spiky things. The desert could also maybe be a tad more difficult.
-Second boss fight was a lot of fun; quite challenging indeed.
-Using downward wind to represent wet sand seems like a bit of a cop-out, especially since you clearly know how to hax . Doesn't really make sense for wet ground to affect your midair trajectory.
-I feel like such an idiot for not realizing that one book was about the puzzle; I thought it was just irrelevant junk :/

 

-Using downward wind to represent wet sand seems like a bit of a cop-out, especially since you clearly know how to hax . Doesn't really make sense for wet ground to affect your midair trajectory.

Is that how he did it? O.o
I thought there was hax involved...
I didn't really notice much in the way of mid-air trajectory being affected...