USELESS GUNSMITH ~FINISHED~

Dec 30, 2017 at 7:55 PM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
After I spent about 3-4 months on it, it is finally done. No demos or anything like that, this is the full mod you've all been dreading waiting for!

You play as the gunsmith, on his journey to create the polar star. You meet several new companions, and make several new enemies. Travel through the caves, and towers, and laboratories, and teleporters as you continue along your journey. This is- Useless Gunsmith.

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sh02uvl8qo7qg8q/USELESS GUNSMITH.zip?dl=0

EDIT: Due to some bugs I noticed and because of the overly difficult gameplay, I made a bugfix version that will probably be much more enjoyable.

Bugfix: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q11ng1ni65p3k5i/USELESS GUNSMITH Bugfix.zip?dl=0

Please report and bugs you might find and send some feedback! By the way, the facing down sprite is intentional. :pignon:
 
Last edited:
Dec 31, 2017 at 1:14 PM
Deliverer of Sweets
Bobomb says: "I need a hug!"
Join Date: Jul 20, 2015
Location: Under sea level or something
Posts: 796
Age: 26
Eh I might as well.
Folder's fine, not sure what the banner is for but everything looks fine to me.
p361746-0-rln3pu.png

I think you did something wrong with your binary background, but that's just my hunch.
The title screen looks pretty good, though Load looks a lot different than New, and blends a little into the red of the background.
The teleporters feel like they can be a bit touched up as well. I think the music feels a little too fast though for a title.

p361746-1-93x421.png

Hermit are you okay?
Seriously though, it's clear that you tried to take small sprites, made them big and tried to make the edges and stuff look better, and I can see that you did a bit of effort, but it looks like a 1x and a 3x sprite at once, which doesn't look that great.
Oh but his downed look seems to fit, looks like our gunsmith is not feeling that great about himself.
I gotta admit that the player sprites look pretty goo-
p361746-2-x1ao6i.gif

Oh. I know this is intentional but it still looks very off.
The Regulus Star, sounds good enough but in the icon the star's color doesn't fit well with the background.
Hermit doesn't seem to know what a life capsule is, that's good. We don't really know how a human would use these anyway so in that part it at least makes sense.
How glad am I though that instead of having to do first cave for the manieth time, I have to do only the second half! Though I suppose changing that would not make a lot of sense considering this seems to just take place at the original game's island.
Asking the posessed door to just open instead of shooting is pretty good, and I don't remember seeing any of that before so it's a nice change. But again, the weird 1x and 3x quality is off, though it looks better here.

Oh hey King how are you doing?
p361746-3-u9g726.png

Not great, got it.
Honestly I don't understand why you did this with facepics of characters that already have them. I can get if you want a different style of facepics, but these really look incomplete. I really don't want to get on about this further or tell you that you can't do good spriting, but these really look not great.

For a second I thought you were going to make the player collect the graveyard key for no reason, but seeing the mushrooms come out of nowhere thanks to an earthquake is a nice way to try and explain where they came from, and it confirms my guess that the stuff here happens before the events of Cave Story.
Oh hey Sue, enjoying yourself in the basement for some reason?
Hermit sure is balsy for teleporting to a possibly dangerous location judging from the fact that the coordinates returned a odd name.
I kinda like the music in this new area, what's it calle- oh...
Friendly guard here though, sounds like the only one who won't kill on sight. Wish he didn't like to stand on the same spot as the save point all the time though.
NGL this is a nice start for this area though, so I hope the tower itself will match up to it.
Well, it's a nice tower climb section, nothing too grand but not bad either. The guard at the start can easily surprise players, it even almost got me at my second try but I like how the red-eyed jumping guard is animated though, nice job there.

Might want to do something about this though. (and not only because of the clipping, if a experience shard gets into that corner it's bouncing sound can be heard continuously.)
The difficulty is a bit on a more higher side, and that's mostly because of how the guards do not drop hearts or experience, which can eventually wear you down if you're bringing a level 1 Regulus.
Oh, and when the first red eyed guard doesn't shoot (most likely thanks to it's location), then why does the second one? Getting half my health chipped off in a place I can't recover it just because of this is not that super.
Steak sure seems to be important here though.
p361746-4-tv6zkj.gif
p361746-5-tnmg7i.gif

And I think this poor man deserves the most.
The old guy in the room after this climb sure seems to be a bit dement though, mistaking a shabby clothed tanned geezer for Donald Trump. He doesn't look too bad though, I give you that.
Allright, so now we're back to an backgroundless but vanilla looking sand zone huh.
Jenka sure is helpful, though it seems poor little hermit got even the first few numbers of the ID wrong, even if the resulting name started with a B... huh?
Not really great that you can miss a life upgrade unless you are curious enough to talk to Jenka twice though.
Allright let's go to booster's- goddammit Hermit.
The accident here is done in a quite heavy way, especially with the music surprising you. The area here is ok too, though Hermit REALLY seems to be down from this, maybe even a bit too much, though that's just my nickel.
Fighting the Hermit shadow or whatever it might be called is uh, with a level 3 (and later 2) Regulus is really annoying, especially thanks to it's starting location. The silence afterwards is ok, it sets a unsettling tone, though I wouldn't be surprised if nothing will happen while going back. Wish it told me to go back though AFTER the fight.
Yep, called it. Nothing bad happens, just a bit of the protag getting cheered up by a surprisingly nice guy.
What do I gotta do now though? Unless I missed a bit of where this was told to me it isn't very clear.
Took a lucky guess to go back to Jenka though, glad I did despite the need of this backtrack.
Seems there is a bit of a sidequest involving Curly's gun though, that's nice. Why does the bottle look like it's filled with black stuff though? And why am I not told that I need to kill a specific skeleton? Those boney heads look like fitting skeletons too.
I hope this was wortht he effort though. I seem to get some extra life and... a bottle? The main progression isn't locked behind this is it?
Allright, looks like I'll finally get to see what Booster's Lab looks li-
p361746-6-hs2qx0.png

Please tell me you didn't do that joke.
My god you did.
The idea here isn't bad, it's pretty interesting in fact. Though I feel like it could have been a good chance to do some more with this. Why is Luigi here though?
The assembly lab seems like a nice section too, with the edited enemies. Though I wish our flying roach friends didn't turn into guards when they die. Oh well, now we know where the tower got their workers from ;p.
After a while it got a little boring though as it became to feel a little repetitive. How you expect people to dodge the rapid fans is beyond me though. Especially with the amount of enemies in your way vs the fact that the best thing you have is a Regulus star, which will end you if it goes back down to 1.
But it looks like the effort is being rewarded with a not-so-great booster... wait.
Oh cool, i get to backtrack, in case I couldn't get enough of this area. When I get bored about halfway, why would I even want to go through this all a second time?! It's especially great when the sound of wind is stuck on 'keep playing please', great.
(For the record, I cheated my way back because I didn't think this was worth my time, hopefully not missing anything here)
After that, I got to a boss fight with Noxid, whose weapon was very interesting to see, and I feel like a fun boss fight could've been had here was it not for the fact that you're supposed to die. What happens afterwards in the Hermit's blackout uh... what happend exactly?
The rest of the ending is okay, it cuts a bit short but it's clear afterwards that this was a story on the creation of the Polar Star, and mmmm.. it's allright.

The whole mod has it's up and downs, I think my opinion on the facepics is already clear but storywise this is pretty allright. The ideas put into work here are too, though haven't been perfectly excecuted. The final boss was of the dissapointing kind too, where you expect a good fight but instead just have to die.
If some of it's flaws are worked out I truly feel like this can be an allright mod, and it already is not bad, so you've done a pretty good job.

Map design: 6/10 (Okay, but felt repetitive and backtracking at times)
Storyline: 7/10 (The general flow is not bad)
Graphics: 4,9/10 (Facepics and flipped down aiming really harm this, would be a 7 otherwise)
General execution of ideas: 7,2/10 (The Trump Tower isn't just a meme area, the lab isn't an unecessary pile of refrences and the idea of a story about how the Polar Star got made is nice and done well)

(PS: wtf I didn't expect to write this much, nor spend so much time on this.)
 
Dec 31, 2017 at 1:46 PM
ZYZZ Spur is the best gun because its super cool
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Jan 15, 2017
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Posts: 565
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Unknown Code <HOW


i win i win i win
 
Dec 31, 2017 at 7:27 PM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
Eh I might as well.
Folder's fine, not sure what the banner is for but everything looks fine to me.
p361746-0-rln3pu.png

I think you did something wrong with your binary background, but that's just my hunch.
The title screen looks pretty good, though Load looks a lot different than New, and blends a little into the red of the background.
The teleporters feel like they can be a bit touched up as well. I think the music feels a little too fast though for a title.

p361746-1-93x421.png

Hermit are you okay?
Seriously though, it's clear that you tried to take small sprites, made them big and tried to make the edges and stuff look better, and I can see that you did a bit of effort, but it looks like a 1x and a 3x sprite at once, which doesn't look that great.
Oh but his downed look seems to fit, looks like our gunsmith is not feeling that great about himself.
I gotta admit that the player sprites look pretty goo-
p361746-2-x1ao6i.gif

Oh. I know this is intentional but it still looks very off.
The Regulus Star, sounds good enough but in the icon the star's color doesn't fit well with the background.
Hermit doesn't seem to know what a life capsule is, that's good. We don't really know how a human would use these anyway so in that part it at least makes sense.
How glad am I though that instead of having to do first cave for the manieth time, I have to do only the second half! Though I suppose changing that would not make a lot of sense considering this seems to just take place at the original game's island.
Asking the posessed door to just open instead of shooting is pretty good, and I don't remember seeing any of that before so it's a nice change. But again, the weird 1x and 3x quality is off, though it looks better here.

Oh hey King how are you doing?
p361746-3-u9g726.png

Not great, got it.
Honestly I don't understand why you did this with facepics of characters that already have them. I can get if you want a different style of facepics, but these really look incomplete. I really don't want to get on about this further or tell you that you can't do good spriting, but these really look not great.

For a second I thought you were going to make the player collect the graveyard key for no reason, but seeing the mushrooms come out of nowhere thanks to an earthquake is a nice way to try and explain where they came from, and it confirms my guess that the stuff here happens before the events of Cave Story.
Oh hey Sue, enjoying yourself in the basement for some reason?
Hermit sure is balsy for teleporting to a possibly dangerous location judging from the fact that the coordinates returned a odd name.
I kinda like the music in this new area, what's it calle- oh...
Friendly guard here though, sounds like the only one who won't kill on sight. Wish he didn't like to stand on the same spot as the save point all the time though.
NGL this is a nice start for this area though, so I hope the tower itself will match up to it.
Well, it's a nice tower climb section, nothing too grand but not bad either. The guard at the start can easily surprise players, it even almost got me at my second try but I like how the red-eyed jumping guard is animated though, nice job there.

Might want to do something about this though. (and not only because of the clipping, if a experience shard gets into that corner it's bouncing sound can be heard continuously.)
The difficulty is a bit on a more higher side, and that's mostly because of how the guards do not drop hearts or experience, which can eventually wear you down if you're bringing a level 1 Regulus.
Oh, and when the first red eyed guard doesn't shoot (most likely thanks to it's location), then why does the second one? Getting half my health chipped off in a place I can't recover it just because of this is not that super.
Steak sure seems to be important here though.
p361746-4-tv6zkj.gif
p361746-5-tnmg7i.gif

And I think this poor man deserves the most.
The old guy in the room after this climb sure seems to be a bit dement though, mistaking a shabby clothed tanned geezer for Donald Trump. He doesn't look too bad though, I give you that.
Allright, so now we're back to an backgroundless but vanilla looking sand zone huh.
Jenka sure is helpful, though it seems poor little hermit got even the first few numbers of the ID wrong, even if the resulting name started with a B... huh?
Not really great that you can miss a life upgrade unless you are curious enough to talk to Jenka twice though.
Allright let's go to booster's- goddammit Hermit.
The accident here is done in a quite heavy way, especially with the music surprising you. The area here is ok too, though Hermit REALLY seems to be down from this, maybe even a bit too much, though that's just my nickel.
Fighting the Hermit shadow or whatever it might be called is uh, with a level 3 (and later 2) Regulus is really annoying, especially thanks to it's starting location. The silence afterwards is ok, it sets a unsettling tone, though I wouldn't be surprised if nothing will happen while going back. Wish it told me to go back though AFTER the fight.
Yep, called it. Nothing bad happens, just a bit of the protag getting cheered up by a surprisingly nice guy.
What do I gotta do now though? Unless I missed a bit of where this was told to me it isn't very clear.
Took a lucky guess to go back to Jenka though, glad I did despite the need of this backtrack.
Seems there is a bit of a sidequest involving Curly's gun though, that's nice. Why does the bottle look like it's filled with black stuff though? And why am I not told that I need to kill a specific skeleton? Those boney heads look like fitting skeletons too.
I hope this was wortht he effort though. I seem to get some extra life and... a bottle? The main progression isn't locked behind this is it?
Allright, looks like I'll finally get to see what Booster's Lab looks li-
p361746-6-hs2qx0.png

Please tell me you didn't do that joke.
My god you did.
The idea here isn't bad, it's pretty interesting in fact. Though I feel like it could have been a good chance to do some more with this. Why is Luigi here though?
The assembly lab seems like a nice section too, with the edited enemies. Though I wish our flying roach friends didn't turn into guards when they die. Oh well, now we know where the tower got their workers from ;p.
After a while it got a little boring though as it became to feel a little repetitive. How you expect people to dodge the rapid fans is beyond me though. Especially with the amount of enemies in your way vs the fact that the best thing you have is a Regulus star, which will end you if it goes back down to 1.
But it looks like the effort is being rewarded with a not-so-great booster... wait.
Oh cool, i get to backtrack, in case I couldn't get enough of this area. When I get bored about halfway, why would I even want to go through this all a second time?! It's especially great when the sound of wind is stuck on 'keep playing please', great.
(For the record, I cheated my way back because I didn't think this was worth my time, hopefully not missing anything here)
After that, I got to a boss fight with Noxid, whose weapon was very interesting to see, and I feel like a fun boss fight could've been had here was it not for the fact that you're supposed to die. What happens afterwards in the Hermit's blackout uh... what happend exactly?
The rest of the ending is okay, it cuts a bit short but it's clear afterwards that this was a story on the creation of the Polar Star, and mmmm.. it's allright.

The whole mod has it's up and downs, I think my opinion on the facepics is already clear but storywise this is pretty allright. The ideas put into work here are too, though haven't been perfectly excecuted. The final boss was of the dissapointing kind too, where you expect a good fight but instead just have to die.
If some of it's flaws are worked out I truly feel like this can be an allright mod, and it already is not bad, so you've done a pretty good job.

Map design: 6/10 (Okay, but felt repetitive and backtracking at times)
Storyline: 7/10 (The general flow is not bad)
Graphics: 4,9/10 (Facepics and flipped down aiming really harm this, would be a 7 otherwise)
General execution of ideas: 7,2/10 (The Trump Tower isn't just a meme area, the lab isn't an unecessary pile of refrences and the idea of a story about how the Polar Star got made is nice and done well)

(PS: wtf I didn't expect to write this much, nor spend so much time on this.)

Thank you for the feedback! I decided that the final boss would be unbeatable from the get-go, because one wouldn't really expect some raggedy hermit to beat a teleporting cat with fish missiles and an unlimited health bar in a fight. Instead I decided that the AsSeMbly Hall would function more as the "final boss/challenge", but it seems I didn't make this clear enough in the mod. If I ever do something like this again (probably won't), I'll be sure to have it flow better.

Again, thanks. I've got a lot of room to improve and good feedback like this is how I'll get there.
 
Dec 31, 2017 at 8:15 PM
ZYZZ Spur is the best gun because its super cool
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Jan 15, 2017
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Posts: 565
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Pronouns: he/him
Thank you for the feedback! I decided that the final boss would be unbeatable from the get-go, because one wouldn't really expect some raggedy hermit to beat a teleporting cat with fish missiles and an unlimited health bar in a fight. Instead I decided that the AsSeMbly Hall would function more as the "final boss/challenge", but it seems I didn't make this clear enough in the mod. If I ever do something like this again (probably won't), I'll be sure to have it flow better.

Again, thanks. I've got a lot of room to improve and good feedback like this is how I'll get there.
it didn't have an infinite health bar
just a lot
 
Dec 31, 2017 at 8:19 PM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
Dec 31, 2017 at 8:58 PM
ZYZZ Spur is the best gun because its super cool
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Jan 15, 2017
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Posts: 565
Age: 16
Pronouns: he/him
Dec 31, 2017 at 8:59 PM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
i like the teleporter thing also what was the point of fixing curly's gun
she rewards you for doing it if you talk to her again and lets you keep the bottle used in another sidequest
 
Dec 31, 2017 at 11:45 PM
ZYZZ Spur is the best gun because its super cool
"All your forum are belong to us!"
Join Date: Jan 15, 2017
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Posts: 565
Age: 16
Pronouns: he/him
she rewards you for doing it if you talk to her again and lets you keep the bottle used in another sidequest

oh i didn't see the other side quest how did i miss it?
 
Jan 1, 2018 at 1:30 AM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
oh i didn't see the other side quest how did i miss it?
go back to the teleporter storage room. there's a guy waiting in there. you should probably know what to do from there.
 
Jan 1, 2018 at 8:27 AM
Deliverer of Sweets
Bobomb says: "I need a hug!"
Join Date: Jul 20, 2015
Location: Under sea level or something
Posts: 796
Age: 26
go back to the teleporter storage room. there's a guy waiting in there. you should probably know what to do from there.
Not sure if you're expecting anybody to do that on their own without reading that but the teleporter storage room just doesn't feel like a place I would go back to unless the game recommended me to.
 
Jan 1, 2018 at 10:07 AM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
Not sure if you're expecting anybody to do that on their own without reading that but the teleporter storage room just doesn't feel like a place I would go back to unless the game recommended me to.
Trump mentions he set up the teleporter to add some places you might find useful. These being the teleporter storage room and sand zone.
 
Jan 1, 2018 at 6:29 PM
In my body, in my head
Forum Moderator
"Life begins and ends with Nu."
Join Date: Aug 28, 2009
Location: The Purple Zone
Posts: 5998
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cool mod. I wasnt expecting uh.. trump fanfiction, but otherwise cool. contrary to miccs I like the aesthetic and the facepics are a bit wonky but at least internally consistent. My biggest complaint is I agree the AsSeMbly Hall is too long, I think each of the two halves of it could have done with another save point in the middle, especially with how the gunsmith is somewhat fragile here.

Something else is that it would've been good if there was either something to find in the far corners of the sand zone, or if they were locked off more explicitly since I did go check em' and was a bit disappointed that it was just kinda dead ends.

anyway, good mod, cool concept, 8/10
 
Jan 2, 2018 at 12:00 AM
Soup Man
"In Soviet Russia, graves keep YOU!"
Join Date: Jul 15, 2014
Location: IN YOUR HEAD, SHIT FOR BRAINS
Posts: 670
Age: 8
Pronouns: she/her
cool mod. I wasnt expecting uh.. trump fanfiction, but otherwise cool. contrary to miccs I like the aesthetic and the facepics are a bit wonky but at least internally consistent. My biggest complaint is I agree the AsSeMbly Hall is too long, I think each of the two halves of it could have done with another save point in the middle, especially with how the gunsmith is somewhat fragile here.

Something else is that it would've been good if there was either something to find in the far corners of the sand zone, or if they were locked off more explicitly since I did go check em' and was a bit disappointed that it was just kinda dead ends.

anyway, good mod, cool concept, 8/10
Thanks for playing through it! About the sand zone, I didn't really think anyone would check it too thoroughly, and I wasn't quite sure what to put in those areas, which is mainly why I made the Curly sidequest, as to make part of the sand zone worthwhile. I probably should've added something or a barrier of some sort looking back on it, and I probably could have also shortened the AsSeMbly Hall. Again, thank you for the feedback, as this is a huge learning experience for me since this is my first finished mod that wasn't made in under a day, and I still have a lot to learn.
 
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