Want to play my edited game?

EDIT:

Firstly this mod is dead, i don't want to work on it ever again. So this is the final version.

Secondly about this GAME, it's a remake of the normal game so the plot is the same (i think i made one or two changes that i just couldn't resist... talk to jack when sue's locked up). The dificulty is scaled up, but not to the point where every failed jump = falling on death spikes like every other hard mod. You sometimes have to do things that you didn't necissarily know where possible from playing normal cave story, awkward jumps, riding monsters, crap like that. There is no sprite, music, npc, or weapon editing because this mod came before that shit.

Third i actually DID touch up this final version but just to take out all the dead ends. Unfinished areas have been removed.
http://www.dropfiles.net//files/535/Cave Story/Hard Mode Final.rar


If you've done everything you will have...
Map system
Silver locket
Arthur's key
ID card
Gum key
Charcoal
Jellyfish juice
Explosive
Mimiga suit
Whimsical star
Alien medal
50 spur ammo (if u pick spur everytime, like u should)
40 life
Access to bubbler, fire ball, and snake

The puzzle in the execution chamber is really gay, so here's the solution.
2341 or 2314
Go up on either side
2413

Also this whole game would be really gay with out the map system so be sure to get it. You CAN travel from mimiga village to first cave, so go back when u have more life.

 

Holy crapples, talk about your difficult edits. Hard as hell, but great, of what little I've played. I got to end of the resevoir. Great idea with the life capsule. But jesus, it's hard to get back up But yeah, it plays good, and you've applied some great ideas. You have pretty damn good level design skills. We seriously need to figure out how to fix the ennemy sprites, though. This really makes me want to start my game edit now ^^

 

So. Starting off, the first cave is AWESOME. Though there are very many ways to die, for example spikes, or spikes, it's fun and fulfilling to complete. The save points are happy.

The Mimiga Village is nice, what with the missile launcher at the top.

And then, the reservoir. *(&^. Missile expansion, that's fine. But... No. Glitched sprites make me want to cry, and inflict physical pain upon you. It's not even hard, because your Polar Star and Missiles are easily level 3 when you enter. Played through, decided not to get the life capsule, left. However. If you save, when you come back, an enemy hurts you immediately. This is bad.

Graveyard. Looks nice... Ow. The knife guys didn't do 10 damage before, did they? No Ma Pignon door, I notice... And that hole. Hmm.

Labyrinth H. I love you again. This place absolutely rules. Except for the save point crap again. After that happened to me a few times, I hacked myself to 255 hp, and ignored the enemies. And that's way too much trouble to go through for 5 hp and missiles.

Egg Corridor. Mixed feelings here. The electric enemies look really bad floating in the air like that. The puzzles where you have to jump on the behemoths are good. But pretty soon it starts getting more frusterating than hard. The deathtraps don't need to be interlaced like that. But my BIG problem with this... The save point next to Egg #2. Save there. Reload game. Find electric enemy starting in your face. You essentially either make them start the game over with this, or force them to edit their profile to have more than 100 hp. And that is bad. Really really bad. Oh, halfway through here I decided I didn't care about doing it the less-cheating way, so I gave myself the Spur and a Super Missile launcher with unlimited ammo. And 9999 hp. Because it was that annoying. And sentence fragments.

So it starts out more fun than hard, but it gets %$^%, then it becomes more hard than fun. All in all, this is really great, but it should be toned down a bit with all the instant death. And the &^%*&^%. Keep going with this, it'll be wonderful when it's finished. I trust you.

 

Firstly thanks for playing my game guys, I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. Thx yo.

oatmeal1209:
Glad you enjoyed it, and glad you thought it was hard, looks like I'm doing alright so far. As for the enemy sprites in the resevoir GRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you have no idea how pissed i was when that happend. I had the ENTIRE level done then came time to add all the enemys I had planned for... I cried when none of them worked, even the damn enemys from the grave yard don't work... ahh it was infuriating. Anyway later when I'm more familier with the system maybe there will be a way to fix that kind of thing. I sincerely hope there is because it would open up ALOT more possibilities. If you do start up your own game, I'll help you with it however i can.

Koneko:
I had to put a save before the falling part because chances are you'll have 3 hp when you get there. It's possible to have more... but, I think I hid the first life up a lil too well. Though when I get around to puting in the hint on the map system text, more people will have enough life to live thru 1 spike hit.

About the 2nd last save in the resevoir... Yea, it's definatly too close to enemy spawns, if you save there with 1hp, you are pretty much dead... This would be a serious problem, exept for the fact that there shouldn't be a save there. When I playtested that part, the water spiting fish used as platforms were invisable... so... jumping across invisable platforms with death below... yea, there has to be a save there. However when I tested again, you could see the fish, making the save there unnecissary. So, thx for reminding me about this. However depending on how hard everyone thinks that jump puzzel is, I may move the save to where the recharger thing is. I want to take that out aswell because the enemys are no threat when you have unlimited missles.

Hehe I wish I could change the damage things do, you bet I would make the bubbler worth a damn... But, the grave keeper was always that strong. As for the Ma Pignon door, thats the 1st door in atombombe, jump over the crushers. Will be REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY hard to get back to, but possible with booster v2. Getting to hell will require hard work, Im thinking about making that part easier, but I have yet to think of an effective way of spliting up those crushers.

Labyrinth H so far is the funnest part i've made. I have NO idea what i did to make the last 6 moving blocks only activate when you touch them... but I LOVE IT! Makes that part alot more fun. Again the save point here is close to a bunch of enemys, its possible to juke them if you go right quickly, but it definatly raises the question of difficulty vs fun. I hate when games reward you for restarting, and this is kind of that type of situation. Load game, get hit, Load game again untill you don't get hit. Bah... I dislike that, maybe i'll move the save in the 1square tunnel leading into the room its in now. The flying roach and the roach warrior to the left might be able to hit u tho. Hmm... I'll definalty find a better place for it.

That save was the last thing I added to egg corridor, after realizing how annoying the part before it was. Obviously I never tested it, but i see exataly why it's a prob. I'll find a way to have a save around there that dosn't start you off dead. Okay, so you said exactally what I was thinking bout the last behemoth part. Forcing you to jump over the basil, I think is really to much. The timing on the behemoth jumping feels kind of random, and I'll be proud of anyone who can do it consistantly, SO I thikn i'll change that part to jumping over 5 dmg spikes, instead of the instant kill. Punishing you for failing to do something that just feels random, is just mean. I'm sorry.
About the air basils, yea they look wierd, but, I like the part where you need to dodge all 4 of em

Thanks for trusting me, I'll try not to let you down.

Aight thanks again for the comments, I'll get right to work on fixing them problemzors.

 

Do you mean THIS life capsule?

Because if there's one before that, you have defeated me.

Oh, and how do you make the life capsules actually work? Mine somehow are not collectible.

 

I haven't played this remake yet, although I intend to. It sounds good, Serious. XD

Koneko: To make your life capsules work, you not only need to put the life-capsule icon in the map, but it needs to have a "TSC Script Index" associated with it that points to (references) something in your TSC that indicates what to say when you pick up your life-capsules and how much HP you get. Normally, they say "Got a =Life Capsule=!", etc, etc. To see an example of some of the TSC I'm talking about, open up the TSC file of one of the maps that has a life capsule using Sue's Workshop.

EDIT: Oh, and about this enemy glitch. Are the enemies appearing, like, non-existant except for little pieces of "static" or pieces of other enemies stuck to each other? I think that's because the pxe file only loads a certain enemy image file and tries to take the image off of there (that's why sometimes the enemy will be mushrooms stuck together or nothing at all). Some pxe files (like the reservoir, I think) don't even LOAD the enemy image file, because there aren't supposed to be any enemies there! In any case, I'm pretty sure we can edit which enemy image is loaded for each level, but I'm not sure if that's in the pxe file or the actual executable.

 

Koneko: Yep thats the first life up.

wppwah: The enemys are made up of sprites from other things. Like, I have the sun guys from sand zone, when you kill them they explode into a bunch of sleeping chaco sprites. So, yea i figured it was an issue with what sprites each individual map is capable of reading. If you have a way to fix this problem I'll be glad to listen to it, although it might take a lil while before i understand what you mean. I suck at computers.

 

If you look in the map properties in Miza, you can change the sprite sets. It works kinda like tilesets, but you know, for sprites. Maybe if someone could figure out how to edit a custom sprite set, we could get this problem solved...

 

Well, I don't have Miza, can you hook me up with somewhere I can get it?
Also if I change the sprites like that will it change all the land sprites? I'd probably need to re-do the whole zone.

 

Craps, the download link I'm finding all over the place for Miza is broken. I could easily send it to you via email, unless someone can find and post a working download. Anyway, there are a few things different and more convenient in this editor, I find, but Miza coupled with Sue's Workshop makes for a great way to edit the game. As for the map properties feature I mentioned, it's found at the top of your screen as soon as you load the editor, in the form of a "properties" button ^^ In there you can change the tileset, sprite set, background, and a few other things. Just make sure to load the map you actually want to edit first Have fun!

edit: Oh, and don't worry, changing the sprite set won't affect the floor tiles and stuff, pretty much just the ennemy sprites. But this way only one set of ennemies can be used without the ones that aren't supposed to be there screwing up. Again, it'd be great if somebody found a way to create custom sprite sets. One containing all sprites would be pretty handy...

 

I'd be grateful if you sent Miza to me. I hope it's as userfriendly as Sue's workshop.
Jherbst2@gmail.com
SeriousFaceFace on Aim. EDIT: I set aim to ignore messages from anyone not on my buddy list. So... if u want to talk on aim gimme you're name.

That actually sounds like a great help for my current problem. Grasstowns enemys are all too easy. Giving grasstown the sprites of egg corridor 2, or the plantation would make things alot more interesting. Although Santa chills outside, would this effect his sprite?

 

Yeah, I do think it would mess up his sprite. But in contrast to the ennemies being messed up, it's not so bad in my opinion.

 

Okay, found Miza... (right here, ttp://helmetedrodent.kickassgamers.com/index.php?module=listfiles)

Hmmm... Now I'm off to remake the resevoir, and rethink my grasstown.
What else can I do with Miza that I can't with SWS (sue's work shop).

 

Custom sprite sets

I know how to make custom spritesheets or change old ones without making Cave Story give an error (I use an exploit in Sue's Workshop, I can explain how if you want but it's kinda complicated).

A master sprite set would not work well though, because to find a monster/NPC's sprites, the game checks specific coordinates on the level's spritesheet and uses the sprites at those coordinates. So the reason the enemies are messed up is that the game is pulling the sprites from the same place but the wrong spritesheet. If all the sprites were put into one sheet, the game would not be able to magically find the right sprites, and would just use whichever ones it finds. So there would still be glitches.

Also, you do not need Miza for spritesheet changing. Just right click on the map you wish to change the sheet for and choose "Settings". All the Map Properties options in Miza are there. Tileset is for the map tiles, and NPC is for the enemies and NPCs. You can even have 2 spritesheets per level (Which as far as I know is only used in the game for places with enemies and bosses, so I dunno if you can have and NPC sheet and a seperate enemy sheet, athough I hope you can).

The only good things about Miza are the much MUCH more complete entity list, and the lack of a scrollbar bug. I would not recommend using unless you are having major scrollbar problems, since it is much harder to use. I would recommend using the entity list though, because it has much more stuff on it than SW's. You can find a more updated version of it (by me) here.

I played the hack earlier and found the level design to be pretty bad, honestly. Mainly the Egg Corridor and Labyrinth H, the former due to exact-frame jump timing while dodging one hit kill enemies (I would suggest taking Behemoth jumping out completely if you have not already, it is a horribly frustrating and dumb way to add difficulty and I do not think Pixel even wanted it to be possible) and the latter due to some cases of undodgeable attacks that do 5 damage, which was almost half my health at that point. I wasn't too fond of the blind jumps in the section of Atombombe after the Hermit Gunsmith either, but those could be overcome easily with quick reflexes and a bit of memorization. But I see you've updated it since then. I don't have time to play it now though so I'll comment on the new version tommorow and see if it's any better.

 

I know how to make custom spritesheets or change old ones without making Cave Story give an error (I use an exploit in Sue's Workshop, I can explain how if you want but it's kinda complicated).

I'm all ears. It'll probably be hard to explain on forums, but given the jist of it, hopefully I'll be able to experiment and work thru it.

The behemoth jumping to avoid the instant kill was the first thing i took out. As stated before, I don't think i'll ever have the timing for consistant behemoth jumps, so, punishing a failed one with instant death is stupid. Thats out. Are the undodgeable 5 damage attacks comeing from the laby H? If so I'm not sure what your talking about. Is it from the 2 fans, during the 2 horizontal moving blocks? Because it's possible to kill them with lvl 3 missles before getting hit (wait nm, the bullets do 5, the fans do 10). So if it's dodging the fan projectiles, that is possible with good timing, the problem is that you have little control over the timing due to the above horizontal block. Anyway, I replaced both those fans with a single flying roach.

I hope you give the 2nd version a try, if you do, lemme know how you feel about the changes. I appreciate the feed back, hope my design wasn't distasteful enough to not test my later versions (which will hopefully fix the resevoir too).

 

I'm all ears. It'll probably be hard to explain on forums, but given the jist of it, hopefully I'll be able to experiment and work thru it.

Agreed. Making custom spritesheets sounds like the perfect solution to fixing the sprite problem without having to change which ennemies are in said maps. I recall seeing somebody mention trying to change the sprites at one time, and having errors. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with the file extention, right?
One thing I liked about Miza is that while editing maps, you can choose which tilepiece you want by right-clicking one that's already on the map as opposed to fishing it out of the tileset. I've already suggested to ProfEich that he adds this feature to the next release of Sue's Workshop. One last feature I'd like to see would be to be able to select, then copy/paste/fill/delete tiles. I think that's asking for a bit much though ^^'

 

I played the hack, and it's not much better. Labyrinth H is good now (and I was talking about the fans, because sometimes they are spread out a lot and shoot in unison, causing the whole passage to be blocked unless you can get out the top, and sometimes due to the moving block's position's you can't. It doesn't matter since it's fixed now anyways) but the Egg Corridor is still annoying. I still think you should take out the parts where you have to jump while riding Behemoths. Keep the Behemoth riding in, but make it so you can step off them at the end and don't have to jump off them anywhere. Replacing the Basil with spikes didn't do much, since it's still very difficult to jump the spikes, and if you don't have over 10 health you will die on the second spike. I only managed to pass that part by letting the Behemoths hurt me for -1 then using the invincibility to jump over the spikes from the ground, and I died afterwards on the part where flies shoot you while you attempt to jump off some Behemoths.

Anyways, onto custom spritesheets. As you may know, loading a changed tileset into SW's tileset editor will make it usable in Cave Story. This works the same for changed spritesheets that would normally cause errors. But SW does not allow you to load spritesheets in the tileset editor, so you have to trick it. First, make your sheet or edit another one. Save it in the data/Stage folder as "PrtFilename.pbm". What you use for the "Filename" part is unimportant, but it has to have the .pbm extension and "Prt" at the start of the filename. This will trick SW into thinking it is a tileset, and it will appear on the Tileset Editor list. Simply click it in the list and it will appear in the editor, then click okay. Now move it to its proper folder (data/Npc for NPC/Enemy sheets) and rename it with the proper prefix (Npc for NPC/Enemy sheets, like "NpcFilename"). You should be able to find it in the NPC spritesheet list in SW's map settings. You can also use this to modify things like Quote's sprites and gun sprites by replacing the current sprites with your new ones after "fixing" them with SW (make backups though). You could even make completely custom tilesets and backgrounds if you wanted.

Keep in mind that combining two spritesheets is difficult, due to the way it takes the sprites from the sheets. If you were to combine Egg Corridor 2 and Grassrown's sheets, you would not be able to use some sprites. Zombie Dragons alone overlap Power Critters, Critters, Mannans, and Small Jellies, so it's either them or none of those (because all those sprites are taken from the same squares as the Zombie Dragon sprites). Even if you only added Zombie Dragons, you would have to get rid of a bunch of Grasstown enemies.

If it's only Santa and not the basic Grasstown enemies you are worried about, just change the sheet and all the enemies entirely. Santa is on a global sheet called NpcRegu along with Sue, Misery, Booster, and several others (characters used in cutscenes, I believe, or at least most of them are), so he won't have any glitchy sprites no matter what sheet you are using (I think >_>).

 

Taking the hit from the behemoth and abusing the invincibility time is how i got thru that part to begin with. If that part is too hard because you only have 10hp you can backtrack a lil and get the life up earlier in egg corridor.

Hmm... If I were to take the behemoth JUMPS out completely, but still require you to ride behemoths, I suppose adding more death spikes would be the answere. Anyway, I'll definatly consider it. One thing that has irritated me after going back several more times is the very first required behemoth jump. The jump itself not being so bad (since there are 3 you get alot of chances in a small amount of time) but the critters are close enough to jump in after you, which is a pain. They are likely to get moved back.

Hope I don't come off as complaining, I appreciate the feedback.

As for the sprite sheet stuff... phew. That indeed looks complex, I haven't really messed with any of the things you discuss, I may edit this post with questions when I have some time to play with it. It'll be really sad if I can't get mannans and dragons in the same zone tho.

 

My feelings concerning the behemoth jumping is quite opposite to everyone else's apparently. I found this idea to be great, although not executed in the most proper of manners. The trick to successfully jumping off behemoths is timing your jump properly. Notice how Quote kinda bounces? As soon as your feet touch down, you can jump. Alternatively, you can jump back up the instant you land from a higher jump or fall onto them. My only problem lies within the pit with the spikes. Remove two of the behemoths, leaving only one. With more than one it makes it kind of difficult to time your jump properly, what with them overlapping. Either way, you should indeed push back the critters.

As for the custom spritesheets, they're pretty darn nifty. I see what you mean by a "global" character spritesheet, and it's interesting to know Quote's sprites aren't on any of these spritesheets. Either way, it'll take quite a while to figure out a way to correctly edit these without messing up anything that badly. A bit of trial and error and we'll eventually have everything figured out. I hope ^^'

 

Well the main problem I have with it is "as soon as your feet touch down" lasts for 1 frame, making it ridiculously hard to do consistently, especially when you only have a short time to do it before you hit a spike/enemy or the Behemoth walks away from the platform you are trying to jump to. I know this hack is supposed to be ridiculously hard, but I prefer it when the difficulty comes from well placed enemies and spikes, like in the normal version of Cave Story, rather than preforming the same split-second jumps repeatedly.

EDIT: Tried again, and got to the end of Egg Corridor. If you leave the Behemoth jumping in, I suggest making it so you can easily get to a place where you can jump and land on them from up high (and get back there if you mess up the jump) because it is much easier to time it that way, but if you don't time it right then you're stuck having to jump while bouncing on the Behemoth's back, which is annoying.