155 replies to this topic

[Ollie]

Welcome to the official thread for The Show! Or something like that, but let's cut to the chase. The Show is a mod made by me, Ollie, it focuses on a mysterious shadowy guy who has a similar color scheme to Pooh Black, and his adventures in Showland (Though this name is never mentioned). There's also a narrator, which is mainly where the name comes from. He's simply called The Narrator, and he has a stylish mustache and a cool black jacket/coat thing. This mod is also being split up into two parts, Season 1 and Season 2, in order to make it longer and also to differentiate certain elements. As of now Season 1 is the only one released.










Download Season 1 now!

Credit to Noxid and GIRakaCheezer for the 2x resolution hack for Cave Story.

Original post:

Spoiler

I've been wanting to make a mod of Cave Story for quite a while, and I decided to make this one. This mod hasn't got much of a story, so I decided to make it a mod in which you just kinda, well, you know, platform. As you can see, it's called "The Show". I chose this name because really, it has a narrator. That's really all it has that relates to it. But I like it, so I'm going with it. I only have a demo at the moment, so, yeah. Here it is.

(It also has some original music)

As an added note, no more content will be created of The Show as of now, perhaps some time in the future, however.

Edited by Ollie, 21 October 2012 - 02:43 PM.

[DoubleThink]

What a wonderful present for my first day of holidays :>

*gets*

Well I think I'm at the end. I either end up at a non-functioning computer terminal or trapped in a room. Pretty good so far, in particular I like the clever use of appearing blocks, although it wasn't really that hard. The jumping and level-up sounds are neato, but the text scrolling is bit grating. As for new music, the title screen theme is a nice little piece, but the on-death track is bombastic and hurtful meen :<

Not much else to say so far :J

[WoodenRat]

It's great that someone finally made a mod. The mod showcase's been dead for a while.

Anyways I played through your mod, it's pretty good. I liked the custom tiles and you did a great job in editing Kazuma's face. The gameplay wasn't too hard. My only complaint though, is that sometimes the text goes out of the dialogue box.

[Noxid]

Screenshots?
Not a big deal, but I think it's nice to have them on the first post...

[Ollie]

Screenshots?
Not a big deal, but I think it's nice to have them on the first post...

You see, I didn't include screenshots because I guess I didn't want to spoil anything.

The gameplay wasn't too hard. My only complaint though, is that sometimes the text goes out of the dialogue box.

I only said it was hard because people I know couldn't get past 1-3. -_-
And about the text, it will eventually be all spaced out and everything.

Well I think I'm at the end. I either end up at a non-functioning computer terminal or trapped in a room. Pretty good so far, in particular I like the clever use of appearing blocks, although it wasn't really that hard. The jumping and level-up sounds are neato, but the text scrolling is bit grating. As for new music, the title screen theme is a nice little piece, but the on-death track is bombastic and hurtful meen :<

Not much else to say so far :J

I noticed that the text was grating, and I'm gonna work on a new one.
I didn't really test that computer at the end, because I was kinda rushing a little, and it would take quite a while if I wasn't saved in that room right away (And I wasn't), so I just took my chances with that part.
The death music was NOT created by me, and it was actually in a mod that I was making before this one, as was the title screen music, though I helped quite a bit with the title screen music. My brother in fact, made the horrifying death music, and it will eventually be taken out.

Yeah, so I hope you all enjoy my mod when it's finished, which it won't be for a pretty long time. :J

P.S. I'll try and get screenshots soon.


EDIT: Screenshots.

[Wedge of Cheese]

OMG A NOO MAWD!!! =D It's been so long since I've seen one, I was beginning to forget what they look like...


Alright, feedbacky:

New music is very nice. I actually kinda like the death music, just because it makes me laugh, and this is kind of a lulzy mod anyway.

The first secret isn't really much of a secret. I would recommend making it a bit less obvious; maybe instead of a door (which just begs to be entered) make it some other landmark which would make some player curious enough to try interacting with it, but could be dismissed as decoration. The second one was a bit more secretive. Any others were either nonexistent or well hidden, because I didn't find them. I think it would be better if the secrets were in ascending order of rewardingness (i.e. you find weaker weapons first, as opposed to now where you find the snake first, then the fireball).

I would recommend being consistent with the type of savepoints you use. Sometimes you just have a v-trigger, and sometimes a disk on the ground; it gives the mod more unity if you stick to one or the other.

Gameplay throughout the mod so far is generally good and entertaining.

Careful about exposed slopes; the Cave Story engine has a glitch where it bumps you up on top of a slope if you touch the side of it. Solution: make sure the sides of slopes aren't exposed.

Be sure that any time you use a <FOM with a number other than 16, you use <FOM0016 before you get to the <END. Otherwise, the camera will continue to track the player's movements either too slow or too fast. In your mod, there are several places where the camera's motion is too fast, and it's really distracting.

The area with the bed, gaudis, and computer is neat in terms of the slight non-linearity it adds. After beating Pooh Black, however, you might want to make some clear indicator of where you need to "interact" (press down), so people (DT) don't think they've gotten stuck and/or reached the end of the demo.

Oh nice, a puzzle/maze thingy, I likes. My only suggestion here is that you use <FON or <FOM (whichever one you use when you go through a door) with a number greater than 1, so the player can visually follow the camera as it moves from one door to the next. If you don't like the way the camera slows down as it approaches its target, you can do something like this:

<FONxxxx:0010<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0009<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0008<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0007
<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0006<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0005<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0004<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0003
<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0002<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0001<END

which will make the camera move at a constant speed toward the target. In the above example, the movement would take 10 frames (1/5 of a second, if the game is running optimally). This may be a bit short, so if you did that, you might want to increase the number of frames. If you don't mind the way the camera moves by default, then don't worry about all that.

The blade makes the 2nd and 3rd boss fights painfully easy...

Well this is odd; not sure if it was intentional. In the ice area, there's one spot where I enter an apparently deserted one tile wide path, and behold, I am surrounded by a multitude of the Heavenly Host, praising God and singing, "BOINGYBOINGYBOINGY!". A few shots of the snake reveal that several critters are bouncing unseen in apparently solid tiles, unable to escape.


Anyway, good job and I eagerly await the next demo!

[Ollie]

OMG A NOO MAWD!!! =D It's been so long since I've seen one, I was beginning to forget what they look like...


Alright, feedbacky:

New music is very nice. I actually kinda like the death music, just because it makes me laugh, and this is kind of a lulzy mod anyway.

The first secret isn't really much of a secret. I would recommend making it a bit less obvious; maybe instead of a door (which just begs to be entered) make it some other landmark which would make some player curious enough to try interacting with it, but could be dismissed as decoration. The second one was a bit more secretive. Any others were either nonexistent or well hidden, because I didn't find them. I think it would be better if the secrets were in ascending order of rewardingness (i.e. you find weaker weapons first, as opposed to now where you find the snake first, then the fireball).

I would recommend being consistent with the type of savepoints you use. Sometimes you just have a v-trigger, and sometimes a disk on the ground; it gives the mod more unity if you stick to one or the other.

Gameplay throughout the mod so far is generally good and entertaining.

Careful about exposed slopes; the Cave Story engine has a glitch where it bumps you up on top of a slope if you touch the side of it. Solution: make sure the sides of slopes aren't exposed.

Be sure that any time you use a <FOM with a number other than 16, you use <FOM0016 before you get to the <END. Otherwise, the camera will continue to track the player's movements either too slow or too fast. In your mod, there are several places where the camera's motion is too fast, and it's really distracting.

The area with the bed, gaudis, and computer is neat in terms of the slight non-linearity it adds. After beating Pooh Black, however, you might want to make some clear indicator of where you need to "interact" (press down), so people (DT) don't think they've gotten stuck and/or reached the end of the demo.

Oh nice, a puzzle/maze thingy, I likes. My only suggestion here is that you use <FON or <FOM (whichever one you use when you go through a door) with a number greater than 1, so the player can visually follow the camera as it moves from one door to the next. If you don't like the way the camera slows down as it approaches its target, you can do something like this:

<FONxxxx:0010<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0009<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0008<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0007
<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0006<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0005<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0004<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0003
<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0002<WAI0001<FONxxxx:0001<END

which will make the camera move at a constant speed toward the target. In the above example, the movement would take 10 frames (1/5 of a second, if the game is running optimally). This may be a bit short, so if you did that, you might want to increase the number of frames. If you don't mind the way the camera moves by default, then don't worry about all that.

The blade makes the 2nd and 3rd boss fights painfully easy...

Well this is odd; not sure if it was intentional. In the ice area, there's one spot where I enter an apparently deserted one tile wide path, and behold, I am surrounded by a multitude of the Heavenly Host, praising God and singing, "BOINGYBOINGYBOINGY!". A few shots of the snake reveal that several critters are bouncing unseen in apparently solid tiles, unable to escape.


Anyway, good job and I eagerly await the next demo!

Oh boy, a whole bunch of things to reply to!

Secret 1: I understand that it's very easy to find, but the thing is that I'm not entirely sure what else I would do with it. I'll come up with a better thing there, otherwise, it wouldn't be a secret, really. You're also right about the Snake being the first secret weapon. With that, I think I was really just testing the whole thing, so that will be changed.

Also, if you could count the chest on top of that one house a secret, there's three currently. Also, I'm probably going to change that so that it's possible to get to without having to know exactly how to do it.

On saving: It appears you read my mind. I was going to make it so that it saves when you enter the area, but that would make it hard to save when you beat a boss, or something. I think I'll just have save points, as it's easier and requires less planning.

Slopes: I didn't know that. I'll fix all of them if I find any.

FOM: I didn't know that either! I was trying to figure that out, but I had no idea HOW to do it! I'll do that right away.

That one puzzle: I might do that eventually, but it seems so long that I don't want to put it in at the moment.

On the Blade: Either I could make the Blade less powerful, or I could give them more health, which I have NO idea how to do.

And the part with the critters stuck: First off, it was completely intentional.
Second, they are in fact, breakable, so you just have to break them to see them.

And I think that's pretty much it. Oh, and thanks for playing my mod and all that.

[Noxid]

It's cool.
Umm.... I got up here.

Spoiler

Which is dangerous since I could have fallen off the world if I went too far. Also, I accidentally skipped most of the game the first time through and had to play it twice.

But, it's good and all.

[Wedge of Cheese]

That one puzzle: I might do that eventually, but it seems so long that I don't want to put it in at the moment.

Actually, now that I look at your script, it looks like you don't even have and <FONs or <FOMs, so I'm guessing when you fix the other <FOM issue, this will get fixed as well, so forget all that code stuff I posted earlier .

On the Blade: Either I could make the Blade less powerful, or I could give them more health, which I have NO idea how to do.

Well, making the blade less powerful wouldn't be too hard; as there's a list of offsets for various weapon related things. However, I think making the bosses themselves harder would be better. First, I would just change the 3rd boss to use Balrog's 2nd or 4th form (power room/boulder chamber fights) instead of his first. Raising his health would just involve editing npc.tbl. If you're using CaveEdit, then you can just use it's built in npc.tbl editor, otherwise, you can use mine. For Omega, you won't find its health in npc.tbl, so maybe add some spikes to the fight arena to make it more challenging?

And the part with the critters stuck: First off, it was completely intentional.
Second, they are in fact, breakable, so you just have to break them to see them.

Aha. In that case, perhaps the path through the bricks should not be there at first, so you are forced to break the bricks yourself. That way people like me don't get confused

[Ollie]

It's cool.
Umm.... I got up here.

Spoiler

Which is dangerous since I could have fallen off the world if I went too far. Also, I accidentally skipped most of the game the first time through and had to play it twice.

But, it's good and all.

Man, that stupid zombie dragon. I'll seal that place up and move the dragon, so that won't happen anymore.

Well, making the blade less powerful wouldn't be too hard; as there's a list of offsets for various weapon related things. However, I think making the bosses themselves harder would be better. First, I would just change the 3rd boss to use Balrog's 2nd or 4th form (power room/boulder chamber fights) instead of his first. Raising his health would just involve editing npc.tbl. If you're using CaveEdit, then you can just use it's built in npc.tbl editor, otherwise, you can use mine. For Omega, you won't find its health in npc.tbl, so maybe add some spikes to the fight arena to make it more challenging?

Well, I use CE, so I'll use the one included. Also, good advice for the Balrog fight.

Aha. In that case, perhaps the path through the bricks should not be there at first, so you are forced to break the bricks yourself. That way people like me don't get confused

Oh yeah. There was a good reason for that. You see, I used to have the blasts from the Polar Star thing peirce the blocks instead of just breaking them, and the blocks going up to the right were breakable, also. I did that to prevent them from breaking, though the problem wasn't completely resolved. It's a pretty good idea to do that, though. :J