Cave Story: Jenka's Nightmare

Preview of my mod, for testing/playing/whatever:
http://www.horizonscape.com/shmitz/cavestory/nightmare.03.01.zip

Make a copy of your normal Cave Story directory. Then extract the contents of this zip file to the copy directory.


It is expected that anyone playing this mod has beaten the original game with the best ending (secret level). If you have not, events in the game may not mesh with the ending you're familiar with, or if you haven't beaten it at all, there will be spoilers.

This version comprises roughly 75-85% of the mod's full content. There may be places you are unsure of how to get to; it is possible those simply haven't been added in yet. With this release the game has become less linear, and optional plot branches start becoming more evident. As such it was more difficult for me to test all possibilities myself. The task you will be faced with when you reach the end of the current content is to visit both Oblivion and Genesis, in the order of your choice. Only Genesis is complete in this version, so keep in mind while playing that in future versions you will have more options available to you. Cutscenes and such after Genesis are not guaranteed to be finished.

Weapons and accessories you may potentially have access to:
Missiles
Super Missiles
Bubbler
Blade
Nemesis
Machine Gun
Fireball
Booster 0.8
Booster 2.0
Curly's Air Tank
Arms Barrier

 

Very nice! First Cave seems to be a bit heavy on enemies, but great all the same. Story-wise, I see that you've kept the original's WTF factor. Which is a good thing, because that's what got me hooked the first time around.

Only suggestions thus far:

• Fix up the blue tileset; replace the "green dot" passable tile with something more easily recognizable.
• On the "First Cave" map, the cave shakes whenever you enter from the "Familiar Cave?".
• Smooth out your surfaces; the jagged edges where rocky slopes should be are displeasing to the eye.
• You may want to tone down the enemies a bit. You're asking a bit much from a guy with only a limited-ammo Snake and a Polar Star.
• Remove the door to Ma Pignon's room, as it doesn't seem to do anything at this point, and story-wise, shouldn't be there.

Overall, excellent work, can't wait for the final game.

*EDIT*: Are you going for a hardtype mod?

 

I just realized something rather important: I forgot to remove the chest containing the Booster 2.0. I had that in there just to make it easier for me to test new areas (if I'd already finished testing one area, I could get to the new stuff much quicker). So if you want to experience what the actual gameplay will be like, don't equip it, as it makes a number of things significantly less challenging.

(Ahh well, I suppose this is what alpha stage is all about, eh?)

 

Dammit... I had a really long post talking about every zone in order. And I totaly closed it... Sigh... I'll retype all of it later...

For now...
All I can say is Nice work! I love it... Looking forward to more. Also looking forward to stealing your boss manipulating tricks

 

Wow. This is really good. Especially "Genesis: Sky", is there a way to jump to that far right door?

A few bugs/problems:

• Should the fan in the Reservoir be on at the start?
• The Yamashita Farm -> Mimiga Village exit goes to the wrong coordinates.
• If you get to the west fan control without activating it first, the only way out is through the spikes.
• Strange beds in Grasstown. Chaco's doesn't work, and the computer in Grasstown Tower is set to the original Chaco's bed event.
• If you use the terminal in the last area, then save/reload, the wall is back to normal, and you can't use the terminal again. There's a few solutions to this, like swapping the terminal with a blank entity that becomes the "new" terminal instead of using a flag, or using <CMP in the entrance event, but I can't think of anything that would work perfectly - you'd still have the wall resetting or some other continuity error.
• This is really more of a suggestion, but turning on the terminals and continuing only to find a bunch of terminals that still don't work is pretty annoying. It seems like that door is really meant for going back once you get to that area, so maybe have it blocked from the Grasstown side somehow? Then once you open it from there you can go through either way.
• The dialogue at the end of the Pipeworks section (with you-know-who) is very...abrupt. But it's probably not finished anyway.
• Since the health/missile station is also refilling Snake ammo, you might want to have the Snake chest set flag 0201 and have it read "Health and ammunition refilled."

Oh, and if you need items (Booster 2.0, etc.) for debugging, manually adding them to your profile.dat is a lot easier than adding a chest. If you need a hex editor I recommend Hex Workshop.

 

Wow. This is really good. Especially "Genesis: Sky", is there a way to jump to that far right door?

Yeah, there's a cluster of three blocks you can fall down to near the first door. You should be able to figure it out from there.

A few bugs/problems:

• Should the fan in the Reservoir be on at the start?

No it shouldn't. Will look into it.

• The Yamashita Farm -> Mimiga Village exit goes to the wrong coordinates.

Ooh, thanks. I tested going to the Chimney. I never tested coming back.

• If you get to the west fan control without activating it first, the only way out is through the spikes.

That's intentional, though admittedly may not be fair when you're discovering the area for the first time. I might just add a flagged one that only appears after you've turned the terminal power on.

• Strange beds in Grasstown. Chaco's doesn't work, and the computer in Grasstown Tower is set to the original Chaco's bed event.

Noted. The frills in Grasstown only got a brief check, I paid most of my attention to the dialogue there. Try blowing Jack off before he's done talking to you and take a rest.

• This is really more of a suggestion, but turning on the terminals and continuing only to find a bunch of terminals that still don't work is pretty annoying. It seems like that door is really meant for going back once you get to that area, so maybe have it blocked from the Grasstown side somehow? Then once you open it from there you can go through either way.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you talking about the message that they need auxiliary airflow?

• The dialogue at the end of the Pipeworks section (with you-know-who) is very...abrupt. But it's probably not finished anyway.

Yeah, I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but it gets the meaning across for now.

• Since the health/missile station is also refilling Snake ammo, you might want to have the Snake chest set flag 0201 and have it read "Health and ammunition refilled."

Excelent idea.

Oh, and if you need items (Booster 2.0, etc.) for debugging, manually adding them to your profile.dat is a lot easier than adding a chest. If you need a hex editor I recommend Hex Workshop.

Yeah, originally it was for a different item that I decided to remove, so it was just a matter of changing the script slightly. I'll be deleting the chest entirely shortly. I keep forgetting because it's in a spot I don't normally look at. Out of sight, out of mind... ^_^*

 

I just added a note about the terminal in the last area, didn't realize you already replied. Also, is that Rolling supposed to get stuck in the top-left? It looks like the "top of broken fencing" tile is set to block enemies (type 44), for whatever reason.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you talking about the message that they need auxiliary airflow?

Yeah, that one. You have to turn on the terminals and then head back to the one terminal you can use now, but if you don't go back and take the bottom door instead, you end up in a long dead-end with terminals you can't use after you just activated the terminals. It's the only place where you can go exploring and end up feeling like you didn't accomplish anything. I really only mention it because the rest of the level design is excellent.

 

To fix the issue with the terminal not resetting, I can just have the map unset its flag on load.

Also, I just saw Epsilon's edit. I'm not going for an "extreme challenge" type mod, but I do want it to be challenging. I see it as sort of an expansion for Cave Story, and as such expects that the player is familiar with the game and doesn't need much of a learning curve. My goal is for the normal play-through to be medium difficulty, but all the secrets and really good stuff to require quite a bit of work and forethought.

You're right that there are some areas with way too many enemies. Mostly, I'm putting enemies in as much as I can, and then going through and seeing which ones provide the challenge I'm looking for, which ones are so out of the way they're ignored, and which ones are just so much that they're more like handicaps rather than surmountable obstacles.

 

Just some tidbits:
Music restarts when going to second room (it's unnecessary)
The Mimiga around Town Hall will walk off the edge, which is weird
Chaco's dialogue skips a line
"Genesis isn't usually this predictable" skips a line

 

The Mimiga around Town Hall will walk off the edge, which is weird

I thought it was funny.

 

I thought it was funny.

Hehe, nobody ever said the Shovel Brigade were that intelligent. They believed in the Doctor, after all ;P

For that reason, I'm still debating whether to change him

 

Don't change it, I like how he falls down.

However on the slope before he falls down he can kinda clip the land... Hard to explain what happend, but it looks silly.

 

When you get to the ending of the plumbing area, you can totally own the boss by getting to the bottom left corner and spamming the Snake as quickly as you can. Pretty much the only thing that can damage you are the auxiliary enemies, and they aren't going to hurt you enough. In fact, and you will probably keep them at bay half the time anyway.

I look forward to seeing more.

 

However on the slope before he falls down he can kinda clip the land... Hard to explain what happend, but it looks silly.

If you time it right, you can start talking to him as you both fall off the edge.

 

New update: http://www.horizonscape.com/shmitz/cavestory/nightmare.02.zip

See top post and/or the readme for more details.

I'd also recommend playing through from the beginning again, even if you still have a save from the previous version, as you may be missing some neccessary flags for later events.

 

Uhm... with the new version, the first time I tried to enter Mimiga Village (from the First Cave), it gave me a dialogue about Curly and Genesis and a bunch of other stuff that shouldn't come until later and then quit. Maybe the demo end needs to check for a different flag or something?

(I went ahead and fought the fuel cell boss first, if that matters. You might want to put up a barrier or something to force that fight, instead of relying on a key - if you stand one the blocks at the far right edge of the battle field, you can spam Polar Star shots and take out all the bosses without ever taking a hit, as they can't jump high enough to hit you and their projectiles are easily destroyed.)

Looking forward to the rest of the new demo. You've done some great work with this.

 

How did you fight that boss? That incidentally is what triggers the "end of this version" dialogue when you try to enter Mimiga Village. I was pretty sure there wasn't a way to get up there from the beginning.

EDIT: Found a way by bouncing off a bat. Let me know if there are others.

 

Oops, haha. And just in case, the heart container in the same area can also be reached by colliding with a bat.

EDIT: Found an odd bug - in the Sand Zone, the puppies had seriously messed up graphics and the crawling skulls had Butte tiles in place of their legs. This only happened the first time I entered, once I went into the save room and came back out everything was as it should be.

 

Hmm, sounds like it didn't update the spritesheets correctly from the previous area. I wonder if that's just an exe bug. Has anyone else encountered similar problems?

 

How did you fight that boss? That incidentally is what triggers the "end of this version" dialogue when you try to enter Mimiga Village. I was pretty sure there wasn't a way to get up there from the beginning.

EDIT: Found a way by bouncing off a bat. Let me know if there are others.

Hey! Just raised my eyebrow when this happened to me as well lol
I never deal with bouncing off the bats, I always ride the little jumpy things! when you're invincible after taking damage you can ride em [got the heart expansion and the boss area with it]
I believe there were other areas as well later in the game; but I need to play through it again ~