Festive Quest

originally i made this for the winter modding competition thing last year and now it's FINALLY DONE!

curly brace and misery (reluctantly) go on a fun adventure to hunt for presents and nothing bad happens :]

DOWNLOAD LINK

Spoiler: screenshots

questions you might have:

Q: is this a serious mod?

A: it's.... a mod. somewhere in-between serious and shitpost, i guess? honestly i just wanted to make something fun, so...

Q: you know it's october, right?

A: yep

Q: who's that handsome antlered mimiga hiding away in the secret room?

A: that's me :]

Q: why does [x] happen???

A: see previous question about this being serious or not - things happen in this mod! sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't!

 

Heck yeah, I've been waiting for the full release of this for a while now.

This is the best sequel mod I've ever played, it's the Nightmare Before Christmas of CS mods. 10/10

 

My review for this mod:
Name: Festive Quest
Creator: Eli

Spoiler: Summary and Rating

Misery looks much better in this mod.

(Im so sorry) your so fcking precious when you smile
Also I like how Misery is like a tsundere in this mod,
well you know what they say:
"TSUNDERE IS BEST DERE"
Anyway Curly and Misery goes on a competition with Balrog and Quote to see who gets the most presents. Remember this mod is story-driven so I gotta make sure I got all the presents to get ending. Misery arrives at the plantation and all of the Mimiga thinks Misery is still a criminal. (gee they didnt hear the story of the Demon Crown.) I didnt get a choice to tell them I was cursed. Thats kinda disapointing, I sure hope she will be redeemed at the e-

Geez Curly, you really have to tell them that?!
Also stealing presents dosent ruin christmas, because with presents of without, christmas will still be right on December 25th and our hearts. (Although its halloween today which scares me a little.)

WoAH im out of the map.
And then I take one of the top 10 photos before disaster:

So in short Curly basically turned Misery into a framed criminal who stole all the presents and now she has to beat Quote and Balrog in a present getting competition to redeem herself. Sounds intresting im in.

Dang im right now acing at finding presents.

So I go down this path and find another present. This will probadly affect the story,

So Misery is fighting her used to be evil henchman. Pretty ironic.
I have run out of space to put attachments so I'll state the screenshots in text now,
Misery: Well whatever, I can tell soldier Girl or Go to sleep.

Well I feel like we are about to make a choice.

Mick: Woof
Misery: You only like her because she gives you treats, well you do make a good point (chooses to go to Curly regardless.)

OK.

So Misery tells Curly that she needs to go to the waterway and she says that she gave her air tank to Quote, so Curly has to go to the Labyrinth Shop. I feel like their is another "Story-Based" decision. But thats as far as I played.

Rating (so far)
9/10

Reason 1:
Misery looks much better.

Reason 2:
Curly is kinda funny in some parts.

Reason 3:
Misery is now a Tsundere.

Reason 4:
The story will mostly be the same no matter what choices you make.

Reason 5:
No continuity errors from what I have played because this is mostly a sequel mod.

I reccomend this to people who are looking for a good sequel mod.

 

thanks for the review, i'm glad you're liking!

all of the Mimiga thinks Misery is still a criminal

it's more that while they know she's not going to continue the doctor's plans, they're still wary of her (...which is fair enough considering she kidnapped most of them)

Reason 4:
The story will mostly be the same no matter what choices you make.

there's not really any alternate endings depending on what you do (apart from the joke one at the beginning), so there's not really any need to worry about that

 

I decided to go ahead and give this mod a play, and I have to say I've enjoyed it. I like the main menu background art, the menu has a nice style to it. I loved how you can get the "bad" ending early on by just going straight to bed and not helping Curly out. That epilogue gave me a good laugh. Interesting touch by having the Booster 0.8 equipped to simulate Misery's levitation. I like how you subverted my expectations with the health refill station. I instinctively interacted with it in the hopes of restoring my HP, only to find that it only works for robots. That was a good gag. I also liked the fish in the pot that will give you a life capsule if you keep listening to jokes, that was pretty funny.

I enjoyed this mod's sense of humor. I couldn't help but feel as if the humor was partially inspired by Undertale. And then... When talking about these dogs, Misery says "I'd describe them as annoying, but yes.", is that an Undertale reference? Oh, nevermind, yep, then Curly says "Annoying dogs, huh? I wonder if I've heard that phrase somewhere before." Oh, and also Cthulu asking you "You think you are above consequences?"

I'm guessing this was a Monty Python reference: "She turned me into a Mimiga." "A Mimiga?" "It got better."

Overall, the level design was fairly decent. The concept is rather trivial, and yet it kept me engaged, while touching on some of the personal struggles that some of the characters are likely to have post-Cave Story in a serious and thoughtful way. I got to the part where

Spoiler

You wake Misery up with the water, she doesn't want you to talk to her, and then you give Jenka the flower petals that it turns out she didn't need. I went back to Misery's place, and she's still kicking me out when I try to talk to her. It's not obvious to me what I'm supposed to do now. I thought it might be the end of the demo or something, but then I looked back at the OP which says "It's finally done.", so I guess I'm missing something.

As always, here were a few things I caught or stuck out to me as not making sense:

Spoiler

-What's the deal with both Misery and Curly having bubbles around them after getting the airtank? Before this, Misery didn't have the bubble, and
apparently could even drown, but now things are different for Misery. I thought it was only Curly that needed the air tank.
-I thought that was cool how you can teleport to the Plantation. I was a little bit disappointed that this was handled with a fade instead of showing Misery teleport out. But, at least you had the animation for her arriving at the Plantation, so points there.
-"So the point is to retrieve more then Balrog and Quote?" - Misery, when talking to Curly in the rest area
-The text for the present in your inventory is missing a "<TUR" command to make it all appear at once
-When you defeat Balrog and the oddly festive robot, is there any reason that the "Got Item!" music plays instead of "Victory"?
-The present item that you interact with uses a <KEY command, but I think it should use a <PRI command instead, because there are some areas where enemies can get you by surprise. The first area where this stuck out to me was in the upper right region of Labyrinth W
-Seems kinda weird that Curly was able to beat you to Labyrinth X when you teleported before her. I guess she's that much of a ninja
-Curly has no interaction event for when you arrive at Labyrinth X, I feel like you could give her something to say
-"Here's something for your troutbles..." - the fish in the pot. I was about to report this as a typo, and then after reading over my post one more time before hitting the post button, I got the joke. Sans would be proud.
-When you're in the Sand Zone residence, and you talk to Quote a few times, it will say "The robot points at your weapon." Except it does it with Quote's facepic, and I don't think this was on purpose. Partially because it doesn't make sense, and also because the text is cut off.
-So I went out to the left in that area on the Balcony where you normally would enter the throne room. And then I jumped far out, it stopped me, then I fell to my death, but no event triggered. I had to restart the game. I'd be surprised if this was on purpose, but I'm not sure how you could have done this by accident.
-The placing of those spikes in the room where you encounter the Red Demon are not very convenient. The H/V trigger stopped me and made me land right on them, and I ended up getting hurt as soon as the cutscene finished.
-Also, I noticed in the readme, you credited Mugen for one of the orgs, which by process of elimination must be "Never gonna give you up". I found the music box that displays the lyrics to this song in the place where you normally find Curly's panties, but it didn't play the org. Was this on purpose?

Overall, this was an enjoyable mod. Thanks for enticing me into spending my Saturday afternoon playing this mod when I was planning on working on something else.

 

Spoiler

You wake Misery up with the water, she doesn't want you to talk to her, and then you give Jenka the flower petals that it turns out she didn't need. I went back to Misery's place, and she's still kicking me out when I try to talk to her. It's not obvious to me what I'm supposed to do now. I thought it might be the end of the demo or something, but then I looked back at the OP which says "It's finally done.", so I guess I'm missing something.

that's... weird, once you exit jenka's house, an event should trigger to continue the plot - now that i think about it, the progression flag might be tied to talking to the mimiga, i'll look into that

as for the other stuff:
- misery only has the bubble in waterway, something something magic anti-drowning spell
- 'the robot points at your weapon' is actually intentional, it's a reference to an inside joke
- <TUR messes with the [number]/40 command, but i will change the present pick-up to be <PRI instead of <KEY
- the org doesn't play in the sand zone chest - it plays later on (if you inspect the chest)
- yes, curly is a ninja
- everything else is a bug and/or oversight and i'll fix it when i get home later

 

Spoiler

that's... weird, once you exit jenka's house, an event should trigger to continue the plot - now that i think about it, the progression flag might be tied to talking to the mimiga, i'll look into that

Yeah, nothing happened when I left Jenka's house. And I'm pretty sure I exhausted all of the dialogue with that Mimiga before leaving Jenka's house.

- 'the robot points at your weapon' is actually intentional, it's a reference to an inside joke

Oh really, what's the inside joke?

- yes, curly is a ninja

Thought so.

 

Spoiler

Yeah, nothing happened when I left Jenka's house. And I'm pretty sure I exhausted all of the dialogue with that Mimiga before leaving Jenka's house.

i'm looking at the script rn and yeah, the event to continue SHOULD trigger after you talk to the mimiga - the flags check out and nobody else who's played through has reported this issue, either, and i didn't come across it myself so i honestly have no idea what's wrong

i swear i went through each map methodically and squashed all the bugs, yet i've already released like... three bugfix updates since this morning, i guess that's what i get for not asking someone else to look over it before publishing

Oh really, what's the inside joke?

i had a textbox bug in my first mod (you talk to quote and that line of dialogue was cut off due to adding the dialogue portrait), when it was noticed by my friends it was a joke for a while

 

Huh, so I'm not sure what the deal is, but I loaded the game back up again, and talked to Jenka and the Mimiga again. And then when I exited Jenka's house...

Spoiler

Misery and the puppy were there waiting for me.

Looks like it's progressing normally now, not sure why it wasn't working the first time. In any case, not sure when I'll feel up to playing the rest of this, but maybe I will at some point.

 

It's done?! Horray! Nice work.... Though... I *think* I'll wait till December. Theme is just too perfect for a holiday Cave Story marathon.

 

Though... I *think* I'll wait till December. Theme is just too perfect for a holiday Cave Story marathon.

Not much longer until it! I'm really excited to play this, of course when 'tis the season.

 

So I got around to playing this mod again. When I last left off, I was just starting at that Last Cave type area, and just took control of Misery. Nice little troll there with that signponst that you probably have only read if you get killed by the press and learned to dodge it.

Interesting little mechanic you have there with the red dot that will teleport you to another room. I encountered something weird with it, though. When I took that first teleport, and then jumped back into it to go to the previous room, I instantly died. I'm guessing this was not on purpose, and I'm guessing that this was caused by the press that was right there where I got teleported.

The door on the Balcony to the Prefab building has no opening animation when I go through it.

That present underneath the Balcony is devilishly hard to get. I wasn't actually even able to do it, because I couldn't make the jump back up, mostly because of that one tile blocking me. Part of me thinks that jump might be too hard.

"Here's a hint. You have no chance against me. HAhahahahahaahah." Something tells me this was inspired by Lancer.

I liked the boss fight with the Doctor and the Red Crystal. It had somewhat of a fresh feel to it, and used some existing mechanics in a creative new way. I was also surprised to see some original credit art images, I don't see very many mods doing that these days.

Was it on purpose that during the 2nd phase of the credits, Quote appears, but then drops off the screen instead of walking in place like in the original CS?

In the end, I collected 28 out of the 40 presents. Although I enjoyed this mod, I don't think I have it in me to play through this mod again and find all 40 of them. Does the ending change based on how many presents you collect, and based on how much damage you do to the red crystal during the final phase of the boss fight? It felt a bit abrupt the way that that battle ended, and I'm pretty sure it didn't happen directly as a result of me hitting it.

Overall, I thought this was a fairly fun and entertaining mod.

 

Spoiler

- the teleport return killing you wasn't on purpose, no, i guess i missed that during playtesting...
- that sign wasn't actually inspired by lancer (though i can see why you'd think that, haha) or a conscious reference to anything, i just wanted to put something ~spooooky~
- yep, the credits thing is a bug - i'm not sure what's causing it or how to fix it

and as for ending stuff:
- the fight is progressed by you hitting the crystal, there's... 3 phases, i believe, but it's a little short/chaotic, i feel like i could've expanded on it...
- there's no ending/dialogue change for present amount (a bit pointless, i know), i'm sure i could've figured something out but towards the end i was suffering from burnout and i just wanted to release it - if i'd been in a better place & had more motivation there's a lot of improvements & QoL stuff i would've liked to add, which i feel is more obvious towards the end, but i hope it doesn't impact it too much

well, that aside, i'm glad you enjoyed it overall!

now to work on halloween quest, got a christmas deadline to meet

 

I think I will do a part 2 of my review

Spoiler: Summary and Review

So it looks like there is gonna be a puzzle.

Oh look, its the racing sequence of Minecraft Story Mode Season 2

Why do I get a boss vibe.
So Misery and Curly finds a oddly festive robot and Misery and Curly KOs the robot and they got the power source and

Well I guess Curly is gonna be the Kenny of Cave Story.

Then how are you still alive?
The water level is fairly difficult, you’ll die a little bit, but you’ll make it

Here we get to our 1st continuity error: Misery is a robot witch, which means that she can charge up using the server.
Although its probadly that she dosent feel like using it.

So in this puzzle Misery has to reactivate the power generator.
After fixing the generator Misery and Curly realized that there is a frenzied Mimiga, The frenzied Mimiga turns to normal but Misery and Curly got separated (I hope Misery is OK.)
So now there is the last puzzle in the game, Curly has to reactivate the teleport, she did but encountered the same mimiga, Curly has to help him to Jenka’s house. She arrives at Jenka’s and Curly has to find medicine at the Sand Zone Bar (yes thats what I call the Sand Zone Residence.) So we cut back to Misery and she realized she arrived back at the sand zone.
Review:
7/10
Reason 1:
The game now has a designated bark button.
Reason 2:
3 not to complex and fairly easy puzzles.
Reason 3:
Only 1 continuity error.

 

Here we get to our 1st continuity error: Misery is a robot witch, which means that she can charge up using the server.

what
she's not a robot? a running joke in this mod is that a few npcs comment on how she looks a bit weird/creepy and maybe isn't human, but she's certainly organic, at least, i'm really not sure where you're getting 'robot witch' from?

(glad you liked the bark button though, that's one of my favourite bits)

...uh, anyway, at some point soon i'll be releasing a final-FINAL-final bugfix update, and while i'm at it i'll probably rework the final cutscene a little (so the amount of presents you get actually matters)

edit: hey this is my 69th post. obligatory 'nice'

 

what
she's not a robot? a running joke in this mod is that a few npcs comment on how she looks a bit weird/creepy and maybe isn't human, but she's certainly organic, at least, i'm really not sure where you're getting 'robot witch' from?

Trust me, you're better off ignoring whatever MinecraftStoryModFan has to say in some stuff regarding facts and theories, they legitimately think Half Life and Cave Story are related, Quote's a few centuries old, and some other bullshit that they mentioned two years ago.

 

Trust me, you're better off ignoring whatever MinecraftStoryModFan has to say in some stuff regarding facts and theories, they legitimately think Half Life and Cave Story are related, Quote's a few centuries old, and some other bullshit that they mentioned two years ago.

noted, thanks

 

Oh yeah, now that I've played the final* version, I can actually put down my thoughts about about the ending:

Spoiler

I liked how the actual story part of the ending went, but I think the gameplay didn't quite hold up in the final moments, mainly just with the final fight.

First, I found the final fights to be pretty easy.
idk, maybe I'm just such a pro gamer™ that I'm not intimidated by Doctor phase 1, or by a bouncing around crystal that, while a very unique fight, isn't so much "hard to beat" as it is "hard to hit".

But no, my real issue is right after the final blow on the crystal... there's kinda just... nothing? "*crystal goes poof* oh and you're falling now aaaaaa- now you're on the ground say hi to your friends!!!!" is about the entire experience I got. As a famous martian once said...
I think having a bit more time to absorb "hey, I just beat this tough enemy from the past and now I'm gonna faaaallll-" would go a long way in making this ending have more impact.

The cutscene after that was fine though, even if it isn't the ending I think anyone was expecting...
Having an alternate ending for getting all the presents (or even different dialog based off of how many presents you get, like the strawberries in Celeste) would help make it more satisfying I think.

Despite what I said in the spoiler, I still stand by what I said in my OP, this is the best sequel mod I've ever played.
It stands out from other sequel mods with its funny/charming dialog, unique choice of protagonist(s), and a smaller/more intimate scope.

...Though, maybe it's not technically spooky enough to be "The Nightmare Before Christmas of CS mods"... Ah who am I kidding, I'll still play it for both holidays.

 

i can't believe it took me almost another month to do this but!
ending's fixed, as is a bunch of other small things (again)
it's pretty minor - just a bit of different dialogue depending on how many presents you have - but hey! it's a start. or a finish, i guess, since i probably won't change it (i want to move onto other projects).

CHANGELOG:

- final boss has more HP

- different dialogue in the ending dependant on amount of presents

- a few tweaks and bugfixes :')

- all 40 presents should be collectable i can't believe i never checked that before releasing jfc

 

Welp part 3 of my review.

Spoiler: Summary and Review

So I found this cool secret room by accident.

Its a cool addition to the mod.

Misery visits the Sakumotos next



boomer Misery
Boomer Misery
BOOMER MISERY!
So Curly and Misery reunites and meets Quote, Quote follows Curly and Misery to get more presents than them.

I hope there will be a scene where Quote and Curly kiss under the mistletoe.

I tried to get Curly's panties but

This is one of the greatest mods of Cave Story
So I entered the Gum place in grasstown and I encountered a puzzle

This is in my opinion the hardest puzzle in this game.
Then this room seems so familiar,

So Misery and Curly takes a tour of Misery's least favorite locations (Running Hell and Black Space.)
The Doctor possess Misery and we play as Curly again and have another puzzle related to the machine gun. Also I like the hint you have put there.

Curly fights possessed Misery and hopefully The Doctor's soul leaves Misery, Misery is KOd and Curly carries Misery to a Cave. This is as far as I go.
Review
9/10
Reason 1:
1 continuity errors where Misery said she is not a robot but I'll let it pass.
Reason 2:
Quote returns,
Reason 3:
3 medium difficulty puzzles
Reason 4:
The Lvl 3 machine gun is a required weapon for the last 2 puzzles.

I have not played through this entire mod yet, I just really hope Misery wont work for The Doctor again because she is my favorite character and I hate for that to happen.