True Hell 2 (Version 3 Now Available)

ChampionDude345 · Nov 27, 2018

Ever thought True Hell was "Too Difficult" or, "A Bad Mod"
Just wait until you see the sequel!
WARNING: Please do not play this mod if you have problems with super difficult mods. "Spike Hell's", if you will.
This mod was made to be difficult, so no nerfing will be required. Save points exist for a reason.
If you ACTUALLY want to speedrun this, please do not load a save file near the end of the game and call it a day.
Have a nice day! (Or a bad one, of course!)
More updates will probably be released. I rushed to get this out there so it isn't perfect.

Are YOU ready to take the task of imminent death?
EDIT: I'm sorry that all my mods have been filled with the idea of "Dodge spikes and get on with it". My next mod will most likely be more relaxing, to say the least.
DOWNLOAD

metallicLurker · Nov 27, 2018

My mistake.

Well, now.

I guess there are some improvements in the sequel...?
I'd say, though, they're not enough.

Firstly, I'll just ask: What is the meaning behind these "Spike Hell" mods?
Yes, sure, difficulty; it's supposedly made to make people suffer, yada yada yada... Well, crud. It's doing exactly what it says. Is that what you want to see? Personally, if I wanted to play a rage-inducing super-difficult platformer game, I'd go to the I Wanna Be the Guy fanbase and play some "I Wanna Be the Boshi". Or, heck, "I Wanna Kill the Kamilia 2". These games, fully intended to be (almost) unbeatable, are directed to the community that is ready to play them.

Cave Story? No, no, definitely not. Didn't Project Insanity and True Hell gain infamy because of their outrageous difficulty? And no, you can't say that you included more savepoints than before, it doesn't change the fact that it's all about avoiding spikes. Granted, I can see where it has improved. The death duration is shortened. More savepoints. No enemies. Not as punishing level design as the previous mods. Yet I am still avoiding instadeath at almost every corner. That's all I'm doing. Here are some highlights:
1) This, to start from;

2) The RNG of Hell B2 becoming even worse; by far this is potentially the most outrageous section, and it has been made much, much worse.

3) This section, where I had no idea how to continue and had to abuse the spike's hitbox;

And the rest was only a little bit easier and more predictable.

A mod can be hard and enjoyable at the same time. It's a good point to consider. In my opinion, SeasonsOfDestiny's "I Wanna Be the Story" mod does exactly that: it's made to be difficult, but it also mixes in fun elements, fun mechanics, good aesthetics, completely original and well-structured level design, enemies as an element (not a chaotic factor, mind you), bosses and level structures specifically designed for them, no random elements, and some things that remind you of IWBTG, but don't actually obstruct you as much.
I get it, level design is hard. In fact, it's the vital point of a mod, and everything should always be carefully planned while designing a level. But you can't sell bad level design by saying it's "intentionally hard", or "made to make people suffer". If this is exactly what you're trying to pursue here, then sure, more power to you.

CyberSoup · Nov 28, 2018

lurker i get it seasons pays you to advertise all of his mods sshhhhhhhh

Another great entry to your True Hell series. Enjoyed it way more than the first one since a lot of the spike segments seem way more well thought out and designed to be super hard. I didn't fully finish it, since I was busy, but I do intend to in the future. A super impossible mod every once in a while that makes you want to tear your hair out isn't that bad for your mod consumption diet, right?
Anyway, for a response to Lurker~

metallicLurker said:

Excuse me? Impossible mods are a staple of gaming as a whole, not just I Wanna Be the Guy. Cave Story's physics engine is a beautiful thing and when done right can create some awesome impossible levels. Just because you might be bad at avoiding some spikes doesn't mean people who aren't shouldn't make and play these mods. Also, are you really going to call True Hell and P.I. infamous? No one in the community is so immature that they shun a mod because it's too difficult when it literally says it's designed to be impossibly hard. If the mod is designed to make you want to rip your hair out, and you aren't into that, go play something easier like HeadMan or I Wanna Be the Guy Story. Leave the occasional Impossible Mods alone, because there are people who do enjoy them.

Was this review really necessary? Spending 70 minutes on a mod I can tell you didn't enjoy just so you could advertise a different mod you liked that happened to be in a completely different style entirely? I don't think so.

DoubleThink · Nov 28, 2018

There's an awful lot of projection in that post, I don't like seeing pointlessly harsh criticism but this sort of handwavy reverse nitpicking isn't any better for encouraging actual productive discussion

And if we could all cut back on the personal assumptions in general I would greatly prefer that to having to make a PSA about forum behaviour again

Serri · Nov 28, 2018

There is always more room for improvement, and there will always be harsh criticisms if the mod does not deliver, regardless of how good or bad it is.

metallicLurker · Nov 28, 2018

This was unjustly harsh, wasn't it.

This "review" was written somewhere at 6 AM by my time, after I just spent around 2 hours completing this mod. Perhaps the anger got into me? I take all responsibility for any misunderstandings caused. Also, I take back everything I said about True Hell and Project Insanity; these were complete lies I somehow fabricated.
Also, to CyberSoup:

I said:

To be fair, I never said these mods shouldn't exist.

NOW, I'll try to judge this mod by what it's actually supposed to do, instead of asking why a whole "Spike Hell" genre exists. That was highly unnecessary, I apologise for doing that.

True Hell 2 has actually improved by a lot since the other mods. Let me say that again: there are definitely more savepoints; there are no chaotic factors (well, almost, I'll get to that one later), the level design is generally less punishing (though I don't know if this is a good thing or not), there's nothing unexpected, and the duration of respawning has shortened to a mere two seconds. Mechanically, this is what a good "Spike Hell" mod is, and True Hell 2 is a lot more fair than the mods before. I don't know how I failed to appreciate that at the time when I wrote the first post, but I do now.

There are some weak points in this mod, though:
1) Referring to my second .gif, Hell B2 section still exists, and it's still full of falling blocks. This is a huge random factor in an otherwise fair mod, i.e. the player can get sniped at any point in this section. To be fair, I don't know how to "fix" B2 so that the blocks always fall in some specific arrangement, but still.
2) There's some disbalance in difficulty between the beginning and the later sections. I fully expected there to be even harder sections after I went through, well, what I just showed in the screenshots, but it turned out to be a couple of calculated jumps and fan sections. Though, perhaps it's just me and I'm good at those kind of jumps, or something. Maybe it's intentional?

Whew. This post is completely different from the previous. Just... ignore that one, I wrote nothing constructive in it.
I expect that there'll be original level design in the next updates? So far, it's going in the right direction, so keep up the good work.

zxin · Nov 28, 2018

Why not have the player lose max health as they go?

You need a <PRI not a <KEY in the "black wind" dialogue.

Please put a skipflag for this, reading it every time is really boring.

You never said getting to the save points would be harder than skipping them.

Okay why is this thing lagging now that I've saved...
I restarted it and now my time is 0'0"0 again. I guess I could make you a hack to save the current time to the Profile.dat if you'd like. But you'd have to autosave whenever the player dies.

CyberSoup · Nov 29, 2018

metallicLurker said:

This was unjustly harsh, wasn't it.

This "review" was written somewhere at 6 AM by my time, after I just spent around 2 hours completing this mod. Perhaps the anger got into me? I take all responsibility for any misunderstandings caused. Also, I take back everything I said about True Hell and Project Insanity; these were complete lies I somehow fabricated.
Also, to CyberSoup:

To be fair, I never said these mods shouldn't exist.

NOW, I'll try to judge this mod by what it's actually supposed to do, instead of asking why a whole "Spike Hell" genre exists. That was highly unnecessary, I apologise for doing that.

True Hell 2 has actually improved by a lot since the other mods. Let me say that again: there are definitely more savepoints; there are no chaotic factors (well, almost, I'll get to that one later), the level design is generally less punishing (though I don't know if this is a good thing or not), there's nothing unexpected, and the duration of respawning has shortened to a mere two seconds. Mechanically, this is what a good "Spike Hell" mod is, and True Hell 2 is a lot more fair than the mods before. I don't know how I failed to appreciate that at the time when I wrote the first post, but I do now.

There are some weak points in this mod, though:
1) Referring to my second .gif, Hell B2 section still exists, and it's still full of falling blocks. This is a huge random factor in an otherwise fair mod, i.e. the player can get sniped at any point in this section. To be fair, I don't know how to "fix" B2 so that the blocks always fall in some specific arrangement, but still.
2) There's some disbalance in difficulty between the beginning and the later sections. I fully expected there to be even harder sections after I went through, well, what I just showed in the screenshots, but it turned out to be a couple of calculated jumps and fan sections. Though, perhaps it's just me and I'm good at those kind of jumps, or something. Maybe it's intentional?

Whew. This post is completely different from the previous. Just... ignore that one, I wrote nothing constructive in it.
I expect that there'll be original level design in the next updates? So far, it's going in the right direction, so keep up the good work.

oh jeez yeah i think now rereading my post it was a bit harsh yeah

i definitely didnt intend that

I just think the community is definitely overly harsh to "impossible level" mods, and I think I was talking more about that in general than just your post! Sorry for any misunderstandings.

ChampionDude345 · Nov 30, 2018

Version 2 is now available for download!
CHANGES:
-Changed Room 3 to not have to abuse a spike's hitbox
-Added a save point to Room 2 (Before mid-way save point)
EDIT:
Version 3 is better.
-Changed room 3 to be possible again. Fixed the thing I tried to fix. (Still not abusing spike hitbox)

MisterDestroyer · Nov 30, 2018

Wow I thought you stopped making mod, for some reason o-o.
Anyway good to see you back.

StudioDixel · Nov 30, 2018

Cool mod.

So this is probably my favorite "Spike Hell" mod I've played. Then again, I've only played the first True Hell (where I couldn't get past the first room) and this, but still. Most of the platforming challenges were well done, though as metallicLurker said it actually gets easier as it goes along. But I'm fine with how it is now (for the most part). The lack of the Booster 2.0 is was a bit weird at first, but I get that you wanted to make a mod just about running and jumping. The Booster does break platforming challenges that aren't based around it.

metallicLurker also pointed out the only part I actually dislike. The second room, with all the falling blocks. This part was already terrible in the original, but giving the player 3 health made it 10 times worse. I played version 1 when it was released, and the extra save point in version 3 doesn't help much either. I swear, if I make a mod with lots of ASM, I am going to delete the code for those blocks from existence and replace it with something less asinine.

Version 3 is a bit better than version 1. The replacement for the "touch the spike but not really" section in the third room is really clever, and almost as difficult. But that's the only change that I remember and haven't mentioned already, and the one big problem is still there, and really big.

It took a few playthroughs, most of them ending on the second room, but...

I'd say you should take out the falling block room and probably replace it with a room that has another, more fair gimmick. You should probably either make the first room easier, make the final few rooms harder, or swap the "falling spike-dodging" sections in the first and last rooms. I'd do the second option, but it's up to you.

ChampionDude345 · Dec 1, 2018

StudioDixel said:

Cool mod.

So this is probably my favorite "Spike Hell" mod I've played. Then again, I've only played the first True Hell (where I couldn't get past the first room) and this, but still. Most of the platforming challenges were well done, though as metallicLurker said it actually gets easier as it goes along. But I'm fine with how it is now (for the most part). The lack of the Booster 2.0 is was a bit weird at first, but I get that you wanted to make a mod just about running and jumping. The Booster does break platforming challenges that aren't based around it.

metallicLurker also pointed out the only part I actually dislike. The second room, with all the falling blocks. This part was already terrible in the original, but giving the player 3 health made it 10 times worse. I played version 1 when it was released, and the extra save point in version 3 doesn't help much either. I swear, if I make a mod with lots of ASM, I am going to delete the code for those blocks from existence and replace it with something less asinine.

Version 3 is a bit better than version 1. The replacement for the "touch the spike but not really" section in the third room is really clever, and almost as difficult. But that's the only change that I remember and haven't mentioned already, and the one big problem is still there, and really big.

It took a few playthroughs, most of them ending on the second room, but...

View attachment 5163

I'd say you should take out the falling block room and probably replace it with a room that has another, more fair gimmick. You should probably either make the first room easier, make the final few rooms harder, or swap the "falling spike-dodging" sections in the first and last rooms. I'd do the second option, but it's up to you.

Thank you for the feedback! I'll probably change Room 2 in Version 4. I was just being lazy when I designed it. After all, most of it is just the same gimmick over and over, jumping over spikes and avoiding the blocks.

nburgin · Mar 14, 2019

I just played this mod. And well...

I noticed you said not to use Doukutsu Trainer. However, on the other hand, you didn't say anything about not using Hourglass :awesomeface:

so...

[TAS] Cave Story "True Hell 2" mod (v3) in 1:28 in-game time

This is probably one of the few games where TASing is less trouble than playing normally

Though honestly this probably isn't very optimized by TAS standards. But at least, I'm a little proud of how I handled the falling block sequence. A bit of luck manipulation was used there.

input file (Hourglass Movie) is attached, for anyone who's interested

ChampionDude345 · Mar 14, 2019

nburgin said:

Thanks for playing! LOVED THE TAS. Although, I agree, could use some touching up.
Room 2 is one of the worst rooms in a normal run. In my thoughts, the first section of room 1 is harder though. Room 2 isnt that long.

True Hell 2 (Version 3 Now Available)

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