Fun Nicalis Facts

[Xkeeper]

There seems to be a bit of debate going on about this versus the original freeware title. Well, let me fan the flames a bit.

Here's some fun facts about Nicalis and Cave Story you probably didn't know before!

- Nicalis, after getting the rights to publish Cave Story on the Wii, promptly sent DMCA takedown notices to DeceasedCrab and some other LPer(s) over Cave Story LPs. Yes, really. They eventually backed off, but...

- Nicalis also "borrowed" one known mod and possibly a few others for their "port". The Boss Rush mod is lifted more or less entirely from an early 2007 mod on the Cave Story tribute site forums. Opening the files and doing a quick compare shows that they basically just copied, pasted, and edited anything player-facing to make it look a bit less blatant (as well as fixing some areas of the original translation). For example, "Red Demon!" was turned into "The Red Ogre!" (but the comment above it was left alone, of course.)

- The original translation was actually given approval by Pixel long before Nicalis came around. Because Nicalis couldn't figure out how to license a fan translation (though I have a sneaking suspicion they didn't because of greed), they went with their own. It shows. All of the mods feature the original translation whenever the player wouldn't be reading them; the new translation is pasted in otherwise.

- Nicalis has taken advantage of developers before; Nifflas is a good example. Night Sky was originally going to be a PC title; Nicalis approached Nifflas and managed to get the rights to it. Not too long after, when Night Sky had been nominated for indie PC game awards, it was suddenly revealed the NS was going to be WiiWare-only. There was a long period of time where Nifflas couldn't even give a reason for this, because Nicalis decided it was so. Eventually they relented, and today we have it on Steam.

- Nicalis has actually gone out of their way to stomp on every and anybody looking to do any sort of Cave Story-based cameo or fan work. While before, Pixel was mostly without an opinion on the matter, when Nicalis got the rights, pretty much everything got shot down. They refused to allow him into an Indie Brawl-ish game and instated a new rule at the Cave Story forums that there was to be no discussion of anything regarding the insides of the WiiWare Cave Story game at all -- no modding, peeking, anything.

- It goes without saying that when Nicalis got the rights, the homebrew DS port of Cave Story that was in progress got canned real fast.

- This is actually about the 5th or 6th "port" of Cave Story.
* Cave Story (PC): Indie game we all know and love
* Cave Story (PSP): Homebrew port of the game. Mostly flawless.

* Cave Story (WiiWare): The original, buggy release of Nicalis's first port
* Cave Story (WiiWare Update): PAL first and then brought back to NTSC-land, this one fixed some of the issues
* Cave Story (DSiWare): A portable version of the above
* Cave Story (Mac OS X): A port of the WiiWare updated version including a new mod supposedly from Pixel
* Cave Story + (Steam): Basically the OS X release but on Steam
* Cave Story 3D (3DS): A remake of CS in "3D", published by NISA but brought to you by Nicalis


The TIGSource wiki on Nicails has more information as well.




PS: Other Fun Facts / CS + FAQ:

Q: This mod isn't unlocking.
A: Open \steamapps\cave story +\data\mods.txt (or ..\mods.txt, I forget where) and change the Unlock Key to R+. (It will be RI38 or R- or RG/whatever)

Q: The original music seems to be in mono only?
A: Surprise! Welcome to Nicalis!

Q: I want to download the original indie version from 2006.
A: Check the cavestory.org site for the download there.

Q: How do I poke around in the script files? I want to see if you're serious about the original translation being there.
A: Get the Cave Story Script Editor. The script files are the .TSC files; the ones in the /mods/ directory (exception: Curly Story) will usually have it splattered around. Malco.tsc is a good example; in the original Malco is ALL-CAPITALS ROBOT, in the Nicalis translation he uses regular letters.

Q: Were the graphics really redrawn by hand?
A: No. They were run through a 2x-resizing filter (it isn't known which one exactly), especially for the first update. Particularly bad cases were fixed by hand. For the update, they went back and refined some of the graphics to be less obvious.

[in.meinem.turm.]

So? What's your point here?

[SSoundscape]

DeceasedCrab is a giant ♥♥♥, as I've mentioned in other threads. Otherwise, nice post.

[Xkeeper]

Originally Posted by in.meinem.turm.

So? What's your point here?

It's just to inform. There's a lot of discussion going around on free v. Nicalis version, the translations, etc.

There is no point other than to leave you hopefully more knowledgeable than you came in.

Originally Posted by SSoundscape

DeceasedCrab is a giant ♥♥♥, as I've mentioned in other threads. Otherwise, nice post.

I don't care about DeceasedCrab, personally, but I do not think it is right to fire off DCMA takedowns like they did. It's the principle of the thing.

[PixyJunket]

"From mother's basement, I stab at thee!"

[in.meinem.turm.]

Originally Posted by Xkeeper

It's the principle of the thing.

It's their right. It's their content. If they don't want it on youtube they can remove it. Other companies are doing it so why won't they?

[UnclGhost]

Originally Posted by in.meinem.turm.

It's their right. It's their content. If they don't want it on youtube they can remove it. Other companies are doing it so why won't they?

It's their right to take down footage of a freeware game that they don't own the rights to, simply because they do own the rights to a port that they hadn't made yet? I don't follow.

[MrSomeGuy]

Your "Fun Facts" are incredibly biased, for someone who claims only to "inform".
Try to make an impartial list next time, if that's really your objective.

Suprise, Pixel also approved every Nicalis release, it even worked on it, such as updating the art.
And Suprise Suprise he now wants to do Cave Story 2 because of it.

Also i like that you pull ports from your ♥♥♥ just to "prove your point".
A incomplete fan-port to the psp makes even more Nicalis greedy? A patch to fix bugs is a port now?

Also a Linux port is going to be released, yeah forbid having a game to every PC (as in personal computer not Windows-PC) platform, you want to add it too to your list?

Yes Nicalis made some bad decisions, but they aren't the bane of Cave Story and they aren't the bane of the indie game world.

EDIT: Just to inform people around here, Nicalis is aware of the mono issue and said it's going to fix it, however be aware Nicalis isn't known for it's speed, this might take some time or not.

[Arantor]

Originally Posted by in.meinem.turm.

It's their right. It's their content. If they don't want it on youtube they can remove it. Other companies are doing it so why won't they?

There's a difference between material being posted on YouTube that is a direct violation of copyright (e.g. reposting DVD material) and material that is partially produced by a user (e.g. a computer game)

Apart from the fact that it's *free* promotion for the game (can you imagine if Notch had done the same thing about Minecraft, it would have killed the buzz stone dead), there are also grounds for posting videos under the fair use clause in copyright law, when it's for review and documentation purposes.

[LythKross]

Originally Posted by Arantor

There's a difference between material being posted on YouTube that is a direct violation of copyright (e.g. reposting DVD material) and material that is partially produced by a user (e.g. a computer game)

Apart from the fact that it's *free* promotion for the game (can you imagine if Notch had done the same thing about Minecraft, it would have killed the buzz stone dead), there are also grounds for posting videos under the fair use clause in copyright law, when it's for review and documentation purposes.

Don't forget to mention that Diseasedcrab did that let's play on the fan translation, and didn't he do it BEFORE Nicalis got the rights to cave story? Didn't do it on their release = not their game. Last I checked, the free version was still out there for download, so Nicalis doesn't own that to issues Take Down requests.

[Arantor]

I didn't, and don't, know all the ins and outs of when material was published and who has the rights to what, so I was going to comment on that part. But if it was produced and then the rights were subsequently bought by Nicalis, they can argue they have a claim. It's BS, by the sounds of things, but more than that, places like YouTube aren't going to take the risk. If someone who can be demonstrated to own the rights to a work is asking for videos of that work to be taken down, YT is going to comply rather than be an ♥♥♥ over it because it's not in their interest to mess about.

But I still think any publisher that actively *shoots down* free publicity is stupid.

[in.meinem.turm.]

Originally Posted by Arantor

But I still think any publisher that actively *shoots down* free publicity is stupid.

And we both agree on that 100%. It is really stupid but hey if they want to do it no one can stop them.

Valve did it, Rockstar did it and others did it too.

[ImpTaimer]

- This is actually about the 5th or 6th "port" of Cave Story.
* Cave Story (PC): Indie game we all know and love
* Cave Story (PSP): Homebrew port of the game. Mostly flawless.

The only ports I've ever cared about. But man does Cavestory 3D (3DS version) have an awesome and mostly faithful soundtrack update.

PSP port was probobly the best port of all of them. Best screen size, best translation, easy controls, ability to change controls, and ability to use PC save files or vise versa w/o the need to convert the file. I never tried mods so I can't comment on that.

[Zombiemonk]

Originally Posted by MrSomeGuy

Also i like that you pull ports from your ♥♥♥ just to "prove your point".
A incomplete fan-port to the psp makes even more Nicalis greedy? A patch to fix bugs is a port now?

You aren't very good at reading comprehension, are you?

The list isn't there just to prove Nicalis' greed, but also there to show how many iterations of the game have been released. Some of which beyond the first two were completely bungled or unneeded.

[KichiK]

Originally Posted by MrSomeGuy

Your "Fun Facts" are incredibly biased, for someone who claims only to "inform".
Try to make an impartial list next time, if that's really your objective.

Suprise, Pixel also approved every Nicalis release, it even worked on it, such as updating the art.
And Suprise Suprise he now wants to do Cave Story 2 because of it.

Also i like that you pull ports from your ♥♥♥ just to "prove your point".
A incomplete fan-port to the psp makes even more Nicalis greedy? A patch to fix bugs is a port now?

Also a Linux port is going to be released, yeah forbid having a game to every PC (as in personal computer not Windows-PC) platform, you want to add it too to your list?

Yes Nicalis made some bad decisions, but they aren't the bane of Cave Story and they aren't the bane of the indie game world.

EDIT: Just to inform people around here, Nicalis is aware of the mono issue and said it's going to fix it, however be aware Nicalis isn't known for it's speed, this might take some time or not.

While yes, Pixel did approve all the nicalis ports and helped with working on them, and may even make Cave Story 2 if that part of what you said is true, it doesn't change that this guy also is telling the truth about nicalis' actions.

And actually, that PSP port, if you had done your research, goes beyond a fan-port. Yeah, it's homebrew, and made by someone other than pixel...but guess what, he also had Pixel's full permissions! In fact, if you did your research on it, you'd find that Pixel had not only given his blessings for it, but also his source code for the guy to modify to make the PSP port. Essentially, it has been okayed by pixel, and recieved the go forward by him, just as much as the Wii, DSi, 3DS, and Steam/AppStore versions, long before they existed. And just to finish up this section, I've played that fan port. As in, from start to finish. Incomplete is not a word you can describe it with. It IS the original Cave Story, except on PSP. There was only one bug I remember, and it was a minor graphical bug, in one part f the game, that went away within seconds after occurring.

Though yes, I'd agree, bug fix updates can't be considered ports, that's not the point of this. Nor is it "Nicalis is the bane of Cave Story and the indie development world." It's more like "If Nicalis wants to sell a game we all love, they better damn well shape up. We don't want to have to hate the company sponsoring our game."