Cave Story/Cave Story+

This is a sub-page of Cave Story.

The PC re-release of Cave Story. Technically a port of the Wiiware remake, but with more challenges, achievements (for the Steam release), a new soundtrack from Cave Story 3D, and challenge leaderboards that crash the game on Windows!

Debug Content in Challenges

Nemesis Challenge

Opening up the maps for the Nemesis Challenge reveals some interesting debug content; namely several objects hidden in the wall of the starting room - a save point, a terminal, and a life capsule. The save point isn't of much interest, given it just has the regular 'save game' event assigned to it, but the terminal and life capsule both have unique events, presumably to make testing the challenge easier.

Interestingly, the Nemesis Challenge was fan-made by Shmitz of Jenka's Nightmare fame, so that may explain the amount of leftover debug stuff compared to the other challenges?

Terminal

#0300
<FLJ0600:0310<KEY<MSG
Disable Time Trial?<YNJ0301
<FL+0600<CNP0300:0085:1000<CLR
Time Trial Disabled.
Enjoy Easy Mode!<NOD<END


#0301
<END

#0310
<KEY<MSG
Enable Time Trial?<YNJ0301
<FL-0600<CNP0300:0085:0000<CLR
Time Trial Enabled!<NOD<END

A toggle for the timer. It also sets the terminal entity itself to display a red or blue screen depending on whether or not the timer is active.

Interestingly enough, the flag it sets (0600) is also the trigger for save points to show up in the following maps (2 per map, with 6 in total) - probably the 'easy mode' in question.

Life Capsule

#0400
<DNP0400<FL+0700<KEY<MSG
Test Health: +240<ML+0240<NOD<END

Increases your health by 240. Pretty easy to conclude it was added for testing purposes, given the difficulty of Nemesis Challenge.

Time Attack

Another save point hidden in the floor - like the Nemesis Challenge it just has the default save event - as well as a null entity that seems to be testing... something?

#0200
<IT+0023<IT+0022<FL+0743<EQ+0032<EVE0090

This gives you the item for the Booster 2.0 (plus equipping it), as well as the 290 Counter before playing the default map entry event (fading the screen in, displaying the map name, etc).

Boss Rush

First and foremost, more save points hidden in the walls of the hub area - 3 in total. Once again, these simply just save the game. There's also a bunch of stuff left over from the original mod.

Non-Stop mode

Presumably allows you to fight the bosses directly one after another without having to navigate the hub:

#0201
<KEY
<CLR
<MSG<TUR
Play Non-Stop mode?<YNJ0200<TRA0020:0094:0001:0010

This leads you to a map creatively titled 'Non-Stop', which allows you to prepare yourself before being sent to the Shack map to fight Balrog.

#0100
<PRI<MSG<TUR
Are you ready?<YNJ0000<FAO0004<GIT1022<EQ+0256<MSG<TUR
Obtained Nikumaru Counter<NOD<CLO
<TRA0014:2000:0009:0009

Seal Chamber

The original ending event.

#1002
<CMU0041<FAO0001<PRI<MS2<TUR
Congratulations on beating
Boss Rush Mode!<NOD<CLR
Your time on non-stop mode
will not be saved.<NOD<CLRIf you wish to record this time,
take a screen shot now.<NOD<CLO<WAI0010<ESC

There's also what seems to be dev notes in the hub script:

Just HP left!
FLAG 6000= in labyrinth, toroko ~ iron head
FLAG 6001= Got the dragon sisters missle... must fight them.
FLAG 6002= can get super missles
FLAG 6003= you are between core - iron head

ALL THATS LEFT CLEAR TIMER, ADD ENGLISH ENDING

THESE ARE ENTERING THE ZONE!

Machine Gun Challenge

#0210
<ML+0017<EQ+0032<IT+0023<AM+0004:0025<MNA<CMU0012<FAI0000<SVP<END

The beginning event runs the command to save the game (<SVP) despite that being basically useless given there's no way to load a save for challenges.

There's also two null entities in the floor of the beginning room - one with an event that instantly jumps to the starting one, the other with an event that immediately <ENDs. These are both leftovers from the vanilla starting map - all challenge levels reuse the starting map and event, but it seems whoever made the Machine Gun Challenge forgot to fully clean up.

Unused Taglines

Each folder for the various alternate modes (internally referred to as 'mods') - challenges, holiday graphics, Curly Story, etc - has a file named 'mod.txt' that contain unused taglines for each one. While the PC version doesn't contain all the taglines, they are all collected here for convenience.

Challenges

Name	Internal Name	Tagline
Machine Gun Challenge	EasyMod	Just how much time can you shave?
Sanctuary Time Attack	TimeTrial	Do you have the skill?
Boss Attack	Boss	Challenge EVERY boss!
Wind Fortress	Kaze	Take to the skies.
Nemesis Challenge	Nemesis	Are you man enough for rubber duckies?
Sand Pit Challenge (Switch exclusive)	fireball	Brave fire and steel to escape!

Curly Story

Name	Internal Name	Tagline
Curly Story	CurlyStory	Play Cave Story as Curly Brace!

Holiday Graphics

Curiously, the PC and switch ports don't contain a mod.txt in the holiday graphic folders - they seem to have a different file structure than the challenges, being in /data/[holiday]/season rather than /data/[challenge]/mod. However, the eShop port classifies all modes as a 'mod' regardless of what it does, so it has taglines for the holiday graphics. Interestingly the eShop port was released after the PC versions, meaning these would've been added even (presumably) knowing they go unused.

Name	Internal Name	Tagline
Christmas	christmas	HO! HO! HO!
Halloween	halloween	BOO!

Unused/Altered Graphics

Challenges

Original-style (1x) graphics can be found in the files for Wind Fortress, Nemesis Challenge and the Machine Gun Challenge despite CS+ PC not having support for original graphics in any of its bonus modes at the time of writing. The Nemesis Challenge and Wind Fortress sprites appear to be identical to the versions found in the eShop and (later on) the Switch version, with the Machine Gun Challenge having the same incorrect tileset as the unused version found in the eShop port's files.

npcravil_detail

Image	Notes
	Presumably a WIP that was abandoned. Weirdly, it's found in all versions containing the upscaled graphics, from Wiiware to Switch.

NpcCemet

Note: as the PC versions of CS+ do not contain original-style graphics for holidays either, all 1x sprites come from the eShop/Switch versions and are simply documented here for convenience.

2x	1x	Notes
		Scrapped costume concepts for the large Pignon enemies.
		Ditto, but for the First Cave bats.

Casts

While not actually unused, there's a few sprites from the credits roll that differ from their in-game appearances. Only sprites with major differences will be documented here.

Casts	In-Game	Notes
		Differences in face and shirt. It's unknown where the strip of pixels underneath the credits Colon comes from - probably the top of someone's head?
		The credits still use the original Wiiware sprite for the Night Spirit. Guess they forgot to update it.
		Igor uses an... interesting alternate design, matching the one in the npcravil_detail file. Strangely, this was fixed in the Switch version.

Casts (Halloween)

Casts	In-Game	Notes
		While the other critter seen in the cast roll matches its in-game variant, this one uses a completely unique design not seen elsewhere.

NpcMaze

A duplicate of NpcMaze is hanging out in the data (aka main) folder. Normally npc sheets are in the, well, npc folder, so whatever it's doing there is a mystery.

Crystal Crisis concept art

For some reason, the GOG release has a piece of what looks like concept art for Crystal Crisis sitting in the folder for 1x resolution graphics. Apparently Balrog was cut from the roster...

Unused Music

To do: Convert and upload tracks Check for other unused tracks

newdata.org

Contains the alternate intro for Last Battle, as heard in the beta version.

halloween2.org

A completely original track...?