Gee, this doesn't look like Cave Story or anything. LOL

don't be a faggort

Looks extremely delicious. Especially with the added gameplay elements :D

I really should use my real name sometime - there's quite a number of people who are named tim anyway..

You don't have to post after everytime I post >:C

thanks for the mention!

i originally wasn't going to show this video to too many people (which is why i kind of left in a lot of the mistakes like the mouse cursor in the beginning, and no music) since it kind of gives away at least two of the new gameplay elements (the grapple and the cannons) but someone went through a lot of effort to edit the thing so i'm flattered basically!

Those fuses+cannons remind me of some level features in the Kirby games, except more complex and therefore more awesome!

The idea of (indygamer) Tim telling someone "don't be a faggort" really brings out a chuckle in me. :D

I'm in two minds about this game.

Yes, it looks as if it played quite a bit differently from Cave Story, yes, the graphics are good and one could end up much worse than copying Cave Story BUT I kind of can't get myself to like a game that no matter what will always be a Cave Story rip-off instead of a new idea to me...

eeeh, i just say more of a good thing, eye wise, i just think its a neat way of saying you loved cave story

Su-perb. Makes me wonder if there's anywhere left to go when I do my explorey platformer. :)

The game looks better and better with each preview :)

I've still not been given an answer to this - is this game a Cave Story mod or what?

Not a mod.

This looks awesome - moar plz :D.

We all know it's like Cave Story, Who said that having a game comparable in awesomeness to Cave Story (while still in development!) is a bad thing? Things can only get better.

CAEV STORY CAVE STRY

still looks like fun

Has Cave Story forever rendered horizontal platformers with 8-bit superdeformed graphics forbidden territory?

Of course it hasn't. The reason people bring it up is that Underside owes a great debt to Cave Story in all aspects. You don't see people yelling "cave story rip off" in other platformer threads.

There used to be alot of that some time ago. "THIS GAME ISN'T AS AWESOME AS CAVE STORY!" "THIS GAME IS COOLER THAN CAVE STORY!" etc. Happened especially much with La-Mulana.

Anyways, Cave Story ripoff or not, I can't wait to play this game. To be honest, I really don't mind a Cave Story ripoff game, anyways. It's fresher and newer than CS mods, and CS itself was superb, so why not be allowed to enjoy a game similar to it? It's just more awesome games to enjoy

Ultim8p00 vs Mr. Podunkian...lol

I'll play both games and probably love'em.

Cave Story and Kirby? Does this game have any original ideas?

hopping around in caves and shooting guns at things trying to kill you has been around since metroid. I don't get how so many people can call ripoff on this game and then hail cave story as a wholly original game when esentially, you are hopping around in a cave and shooting guns at things trying to kill you. like in metroid. you look around on this blog and you'll see that 99% of the games here (hell, 99% of games anywhere, indy or not) borrow elements heavily from other games, be it the gameplay or style, oftentimes both. Continuing to call this nothing more than a cave story ripoff is similar to sitting down infront of dwarf fortress and going "oh, well, psh, this is just a sim city ripoff and the graphics are shitty".

HOLY COW!!! PIXEL IS MAKING A SEQUEL TO CAVE STORY?!

OH MAN

"Continuing to call this nothing more than a cave story ripoff is similar to sitting down infront of dwarf fortress and going "oh, well, psh, this is just a sim city ripoff and the graphics are shitty"."

No it's not at all, and you know it. Don't make stupid comparisons that don't hold up. If you want to argue the point, argue the point. I don't side with the people saying "oh it's just a rip-off" either, but this kind of argument won't get you anywhere.

Sim City and Dwarf Fortress are completely different games. Underside actively seeks to resemble Cave Story. There's no way that Tarn and Zach Adams started with Sim City and ended up with Dwarf Fortress; that's a ridiculous notion.

It's really really clear that the Pod started with Cave Story and went from there. That's fine by me, we all gotta start somewhere, but saying it ain't so is just being naive.

Also, nobody's claiming Cave Story was brimming with boundless originality anyway. It was a really really well-done game that people enjoyed all the more for knowing that some guy did it in his bedroom over 4 years. It has a great story with a nice setting and Underside seems to throw nearly all of that away, taking instead the graphical style and many gameplay elements - most of which seem to be really closely emulated.

In fact, a colleague of mine said today, "why undermine all that hard work by making it look so much like Cave Story?" and he's got a point. It's clearly looking like a great game, and even without the graphics looking so very similar the influences would be clear. It creates a negative talking point abou tthe game.

allright, the DF/sim city thing was a bad example, and reading over the comments here, this was a pretty dumb spot to post those comments. I was reading the youtube ones and mixed them up with these i guess, which is a nitwitted mistake to make.

Well, to be fair at least 2 people in this thread have played the ripoff card.

haowan- If you look over Pods other creations youd see he does nothing more than copy other games. Operation Sitting Duck 2? Cannon Fodder with larger sprites. Underside? Cave Story mixed with other classic Nintendo games. Didn't he also make a Metal Slug and working on a FF:T game too?

The guy doesn't have a consistent style. He borrows, or rather starts where everyone else left off and adds his own characters (usually that dog in a suit). Irony of irony the characters are original and have charm, they're just playing in a "best of my childhood" collection of games.

Doesn't mean those games aren't fun, no? What's the most important thing for a game? Fun, or originality?

C'mon - I know that there is nothing inherently bad about borrowing ideas from other games but there's a certain line of similarity that you shouldn't cross and The Underside IMHO crossed it.
E.g. people have compared Fez to Paper Mario and I see the similarity but at the same time see many differences... With The Underside I see some differences but mostly see similarity...

Defenders of The Underside point out some generic arguments like "aren't all platformers similar" etc. Why argument on a meta-level? It's the little things that define the game as too similar to Cave Story to me - the pixellated retro-look, the protagonist looking kinda like Quote, the floating damage numbers, the whole health and weapon gauge, the level structure, the hearts, the effects...

C'mon guys, just compare two videos of both games and tell me that The Underside wouldn't have been better off as a Cave Story MOD (which would also have stopped all the negative feedback).

Sure, I'll wait with my final judgment till the release but making something less "clony" would have prevented the whole discussion.

I think that the fact that people post questions like I've still not been given an answer to this - is this game a Cave Story mod or what? kinda proves my point...

Who gives a shit? I mean seriously, it's a free game. Just enjoy it for what it is.

Well, I give a shit...

Not because I'm some Cave Story fanboy - in fact I only played through it once - and I also don't claim that Cave Story is the holy cow of indie-gaming that you can't touch but I find it sad when so much talent is wasted on copying other people's designs - well, maybe not wasted but not put to good use either (from what I gather Mr. Podunkian didn't use any code or graphics from Cave Story).

Yes, Zelda games are all similar to each other and yes, I enjoy all of them but that doesn't mean that I should endorse like a million clones of them IN ADDITION to the official releases...

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was great but by the third installment I was already yawning because too much of the same isn't doing anybody any good and can make any concept boring.

Cave Story was good, The Underside will probably be good too but the magic will gradually diminish and when like another clone comes out the whole bubble will burst and everybody except for the hardcore "I can't get enough of Cave Story-like gameplay" fans will be sick of having the same thing done over and over again...

There are so many new directions you could go - no, do not force yourself to innovate but at least try to have your own style and combine old elements into something fresh(er)...

This is an ip-tastic videos.

Who are The Strawberries? I asked Google, but he didn't know for sure.

"Why undermine all that hard work by making it look so much like Cave Story?"

This statement really strikes a chord with me. I had a lot of the same feelings with Hasslevania too. It's like, why do all of this hard work and slave away for such a long time only to have your baby be known as the "Cave Story Rip-Off", or in my case the "Game that killed Castlevania" or "HOFF SUX!!" or whatever.

I think as long as Pod puts enough things in the Underside that are markedly different than Cave Story he'll be fine. Make your game stand out from Cave Story so much in other areas that all of this "Cave Story clone!" crap will go away.

How many SNES-era RPGs look alike? And yeah, like that guy above said Metroid had you running around shooting things in the caverns of Zebes 20 years ago. How many games are truly original nowadays? Especially platformers?

Pod already knows this game is going to be downloaded a zillion times once it's finally out anyways, and that if his game DIDN'T look so much like Cave Story it wouldn't get half the publicity it already has. So the same thing that helps the Underside get its recognition is also the thing that has the potential to hurt it. That's the risk you take, and I'm sure he knew that going in long ago when he decided to use graphics like this. It's a calculated move.

Here's to a great game that can stand apart from CS!

The cannon mechanic is NICE, Mr. Podunkian!

man i should have just kept my beef to myself.

I think it's worth discussing! There are practical and moral issues here.

I just figure that all the people that actually think it's too much of a CS ripoff (so much that they won't bother playing it) are going to miss out on something really special when the final product is released.

If Pod is enjoying working on this game, then I don't think anything has gone to waste. If he wasn't making this game for himself, I think he would have stopped by now because its clear a lot of people aren't happy with it.

The game LOOK like Cave Story. Does't it make it a ripoff? No. Does it undermine the value of Underside? Yes, unfortunatly, because people are anal.
Without playing the game, how dare anyone call it a ripoff? There is a myriad of little things that can separate that game from Cave Story, and everyone is stopping at the visuals.
Cave Story had a very unique visual style. I don't remember seeing any other 2D platformer where the levels seem to be "carved" instead of just being platforms. That style is bound to get some imitators, but is it really a bad thing? As in the end, does it affect Cave Story's rep?
I say no, and I say that we should all wait and see until more details are released instead of creating negative hype for a game. Especially a free, independant game. In the end, WE will be the one to reap the rewards.

Oh and about the video, I'm sorry but the grapling hook, while cool, doesn't fit with the rest of the game visually.

I won't be missing out on anything because I will surely check out The Underside.

However, I find it really annoying that people argue that The Underside DOESN'T resemble Cave Story after having seen the trailer and gameplay videos. It's not only the graphics! Jesus Christ! Are you blind or just stubborn?

The only thing setting the game apart from CS so far is the grappling hook and the catapults...

...and the faster gameplay, the more humorous Earthbound storyline with different characters, the fact that it makes light with its 'Cave Story clone' aesthetic quite a bit (the endless hamburger...etc.), the different economic system...

And yes it does resemble Cave Story in many ways, the graphics of the backgrounds, the graphics of the sprites, the rest of the graphics, some of the enemy movements (possibly?) umm, the fact that its a kinda exploratory platformer shooter, you get a jetpack?, you get a gun?

I don't think anyone is denying that are similarities past the graphics, in fact, no one actually has said that. It's like saying Bioshock is no relation to System Shock 2 because they've renamed everything and put a different graphical end on to it. Now, it would be daft to compare The Underside to Bioshock, but I JUST DID IT, okay?

Lim-dul, 'tis true about most of the things you said regarding trying to innovate, but you know, it's quite hard nowadays to make an innovative (2D) platformer, on your own, when all you really wanna do is make a lasting tribute to one of your favourite games that puts everything you like about 'childhood gaming' into a template you know and recognise. And have some fun making it while you're at it... I mean, it's not like it's 'work' or anything...

To the guy who was comparing ultim8p00 and Podunkian:

Well, ultim8p00 isn't as bad as Podunkian. All he did was rip knytt's (and maybe Nikujin's) art style...and that's pretty much it.

The thing with Podukian is that in addition to ripping the art, he rips much of the gameplay as well.

When I first saw this, I thought either Pixel was making CS2 or this was a CS mod...

Doesn't mean this game is bad by any means though. I'll be playing it very much.

Jimbob, srsly.

Make the underside a little slower, remove some of the features, and don't for a SECOND think about the story (that's got nothing to do with any of this, anyway) and what do you get? Cave Story with different graphics.

Doing something original with 2D is definitely not impossible, far from it, i think new ground is being explored all the time. But going for something original is just a waste of time unless you make it fun (i guess other people can build on that idea, though..)... or emotionally evokative in some other way, but that's an entirely different topic.
This doesn't mean people shouldn't try to do things their own way. Sure, people will always get inspired but there's a huge difference in getting inspired and simply cloning something. No matter how many neat features you stack on top, people will always see the roots.
Joakim Sandberg's (Konjak) Ivory Springs had many elements similar to Cave Story but the core of the game was nothing like it at all; it's a game that still shines true to it's author whether it's in gameplay or graphics department (too bad it got abandoned)... If i wasn't clear enough, a game should represent it's author, right down to the bone. Right now the Underside represents Pixel with a bit of Podunkian around the pubic hairs (i love all my analogies).

I'm gonna play and most likely enjoy The Underside when it gets released, but the fact that it looks and plays like Cave Story will probably gnaw at the back of my noggin' until i put the last bullet into the final boss (unless Podunkian goes all Giygas on it, i guess).

By the way - only now have I noticed that there is something like a playable preview version of The Underside. Having played through it I'm even more convinced that it's almost exactly like Cave Story - it isn't even that much faster...
The boss you are fighting, the weapons, the city you end up in... Hm.

I won't be commenting on the little niggles I found in the game because it's only a preview and they don't have anything to do with my overall appraisal of the game.

I can see that The Underside is a kind tongue-in-cheek Cave Story but I don't quite like the humor - most of it is contained within some text boxes you can't skip once you've decided to talk to the give person/read the given sign which gets quite annoying after a while.

Wow, this looks like it has lots of potential! Cant wait to try it. But i have a question...Can this be ported to the PSP just like Cave story was? Anyone have any ideas???Thanx alot, and keep up the great work!!

Maybe a game should represent it's author, but there's no rule for it. Choosing not to doesn't make it a bad game, it just means you get less credit for it. Some people get kicks out of remakes (which essentially is the issue here?), Pod obviously gets kicks out of making remakes thinly disguised as original games.

Okay, originality in 2D platforming is very possible, but then again it's not exactly commonplace or required to make a fun game.

Not that through saying all this anything is going to change in regards to Pod or your opinion of him/game/whatever.

No, J, it's made in something called Multimedia Fusion so it's pretty much stuck on PC. I hear theres a Java runtime being released for it and that it runs like ass running at 1/3 the original speed.

the words "cave story" appear on this page 52 times, a far greater amount than the number of people who are going to actually read the giant dumb comments people are posting