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Cave Story

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original game. For the enhanced version, see Cave Story+.

Cave Story
Cave Story cover
Developers
Studio Pixel
Release dates
Windows December 20, 2004
macOS (OS X) January 18, 2005
Reception
IGDB 83
Taxonomy
Monetization Freeware
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Scrolling, Side view
Controls Direct control
Genres Metroidvania, Platform
Art styles Pixel art
Themes Sci-fi
Series Cave Story
Cave Story on HowLongToBeat
Cave Story on IGDB
Cave Story guide on StrategyWiki
Cave Story on MobyGames
Cave Story on Wikipedia
Cave Story
Cave Story 2004
Cave Story+ 2011
Cave Story's Secret Santa 2021

Warnings

This game is only playable in English with a fan translation (see Localizations for details and other supported languages).

General information

Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) - A Tribute Site

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Official website
DRM-free
Freeware. Japanese only.
Windows
Official website
DRM-free
Freeware. Japanese only.
macOS (OS X)

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Config.dat[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Profile.dat[Note 1]
macOS (OS X)

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
a source port is required.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
a source port is required.
4K Ultra HD
a source port is required.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
a source port is required.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
High-fidelity upscaling
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
a source port is required.
60 FPS
Capped at 50 FPS. Framerate independency supported by doukutsu-rs.
120+ FPS
Capped at 50 FPS. Framerate independency supported by doukutsu-rs.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Only a few keys can be changed.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Keyboard is only needed to exit or restart game.
Controller remapping
Game only allows for a limited number of buttons to be changed and does not support D-pad or analog triggers.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion
Controller types
XInput-compatible controllers
PlayStation controllers
Generic/other controllers
Additional information
Button prompts
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Added in NXEngine-evo.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
install doukutsu-rs to get it
Surround sound
Subtitles
Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Use the unofficial translation.
Simplified Chinese
Use the unofficial translation.
Traditional Chinese
Use the unofficial translation.
Dutch
Use the unofficial translation.
French
Use the unofficial translation.
German
Use the unofficial translation.
Italian
Use the unofficial translation.
Japanese
Korean
Use the unofficial translation.
Lithuanian
Use the unofficial translation.
Polish
Use the unofficial translation.
Brazilian Portuguese
Use the unofficial translation.
Portuguese
Use the unofficial translation.
Russian
Use the unofficial translation.
Spanish
Use the unofficial translation.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 7
ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bitARM Notes
Windows
64-bit requires doukutsu-rs or NXEngine-evo
macOS (OS X)
Supported by native macOS port by Yuichi Fujishige (nakiwo), based on original source code from Pixel. PowerPC support has been dropped in 0.0.7. Also supported by doukutsu-rs and NXEngine-evo.[1] Native ARM64 versions are available only for doukutsu-rs[2] and the original NXEngine.[3]
Linux
Supported by native Linux port by Simon Parzer and Peter Mackay, based on original source code from Pixel. Also supported by doukutsu-rs and NXEngine-evo.

Modifications

doukutsu-rs

A open source re-implementation of Cave Story's engine written in Rust.
Game speed is independent from framerate. The game speed can also be toggled between the original 50 FPS from the freeware version or 60 FPS from Cave Story+.
Fully compatible with data files from Cave Story+.
Support for various edition-specific quality-of-life features such as custom soundtracks, animated face portraits, and new rendering effects.

NXEngine-evo

A complete open-source clone/rewrite of Cave Story. NXEngine-evo is the upgraded/refactored version of original NXEngine.
Large amount of bugfixes.
Proper widescreen support up to Full HD.
Animated character portraits.
Modern main menu.
Custom soundtrack support, including the "New" and "Remastered" soundtrack of Cave Story+. See here for details.
Has various noticeable glitches and inconsistencies compared to original game.[4]
Incompatible with other mods of the game.[5]
Random crashes may occur at certain parts of the game.[6]

Booster's Lab

An open-source Cave Story level editor. A successor of the Cave Editor.
Feature rich compared to the Cave Editor.
Can be used to create mods for both Cave Story and Cave Story+
Version 5.0.0.0 does not support CSE2.[7] Either compile from the latest source or download the nightly version.

Jenka's Nightmare

One of the oldest, most well-known mods. It has been in development for over 15 years
It is one of the best mods for Cave Story and is considered to be its unofficial sequel.
A CSE2 compatible version can be found here.
Full length, comparable to the original game.
Allows the importing of the save file of the original game's true ending.
Has an extreme difficulty curve. It is recommended to finish the original game first before playing this.

Rave Story

One of the more popular mods of Cave Story.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM) 8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 5 compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

  1. Verified by User:Dandelion Sprout on 2021-01-26
  2. doukutsu-rs — A faithful and open-source remake of Cave Story engine written in Rust - last accessed on 25 July 2022
  3. nxengine — Homebrew Formulae - last accessed on 2 March 2022
  4. GitHub - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  5. Mod support? - last accessed on May 2023
  6. Random crashes while fighting the core - last accessed on May 2023
  7. BLink's ULTIMATE resource guide to modding (CSE2) Cave Story 2020 edition - last accessed on May 2023