Cave Creator
A tool with a graphical user interface designed in Visual Studio and written in Visual Basic; Cave Creator was made by Jimble for the sole purpose of creating caves with ease.
Contents
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Compatibility
Cave Creator has been designed for Windows, and thus will run as intended on Windows machines. However, macOS and Linux are different; Version 2 and onwards don't work with Wine. Alternatively, you can use Bootcamp on any Mac (it comes pre-installed on all Macs) to install Windows on a separate partition.
Future Plans
A much more sophisticated user interface, compatible with Wine; meaning it will be able to run on macOS and Linux.
Cave Net
The ultimate way to play and share your caves with the world. This is a sub-menu of Cave Creator which makes it really easy to get right into custom caves. Cave Net was introduced in version 2.1.
Changelog
The list of changes made to each version of the tool to give you a reason to update.
v2.4
- Added a countdown for the new Weekly Caves
- Several UI adjustments, improving Cave Net cave descriptions in particular
v2.3.3
- Added comments and Flowers (equivalent to likes on YouTube for example) to Cave Net
- Introduced Weekly Caves, where moderators choose cool caves that they recommend for other Cave Net users
v2.3
- Major Cave Net update
- Thumbnails
- Descriptions
- Bonus Challenges
- Favourites (saved locally so you can go back to a cave you enjoyed)
v2.2
- Renamed Cave Creator+ to simply become Cave Creator v2
- Several bug fixes
- The main menu, options menu, and treasure/gate menus are smaller and more simplistic
- Cave Net button text goes white in dark mode now
v2.1
- Several bug fixes
- Cave Net! Play and share caves online easily
- New options
- Interface and stability improvements
v2.0
- Introducing a completely new design, called Cave Creator+
- This update is very significant, as it allows you to edit any sublevel at any time, and also introduces importing (vanilla text files)
v1.2.4
- Adds the "Editable Code" feature for advanced users who want to fix a quick mistake in the text box on the right. This can be turned on under the Settings tab, and turns the text box to black with white text.
- When adding a gate, you now get asked to input a weight value (1 - 9). Before it would just set the weight to 0 and thus the gate wouldn't spawn.
- Entity count is no longer locked at 1 when they drop a treasure.
- The internal names for Withering Blowhog, Buried Armored Cannon Beetle Larva, and Decorated Cannon Beetle have all been fixed (capitalisation errors).
v1.2.3
- Fixes an error from v1.2.2 strictly that would screw up the count values when attempting to delete a selected entity. This update is highly recommended.
v1.2.2
- Fixes an error from v1.2 and v1.2.1 that would cause the program to crash upon opening a project file.
v1.2.1
- Allows you to add as many of the same treasure as you want. Previously, I attempted to avoid allowing this, however I have now removed that completely because the game doesn't actually seem to have any problem with loading multiple of the same treasure. It won't crash or break anything at all.
- You can now easily delete selected entities by just clicking and pressing the delete key. This works on both the main menu and the Add New Entity menu.
- Adjustment to the menu bar at the top of the main menu - a new About Pikmin 2 Cave Creator window has been added to provide the details of that version of the tool, along with trademark and copyright (Nintendo).
v1.2
- Introduces the Lighting Designer! Produce lighting files with easy-to-use RGB sliders.
- Introduces random generators for Enemies/Bosses and Decorations! Input a number and have random enemies, bosses, drop treasures and decorations added; saving heaps of time and allows experimentation.
- Clear All and Remove Selected are finally on the Add Entity page so you no longer need to go back to the main menu to remove entities.
- Added a "Add Filename To List" button for both units and lights in Sublevel Properties. This is in the case that you have a custom unit/light file. This can be done automatically if you use the new Lighting Designer.
- Adjusted the layout of Add New Entity and Sublevel Properties to fit the new features.
- Background image has been removed from Sublevel Properties; allowing it to load instantly when clicking the Sublevel Properties button.
- Adding a Greater Jellyfloat has been fixed - before it would do nothing upon clicking Add Entity.
- Vanilla lighting names are now just titled by their internal name - before it was a silly list of "Very Dark Surroundings", "Very Very Dark Surroundings", etc..
- New link next to the light selection that leads to a list of screenshots consisting of all the vanilla lights.
- Fixed a bug where selecting Rest in the Music section of Sublevel Properties would actually result in "None until Boss", and vice versa.
- Maximum Room Count and Room:Corridor ratio no longer have a limit, however a label will be displayed stating when there is a high chance of crashing due to RAM limitations.
- General design improvements.
- More optimised and efficient (despite the file size increasing by around 8MB).
v1.1.3
- Adds the pedestal version of the Gatling Groink.
- Fixes music type not changing in code, despite clearly functioning within Sublevel Properties.
- Removes Ivory Candypop Bud from the Enemy/Boss list (it's in the Objects list).
- Removes a debugging feature where clicking Add Enemy would work normally, except the Enemy/Boss list would move onto the next item every time.
v1.1.2
- Adds the Titan Dweevil to the entity list.
- Fixes the capitalisation of Dwarf Bulbears.
v1.1.1
- Fixes a bug where opening project files wouldn't import music data properly.
v1.1
- Added the remaining treasures that were missing. Cave Creator now has all 201 treasures (that includes the thirteen exploration kit treasures).
- Added a new "objects" combobox separating bomb-rocks, eggs, hazards and other stuff from the enemies/bosses combobox. This also introduces the chiyogami paper that was missing entirely, along with some other unused entities.
- Introduces "Check for Updates" where the tool is able to determine whether a new version is available and give the user the option to download it or not. This is under the Help menu.
- Improved treasure system - if you re-add a treasure you will be noted that you've already added that treasure in the current sublevel and thus it will not be added again.
- Fixed a bug where if you typed letters into the Add Gate input box you would be stuck in an infinite loop telling you to use numerical characters - this was only solvable by force quitting the application and could have resulted in the user losing lots of work.
- Updated the save project file to fix a bug where you wouldn't be able to remove selected entities after opening a project file (if you saved a project with entities still in the lists). Project files saved in v1.0 will still work but you will be told that the entities lists will be cleared. This shouldn't be considered a loss, but nonetheless v1.1 solves this and project files made in v1.1 will open perfectly fine in itself and later versions.
- More consistency/design adjustments.
v1.0
- The first release.
History
All the minor and major versions of Pikmin 2 Cave Creator. Only revisions with main menu adjustments are included.
v1.0
The very first version including all the basic features, released on the 24th of February 2018.
v1.1 The second release on the 3rd of March 2018, containing the remaining treasures, objects and some bug fixes.
v1.2 The third release on the 14th of April 2018, the biggest update yet with a new lighting designer and a random enemy/boss feature for experimentation.
v1.2.1 A revision of the third release; released on the 21st of April 2018, adding a delete shortcut key for selected entities and an adjusted menu bar featuring the new About window.
v2.0
A completely new program with a new interface and many new features, including an auto-updater.
v2.1 New look with many bug fixes and an introduction to Cave Net.
v2.2 Smaller design with more simplistic styles.
v2.3 and v2.4 Back to a medium sized design with a more modern, simple approach.
