If you're looking for something to help get you in the festive mood, then Cave Story's Secret Santa might be just the ticket.
Developed by Nicalis in cooperation with Cave Story creator Studio Pixel, Cave Story's Secret Santa is “a bite-sized side story of stealth and puzzle-solving, with familiar characters and settings from Studio Pixel’s classic adventure.” You play as a “cowardly Mimiga named Santa” who is tasked with entered homes and returning stolen presents.
There's a stealth element at play here; upon entering each house, you need to make your way to the Christmas tree and return the present, all while avoiding the attention of patrolling Gaudi. Along the way, you can collect cookies for bonuses. There are 20 homes to infiltrate, each packed with secrets to find.
Here's some PR:
In Cave Story's Secret Santa, players take control of Santa, the Mimiga from Cave Story who lives in the Bushlands. His task is to return all the Christmas presents that were stolen by Chaba. As he tiptoes past the beds of sleeping residents and avoids being seen by patrolling Gaudi, Santa finds useful items, eats delicious cookies and places the gifts under the Christmas trees where they belong.
Santa can push or pull obstacles, turn light switches on and off, pry open ventilator shafts and more. But he'll have to watch out for hazards and avoid making any noises that might attract attention.
Cave Story's Secret Santa was developed by Nicalis with the cooperation of Daisuke Amaya of Studio Pixel, continuing a collaboration that began in 2010 with the console release of the original Cave Story. It will evoke pleasant memories of the video games that players enjoyed for the first time on Christmas day.
Cave Story's Secret Santa is currently available for free on PC (via Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store), with support for both English and Japanese, and is billed by Nicalis as a 'limited' release. It's also on for Switch, but only in Japan – and it will cost you 100 Yen:
You can, of course, easily download the game using this guide, if you so wish.
Cave Story's Secret Santa's similarity to another game hasn't gone unnoticed by those on Twitter, however:
https://twitter.com/MrPodunkian/status/1469249420478726148
Merry Gear Solid: Secret Santa was produced by Arthur Lee for The Daily Click’s Grid-Based X-mas Game Competition, where it won the Grand Prize. One individual on the social media platform claims that Lee was working with Nicalis on a Cave Story sequel before parting company following claims that Nicalis had mistreated its employees and 'ghosted' potential development partners.
We've approached Nicalis for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Comments 23
Saw it when I was on the Japanese eShop yesterday. I have a fair bit of credit in my account so might as well pick it up considering how cheap it is.
I have to check if I have any gold coins on my japanese account.
y'know, i had the thought the two were similar, but would not have ever suspected an actual connection between them
Might have to make a japanese account.
A Cave Story sequel being cancelled is for the best. It really doesn’t need one, especially one that isn’t made solely by Pixel (or at least one that he doesn’t have complete creative control over, something I suspect a Nicalis developed sequel wouldn’t accommodate). I wouldn’t mind a totally new game in that style since everything Pixel touches has that Cave Story spirit and weirdness but let’s just leave CS as is.
@Gwynbleidd Also, GOG is DRM-Free!
Give Cave Story back to Pixel you *****.
@Lethal_Equo You don't need to, just switch regions.
Huh, so Pixel and Nicalis are on good terms or what..?
I feel like an important bit of information is that the developer of the game that is supposedly being ripped off. They themselves heavily ripped off Cave Story https://youtu.be/-JxS-njEUVc
This could be a bit of revenge for that. Maybe they asked him to stop and he wouldn't, so they made this out of spite. But also the game looks and plays differently enough. It's basically just the name that's taken. And I'm pretty sure Secret Santa can't be copyrighted.
It's also just as likely that they completely forgot about this Merry Gear Secret Santa game and came up with the name themselves not knowing where it possibly originated. "Secret Santa" is used so much in offices that they very well could have come up with the same name and idea themselves.
Anyway, I don't mind if it's a Cave Story spite game if the game itself is actually good. But yeah legally this guy doesn't have a leg to stand on considering he's been ripping off Cave Story himself.
@Bobb pretty sure everyone is back on good terms with Nicalis. People make mistakes. It's how we learn. Cancelling people for unpleasant behaviour is not a way for us to become better people. Yes their behaviour is wrong but we should allow people to apologise and redeem themselves rather than ruin the next 50 years of their lives.
Even the maximum prison time for aggressive behaviour is only five years and that'd be for like violently beating someone. Not for a few nasty words. People get stressed. We all do. We all say things we shouldn't in the heat of the moment.
I think it's absolutely insane that people like Joss Whedon can no longer get work because of a social media outcry. Particularly one that seemingly dissipated as soon as Snyder's Justice League released. Was it worth ruining a person's life? A father of two? Or how about Phil Fish?
Tyrone's not a bad guy. He's simply human to a fault. Chill out with the cancel culture. Have some goddamn forgiveness, please, guys
@Scapetti Yeah, I can agree with most of that.
I wasn't trying to incite canceling here, just an honest question. Last time I heard about Cave Story and Nicalis relationship everybody was up to pitchforks and then nothing. I thought Pixel weren't going to work with them anymore, just that.
@Bobb no worries, the entirety of the comment wasn't directed at you. Just the first sentence and then I went on a random rant haha
@Scapetti this is a hilarious string of hypotheticals, especially because it argues that the big indie publisher jacking someone's concept out of spite is equivalent to one of some schmoe's first unreleased games aping what's popular at the time, especially considering the dev themselves is not as concerned with their idea being yoinked https://twitter.com/MrPodunkian/status/1469366068284051460
also, for as much as phil fish was accused of being a knob, i don't particularly remember him having any complaints of workplace mistreatment and the like
@Gwynbleidd because I looked at it
Cave Story definitely doesn't need a sequel in my opinion, but I would of totally wanted to see how it would of looked. Not surprised that the team left considering how well known Nicalis's abuse is to the public now
Bought it. Anyone know how to get english to show? The japanese eshop shows english in the pictures, the game details on japanese eshop say language support "japanese english" (used google translate to translate the page).
EDIT: Solved: main menu, select bottom option. Next menu, select bottom option again. This will turn on english. The game will always boots up in english now.👌
I had just enough yen left over on my JP account to grab it. Thanks for the heads up!
I have the Steam version. It's a perfectly decent little distraction with delightful chiptune music. Hardly essential. But a fun way to spend an hour.
@Scapetti it's written 2006 for this game, and cave story got out in 2004
@Gwynbleidd Any news for sinners (Mac Owners like myself)?
@Gwynbleidd Was wondering if the game is available on Mac, for sinners like me?
Doesn't look like it though because I couldn't see it. This is destined to become vaporware.
@Damo Thanks again for posting this article. I've wanted a Christmas themed game for a while. I liked it! ...even if it's not long. I can't believe this game that supports english is Japanese eshop only!?
I think it's a missed opportunity if they don't build on this game or, sell it on eshop for english speaking regions. Especially, given that the handful christmas games on eshop look like uninteresting shovelware.
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