Greetings!
I'm making a fangame prequel of Cave Story. I'm still not sure about the plot (there are so many tales it can tell... Who knows, maybe that won't be the last fangame I'll make?).
I'm using Multimedia Fusion 2, since I don't know any programming language that's useful for making games, such as c++ or java, and MMF2 is pretty easy to use for games like this. I know what you think, probably something like "dude, it's for kids, learn something and stop using this", but I believe it depends on my skills, not the way I make it. I know that there are some restrictions coming with this program, but there aren't many of them.
About the physics and stuff - movement is going to be nearly CaveStory-like (acceleration and de-acceleration of movement can vary, for example), but I'll do my best to make the differences as little as I can. Of course there's going to be something like the Booster, but there may be something double jump and some other stuff. Some things may be difficult to make, but it's just a matter of time to create them - if the idea is good, it's totally worth the effort.
About the graphics - pixel art is easy to start with, but hard to master. I'm keeping the same old-school feeling that we know from Cave Story. Tiles are 32x32, but they are resized from 16x16. At the start, I said to myself "I want to make the graphics by myself", but now I see how hard it is to make nice looking tiles, backgrounds, sprites, and then put them together and say "hey, they match, it looks great!". That's why I'm looking for some experienced pixel artist. I will still do them by myself, but I need someone to point out what I'm doing wrong and how I can improve my graphic skills.
About the music and sounds - on this field I'm completely stupid. I like music, I listen to a lot of music every day, but when it comes to creating something nice, it just sounds awful. The second thing is - making the game itself, creating a plot and game mechanics + graphics is already much, and I don't have much time to learn how to use ORG Maker or ORGasm (great name, by the way). So, if anyone wants to share some of their creations with me and want to see them in my game - go ahead, you don't know how graceful I'll be. There's just one thing I need to mention - it has to be 8-bit themed, just like Cave Story music.
Track this game if you like this, please. :)
(Cracks Knuckles)
Okay. Advice time. If you want to really get into making something similar to Cave Story, there's an entire FORUM filled with people who mod the game on a daily basis. They know every aspect of the game inside and out, so I'd take a look at research they've done.
Second. This same group has made more mods of Cave Story than can be counted. Any story you have may already be made by one of them, so I'd search around first. They have some really good, and some really terrible, ideas floating about there.
Finally. If this is your first experiance in game design, I recomend you watch this: Youtube.com
Warning, alot of cursing is in the video, but it serves a purpose.
I've modded the game myself, so I know tons about the script and several aspects of the game that most wouldn't know just by playing. So try a bit of this research befor eheavy development.
Happy Programming.