Nice to see people speculating :-) Please keep in mind that I don't know who most of these characters are; I never read the comics, I never saw the TV series, I can almost never remember what SatAM is (despite checking the wiki numerous times out of curiosity), and I played very few of the non-Genesis games: I played S1 and S2 for the Master System, S1/S2/S3/S&K/SCD for Genesis and, more recently, Chaotix and Heroes. That is it. And even Heroes I only played after I had released the hack, having found the game existed during development. So I have no feelings towards any of them other than first impressions based on limited information (and my first impression of Big was "meh"). I just ask that you avoid anything by Ken Penders (I saw the thread) as I don't think he needs any more encouragement or publicity. Size constraints for all characters: 32 tiles for any given pose. Two of the characters (Sonic and Tails in Team Sonic, Vector and Charmy in Team Chaotix) use adjacent spaces in VRAM, so one character can use more space at the expense of the other character (this happens for neither of the current teams; Vector surprisingly fits his 32 tiles). Each character should have enough unique colors (at least one) that a super form is workable; it is OK if two or three characters use a color for more-or-less similar purposes (a counter-example: in Gsuki's image, Big's belt, Amy's jewelry and Cream's skin have common shades, making a not-OK combination).
Do all teams have to have super forms? Canonically, I don't think most of them use the Super forms. Unless they do in the comics that is.
In the hack, at least, I would prefer all of the teams to use super forms. Not that it is a programming constraint, I just would like to reward people that collect all emeralds.
Well the good thing for including Blaze in as one of the teams is she does have a Super Form [Burning Blaze] whom uses projectile flames. As well as this hacks use of Sol Emeralds making more sense!
Question: Would it be possible to offer a choice between different fonts for the HUD numbers? It's sometimes difficult for me to read the HUD out of the corner of my eye because of its small size and how dark the yellows are compared to vanilla S1/S1's bright white numbers. If the font is smaller to save graphic space, then perhaps making them solid white on the inside would be enough.
I love how this hack finally allows me to play as all three Chaotix in glorious 2-D. Spoiler I'd love to see a playable Big based on the concept of rubber band physics like in the SNES game Umihara Kawase, but I think that Cheese would be a nice (and more practical, time saving) option to along with Amy and Cream, maybe based around Charmy's gameplay style with perhaps a small twist to make Cheese a bit more different in the way he handles
I tried. Cream shares Amy's pink a bit so the flashing can actually happen. I would love to see Cheese in case Big couldn't be in, though.
I just want to say that giving the turtles in Sky Chase Zone parachutes was a nice touch. It really alleviates my sense of guilt for freeing them.
By the most generous counting, Big would be using 34 tiles on the right sprite (because the belt buckle and eyes would have to come from another palette); I imagine his diagonal sprites would take a lot more. Also, Cream's flashing is hardly noticeable in this scheme, since you used the lightest pink for her lightest skin tone. Using Amy's darkest pink as Cream's darkest tone makes very little visual difference and allows a better flashing. I am not trying to knock down your work; you did a splendid job, my jaw has dropped with this last image. I am just using this to illustrate how difficult it is to fit 3 characters into a single palette line with all the constraints involved, and how many trade-offs are needed. You managed to knock down one of the reasons why I had decided against using Big long ago, which is the palette issue. Another point Big scores here is that his fur tones could be co-opted for Cheese (if Big did not eat all the available VRAM...); like, say, this (original). With bonus flashing for Super Cheese (Super Cheesy?). Putting Cheese in with Tikal is next to impossible due to lack of available palette entries, unless I change Cheese's colors. Now all that remains are Big's excessive size, the fact that I would prefer an all-female team and my lack of interest in the character />.
Could big be rotated via Mode 7 when going around loops? Then you wouldn't have to fit Big into 32 tiles. Sonic CD showed Mode 7 could be used so...
Hardware rotation through the Sega CD would make little difference; the tiles would still have to go to VRAM, which is not any bigger with the Sega CD. And I doubt mode 7 could be used that way (or that the Sega CD's capabilities count as a true mode 7, but I am no expert on Sega CD). For SCH, the Sega CD is not a solution -- it is a major hurdle except in mode 1. Trust me; I already looked into it.
So, I was playing with Team Chaotix and beat the S1 mode. On the cutscene that Eggman, Death Egg, and the Wing Fortress appear in the background, Espio and Vector went invisible (possibly lack of frames?), only Charmy was looking at what appeared in the background. That, and when Amy carries the team away, only two got to stand in the Tornado, while one member of the team fell out of it. Also: Bonus Cheese (made by E-122-Psi), and shrunk Big a little. If it helps, you can make Big's yellow parts into orange.
Yep; E-122-Psi didn't have time to finish them in time for the contest. I mentioned it a couple days ago, but it is understandable you missed given how many new pages there are between that post and now... That definitely should not have happened. Can you tell me who was left behind and who was on which position?
It seems that it's always the third team member that will fall off in there, except when you use Charmy, because then only Charmy will stand in the plane.
I was messing around with Chaotix mode, any chance you'll add a hold button, or a button to teleport your partner back to you?
If you mean a hold button as in 'carry the partner', it is more unlikely (would depend on extra art, and I would have to decide what would happen in the 3p case); otherwise, ducking or looking up prevents you from being dragged. Currently, non-CPU players can start+c to kill themselves (except for p1); I suppose I could make start+c recall the partners when p1 does it. I suppose I could also make SCH require 6-button controllers and use the extra buttons for several such things.
I'd be down for 6-buttons. Personally I don't care if there weren't any proper art for the carry action. Being able to pick up both partners to gain control of a situation and be able to move more precisely in certain areas is sorely needed in 1P mode IMHO. Art issue aside, couldn't carrying be done similar to how the flying characters carry their partner? Also, I just wanted to report some more minor issues with the game: Did most of a S1 & S2 play though with Tails and Knuckles and ran into a lot of weird collision issues like like being able to duck while sliding down certain slopes (mostly in SYZ) not being able to jump off of switches and some small platforms while submerged in Labyrinth Zone, and getting stuck in the walls while moving at slow to normal speeds while spin attacking (mostly in the red, narrow, spike-ball-filled areas of SYZ and in the last two S1 special stages). Hyper Tails got stuck in a slot machine I have a save state for that one if you want. http://www.mediafire.com/?eizdc66dn5t3ors While Hyper Tails was carrying Hyper Knux in MCZ Act 1 Knux hit a spring that caused the backgound to glitch. Spoiler Savestate http://www.mediafire.com/?39n49g1odi81h1i Edit: Happened again when Hyper Tails was carrying Hyper Knuckles across the goal sign Spoiler Savestate http://www.mediafire.com/?q7ut22o4zouy6gg I think that it'd be cool if: -Characters had a variable jump height in both special stages. -A combine ring monitor was included Do you plan to use the rolling Espio sprites in areas where a ball like shape is better suited like s-tubes, SBZ gear, CPZ tubes, OOZ Cannons and maybe even slot machine, pinball spring (CNZ), and corkscrew? Also, any plans turning Espio's whirl-attack in 8 directions on lopes and loops like the running animation?
I feel like a decent solution would be to restrain some of these features to a 6-button mode as extra options if it detects a 6-button controller/an option in a menu is set(perhaps using one of the extra buttons) so that players can play as it is now in emulators/on a console without worrying about important buttons being mapped to things their controller lacks, but those who set up their emulator or own a controller like that can still do it. I also believe that a decent solution to holding players would be to have a simplified version of it, if you press a button to either grab them or recall or whatnot, they simply hover near you in a flickering spinball animation. This could be used both to carry a character to somewhere if they're acting wonky as a CPU or in a NSMBWii multiplayer style "this player is sucking too much, just stay in an inactive ball while I do it so you can stop using our lives" thing. Floating in a spinball rather than being carried bypasses art issues I'd think. Perhaps it and the recall feature could be a single thing, recalling a player making them into the floating ball mode zipping to overtop you until the ball player presses a button(or the current player tries to recall them again) to cause them to do their usual "pop in from off screen" function, or perhaps generically fling them in a direction you hold. This could be mapped to either the extra buttons in 6-button mode, or perhaps start+c. If the player holds left or right it could specify one of the two in 3 player mode, otherwise it could recall both or just the next character in the lineup? ... I didn't mean for it to be that big, I just wanted to give a small suggestion. /> Whoops. (also, spindashing and then switching to Charmy causes this to happen. Found it toying around to see if there were any visual indicators of the hold steady function of ducking/looking up, given how few people know of it.)
