Congratulations Tax Man and SEGA Sonic Team, mostly Tax Man since he made his engine and ported elements to it to make a 1:1 accurate game! Emulated Games are just lazy. They tried it, and got some money, but not as much as Sonic 1, 2 and CD Taxman Releases! Games need to be recreated and added features to keep it up to date with current times! If Sonic 3 & K has online multiplayer + leaderboards, that will be awesome! Though he should look at Sonic 3 Complete and do something similar, but different
Actually Mistergambit hinted at it in a PM when he asked me how to test modifications on hardware. I was looking for changes to Sonic 1 at the time and probably would've checked CD next, but that made me move to CD right away. Yes, there are now folders for R21A and R91C which seem to have been added in a recent update. Desert Dazzle is actually referenced in the level list in GameConfig.bin, so it's probably on the Retro Engine Dev Menu. I tried it by swapping the R21A folder with R11A to replace Palmtree Panic. I wasn't going to post any details until I've had a chance to look over everything to see if it's possible to access normally. It's a little bit harder to harvest codes from Sonic CD since they're not an obvious string of numbers (04010206, etc) like Sonic 1 and 2. But I guess for the PC version, your only chance of playing it there would be to grab the Data.rsdk from the iOS version which would probably work although I haven't tried that. I'll post more when I know more. From an accessibility standpoint it might just be better if I posted a patch that could be applied to the PC version to play it...
sonicblur, what Mac version of Sonic CD is that? As far as I know, Sonic CD isn't officially out for Mac OS X. I tried porting Desert Dazzle to the Steam version instead of recording it the usual way from an iPad. Here's what came out of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbWeIikEi0c
Cool, that's exactly what I was going to do. You can get the proper level title to appear if you replace the bytecode for the level as well, but the files in the PC version are named differently, so I don't know how well it would work or not. Do you want to offer up an XDelta patch for the RSDK file? That's what I was going to build and post, it's probably the easiest way for someone else to play, just backup the RSDK and patch. I can mirror it if you want to make a patch. As far as your question, Sonic CD works fine in WINE. Although this was actually a little side project of mine. Nothing underhanded or secret involved, just some work with existing data available.
I love the wacky design of this stage, the background even gives me the munchies for a pack of tangy cheese doritos.
Yeah, I think I'll consider making an XDelta patch unless you already built one. Thanks for the idea. I noticed that, the level icon is in the top-right.
No, I stopped once I saw you already got it working. There seems to be an issue with the tool I used to repack the RSDK file not doing it correctly, such that if I unpack and repack the stock RSDK from the PC version the game won't make it past the intro logos. I was just going to build my own tool instead, but since you've got something it'll be quicker for you to help. :-) The icon in the top right is just because I was using the latest Data.rsdk file from the iOS version, which has touch controls enabled in GameConfig.bin.
So that explains the lack of 'Little Planet' in the menus. Would we have got Past and Future remixes? Looks like it could have been a fun level. Wonder what gimmicks may have came into play. Would it have been as complete as the other levels (eg. time travel variants and three acts and boss)?
Here is the XDelta patch for the Steam PC version. Use XDelta3 to apply: http://www.mediafire.com/?ecpbacxdaaq66i8
Oh man, that was not meant to be in there! What you're seeing is basically all that was playable (although the wonky palette cycling must be because you've hacked it in over Palmtree Panic). The level design isn't anywhere near done, it's only a test to see what structures look nice / what ideas are worth pursuing. Same goes with the music - it's only playing the D.A. Garden track because there's nothing else to use. Had it been done, Desert Dazzle would have been full length Round with time zones and new music. I'm quite fond of the art I made for it actually, it was somewhat of a happy accident coming up with those patterns and colours.
That was added by accident? So, I guess this means that the possible downloadable content is out of the question?
Probably just an accidental foul-up at compile time with regards flags and the like. I wouldn't read any more into it than that.
You "accidentally" included Desert Dazzle in the latest update on a platform where you have unlimited free updates, oh yeah, those mistakes happen all the time.