[LordOfSquad]

I think ColinC10 has it nailed. I really wouldn't mind collecting emeralds if it wasn't such a slog.

[Hitlersaurus Christ]

What ever happened to the Joypolis-looking level by the way? I think it was called Fun Factory or something? Is it anywhere in this build?

[Tweaker]

To clarify, my earlier post was in no way suggesting that you should remove the emerald hunting from the game; it adds an absolute fuckton of replayability and a whole extra layer of complexity to the gameplay. Again, though, I feel it should supplement gameplay and not necessarily dictate it, since making Emerald collecting mandatory to progress stunts the player's ability to progress through the game and enjoy it for what it is. The Classic Mode function was just an easy compromise as far as I'm concerned.

I do like the idea in the maps that there are extra challenge levels that require high Emerald counts to access; these make perfect sense and are a great incentive to collect emeralds on your own time to access them later on in the game. In terms of progressing from zone to zone, though, I think the only thing that should be strictly mandatory is actually completing the levels. In this sense I think the only thing that's really necessary for you to change are the number of emeralds needed to pass each barrier, at least until the last zone or something (which could reasonably require a higher count to access or something, idk).

I dunno, man; I get what you're trying to do with the whole Mario 64 influence, but it works a lot better in a Mario game than it does a Sonic game. Mario games are all about pacing and platforming and shit; Sonic games are also strong platformers, but they encourage you first and foremost to go fast and complete levels fast. The last thing I think of in these levels is to slow to a crawl and start looking for all of these collectables and shit. I like that I can, but I don't like that I have to.

[Chris Highwind]

After getting rid of the mentality that I have to get all the emeralds (minus score and time attacks) in one shot, I actually found this really fun. I used to want to just go fast, but now I don't mind exploring the levels and finding new and exciting sights. It does kinda tick me off when springs force me to backtrack more than I had planned to, though, but hey, that's what springs are for, to get you to a certain direction pronto. Keep it up, Thorn!

[FinalBeyond]

I wouldn't say you have to slow to a crawl to begin with. Sometimes, cautious platforming is needed, but no more so than Sonic 1, or even plenty of stages in 2 & 3. It never feels as slow as Mario 64. Normally, the emeralds seem to require fast-paced Sonic gameplay in order to reach them. The only thing that maybe slows it down is having to go back and forth a lot if you've missed something or want to try another path.

Just 'completed' the demo, as in got through the actual levels, but only came out with 38 emeralds. Going to go back and try and get the ones I missed. Favourite zones would probably be Mystic Woods and Casino Night.

[muteKi]

LordOfSquad, on 21 September 2011 - 12:25 AM, said:

I think ColinC10 has it nailed. I really wouldn't mind collecting emeralds if it wasn't such a slog.

Yeah, my main issues are that it's possible to complete a level without collecting any emeralds (I agree there should be one given for merely completing each level in the first place), and that it's actually fairly hard to backtrack a lot of the time. Two of the emeralds in the first level strike me as particularly frustrating to reach, as the window of opportunity for getting to that route is very narrow.

[Rokkan]

I just played the new demo. Collecting enough emeralds to procceed is pretty easy - actually, a lot more easier than the 2010 build. The new forest level which is super easy to get emeralds from and the emerald radar does help a lot! (specially in finding emeralds that, before this new build, you had no idea where to get them. Now I feel a lot less clueless and a lot more interested in collecting some of them) I played it in just one day and already got 45 emeralds (more than enough to get to Metropolis and Death Egg). Of course, I did know at first how to get a bunch of emeralds because of the 2010 build, but I wouldn't say that collecting the emeralds is hard or bothersome, seems to work and pace perfectly to me!

Just a few things that annoy me are how Metropolis is such a long level (basically, never bothering to try time attacking and score attacking on such a long level), and how Chemical Plant 2 is so goddamn hard (I should get an emerald for just surviving that). The difficulty of the level makes me not really bother getting any emeralds at it. I might have tried to get some on it if it wasn't for how you positioned Sonic to spawn at the "hub world" so far away from the warp ring to the level! I mean, I sort of get the design around not positioning Sonic right next to the warp ring of the level that he was on: By placing Sonic "between" the path of the level that he was on and the next level, you induce the player to get to the next level, but you also do that so that the player doesn't "accidentally" enter the level he just got out of, so you position Sonic in a way so that if the player wants to retry the level, he needs to take actions that will actually require him to think whether he wants to replay the level or to go another one. But still, the warp ring of Chemical Plant 2 is so far away from the place in which Sonic spawns when he gets out of it, that re-entering the level takes so long and is so bothersome to do. It wouldn't be if I only needed to re-enter it once, but, because of the difficulty and also because of missions such as Score Attack and Time Attack, a lot of stages take a lot of retrials to get those emeralds, and when you retry that level more than a handful of times, the whole section that you need to cross to get to it does get very bothersome to do it again and again and again just to get to the level and quickly die or screw up your shot at Time/Score Attacking and have to do that again and again and again...

Basically, yeah, those are my only issues I think! I like the new Wall-Jump, it was really weird getting used to it at first (WHY ARE YOU CONSTANTLY STICKING YOURSELF TO THESE WALLS SONIC COME ON I DIDN'T PRESS A), but after getting used to it, it is safe to say it works a lot better than the old one.

[steveswede]

Rave, on 22 September 2011 - 05:34 PM, said:

I might have tried to get some on it if it wasn't for how you positioned Sonic to spawn at the "hub world" so far away from the warp ring to the level! I mean, I sort of get the design around not positioning Sonic right next to the warp ring of the level that he was on: By placing Sonic "between" the path of the level that he was on and the next level, you induce the player to get to the next level, but you also do that so that the player doesn't "accidentally" enter the level he just got out of, so you position Sonic in a way so that if the player wants to retry the level, he needs to take actions that will actually require him to think whether he wants to replay the level or to go another one. But still, the warp ring of Chemical Plant 2 is so far away from the place in which Sonic spawns when he gets out of it, that re-entering the level takes so long and is so bothersome to do. It wouldn't be if I only needed to re-enter it once, but, because of the difficulty and also because of missions such as Score Attack and Time Attack, a lot of stages take a lot of retrials to get those emeralds, and when you retry that level more than a handful of times, the whole section that you need to cross to get to it does get very bothersome to do it again and again and again just to get to the level and quickly die or screw up your shot at Time/Score Attacking and have to do that again and again and again...

I thought this initially when I played Chemical Plant act 2 but considering I only gave the level a quick go the thought didn't give me too much bother. But now that you have mentioned it, it's something that should be addressed and not just this one but others as well. I agree that a spawn position needs to be reasonably placed away from a warp ring but not to the point where you are constantly running the same bit over and over again in the hub world because it gets a bit boring doing that, Cascade Valley between act 2 and act 3 is another example of this.


Also if it's a possibility, is there any chance you would consider adding an options menu to customize the game mechanics and other stuff if people want it. I still find using the new wall jump crap to use and wouldn't mind having an option to switch between original controls and new, plus have an option to turn the radar on or off. Considering your coding genius would it be worth your time to implement something like this?

[TheBarAdmin]

I love the mission system, and how it flows with the layouts. The levels, even after several replays, feel fresh and freaking gigantic, in which some parts resemble Sonic Rush and others resemble Sonic CD. In terms of level art, it's a nice twist, my favorite being Cascade Valley. The music is good; are some of these original compositions? Because I can't remember them from other games.

However, it feels like in later zones, emeralds are much harder to obtain, even if I didn't get lost too often, due to the radar. It's... just not as entertaining. I wish the later levels were more like Mystic Woods or Cascade Valley, because those were REALLY entertaining.

But so far nice work! It's an unique concept for a sonic game, and I can see the you guys put a lot of effort in it

[dsrb]

Bumpan to say I finally tried the SAGE 2011 build. Not bad! 30 emruldz in so far. I think I'm going to end agreeing with TBA above that “I wish the later levels were more like Mystic Woods or Cascade Valley, because those were REALLY entertaining.”, but I may be wrong. Definitely not looking forward to CPZ, though!

More to the point, I just updated the wiki page to have the SAGE 2011 version and added Mystic Woods to the level list. That this hadn't already been done is a travesty! Will someone please think of the children! Those with more encyclopaedic knowledge of the game than me might want to update any other relevant parts.


Edit:

I should make more of an effort to be praiseworthy. Whilst I'll leave the debate over the details and specifics to others, I really appreciate the overall idea behind this: adding several new layers to the gameplay and experience—and from games that I love, I.e. SM64 and NiGHTS—that totally transform it. It's hugely ambitious, and it's paying off, especially as it evolves and fits together better with every version. Don't stop what you're doing! Listen to feedback, sure, when it's valid; but keep the core idea intact.

In that last respect, as an example, I think the emerald radar is a good thing on balance. Perhaps making it optional is a decent idea, for the players who are sufficiently confident in their abilities—unlike myself! I thought of suggesting some bonus for players who keep it off, but I'm unimaginative and it'd be hard to stretch such a concept across the entire game. I'm sure there are those like Steve who would prefer to have it off; I might be the same if I were more skilled at, or used to, searching, but it's been pretty helpful so far.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 01 December 2011 - 08:50 AM

[dsrb]

These have probably been reported, but I'd better write them down somewhere before I forget.
* After completing the (only?) Special Stage, no text is shown for the scores (although the usual tally SFX are played).
* CVZ2 lists its score attack threshold as 17000, but it's actually 20000—as I realised after considerable frustration! :P (No idea how I'll beat its time attack, or most of the others’; off to YouTube, I guess)
* It's probably not coming back, but—Classic Mode in the SAGE 2010 version resets scores between levels; this makes sense for the standard mode, but not so much for Classic.

Also, 60 emeralds and (slowly) counting. The final bosses were surprisingly easy, particularly the second one, but I raged a fair amount at their doubled HP.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 05 December 2011 - 11:04 AM

[Thorn]

Right, might as well post here since the topic's received a bump.

@dsrb: The text removal was deliberate in an attempt to make clear that there is no reward for getting a certain score. I wanted to remove the screen entirely, but it seems that VRAM is toyed with during it in order to get back to displaying normal level graphics, so I did a quick and dirty edit. I'm pretty sure you're talking about the score error in Cascade Valley 3 instead of 2, which I spotted last month and have fixed for the next release (it should have been 17000). Lastly, if I didn't increase the HP on the final bosses, they would be beatable before they even get two attacks off, I.e. before they start their new attack patterns (and seriously, I made it so that you can whale on the final boss with little consequence, so I think the added HP is pretty necessary).

All around I am very displeased with the 2011 build, both in terms on circumstances around it and the game itself. I lost my last computer to hardware failure (but was smart enough to make constant backups as it started to die) about a month before the hacking contest, causing me to miss that and to be late to SAGE by half a day. I also had the misfortune of my SAGE entry e-mail landing in the recipient's junk folder, where it wasn't seen until right before SAGE started; hence, my booth was posted too late to be on the slide-out list of 24 and was only viewable on the main booth page. The game itself was a rushed job to get something out before all of the main Sonic fan game events were done for the year, so bugs like the ones in the previous post and the sharing of overworld respawn points between Acts 2 and 3 cropped up, and DNX's admittance that he may not continue on the project meant that I had to work with things I was capable of making art for.

So where does the hack go from here? The original plan that I conceived back in late 2009 or early 2010 was to create a large selection of levels, then to try to fit a stupid little story to it... something along the lines of fitting in a second character such as Mighty that has more "classic" Sonic gameplay while I give Sonic all of the new moves I've made so far, and to have the player proceed through with both characters. Except in the time I spent making levels and tweaking the hack, keeping this story to myself so that the Internet didn't barf at the sight of a fan game with a story, SEGA made exactly that game. FUCK. That's not to say I couldn't still do it, but the novelty's gone now. :P I do have other things in mind to do with the hack, such as replacing the overworlds with a world map and having alternate exits that lead to other acts, having more special stages and using the Chaos Emeralds from there in the same way that early Crash Bandicoot games used Color Gems for platforms, and having many acts per world to compensate for my now lacking ability to have more zone art.

On a random note, I know Sik asked me to integrate Puyo / Mean Bean somehow, and I know how I could do it, but I lack the know-how to get it working (I'd imagine having up to 72 Puyo objects on screen would cause serious lag with the whole of the Sonic engine running, so I'd have to pause everything else going on).

I am very open to ideas right now, whether they be people saying "have the hack do this" or people who care to contribute art/music/whatever to prevent this from being a solo project. I'll probably get back into serious work on this early next year when I am done playing all of the new games from the holiday season and I'm on break from classes.

This post has been edited by Thorn: 05 December 2011 - 01:39 PM

[dsrb]

Thorn, on 05 December 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure you're talking about the score error in Cascade Valley 3 instead of 2, which I spotted last month and have fixed for the next release (it should have been 17000).

Of course you're right; my mistake!

Quote

Lastly, if I didn't increase the HP on the final bosses, they would be beatable before they even get two attacks off, I.e. before they start their new attack patterns (and seriously, I made it so that you can whale on the final boss with little consequence, so I think the added HP is pretty necessary).

Haha, no, it is a good thing; it just took me a while to get used to. Admittedly, I never play Sonic 2, at least not that far, so I was at a disadvantage to begin with! It was easy once I got warmed up. I like how you added platforms and a couple of ‘new’ moves so if you plan to develop that further, I'd be interested to see what comes out of it.

As for the rest: The build was pretty great, all things considered. Shame DNX is leaving—for what it's worth, Frosty Peak is beautiful!—and hopefully there are other artist(s) here who'd like to contribute. I'm too unimaginative to have any good suggestions for the gameplay, but I'm looking forward to seeing what emerges in any case.

[Rokkan]

Thorn, please contact me if you're in need for new graphics/pixel-art work. I'd be absolutely blissful to work in one of my favorite hacks of all time.

Also, outside from what I said on my post... Could you add gimmicks and stage elements from non Sonic 2 games? Idk if that's even possible, but it'd be really interesting to have, idk, that spiky log from Green Hill for instance in Mystic Woods Zone. While the level layouts are really fresh and new, they could mix elements from even more other stages to feel even more new and interesting.

[W.A.C.]

I think it would be awesome if the game tried hard to move away from Sonic 2 and tried to make all the levels feel original. Chemical Plant could be turned into something like an industrial wasteland, Casino Night Zone could be turned into something like this, etc. Cascade Valley Zone and Frosty Peak Zone are such original looking levels and it would be great to see the other levels get similar treatment. Also, I have not played the SAGE 2011 version yet but I remember the boss battles in the SAGE 2010 version being just alternative takes on Sonic 2 bosses. It would be awesome to see something radically different for a lot of those boss battles. Also, I like the emerald collecting but it would be nice if the game gave people more incentive to try to collect them outside of it being mandatory to get a certain amount to pass certain areas. Also, will Tails ever be added to the game?