[Ell678]

Downloaded, enjoyed it. I didn't get any Virus alerts, using ZoneAlarm and AVG. One thing I will mention is when you are using a multi monitor setup (Surround / Eyefinity) the game will default to the left monitor, and full screen just blows the resolution up sky high without changing the aspect ratio to fit the screens. As far as I know, there isn't a way to move the windowed version either. Just a small niggle, nothing major, but I would like to be able to move the window to the centre. Or give us Surround support :P

Excellent job regardless guys.

[Athelstone]

Congratulations Sonic 2 HD team!

I can't fathom how many hours you lot have put into this. I can feel the desire for excellence bursting with every little artistic detail, whether it's the shapes, the colours or the animations – incredibly impressive stuff. LOst and Saxman, great to see the results of your combined technical efforts. Exciting to see a group of focussed passions collaborating closely together.

The original Sonic games are archetypes for all gamers. Sonic team should be familiar enough with this circle to know that there will always be a strong demand for classic Sonic. If Sonic Team decide to hire you to make this project official, I think it would be worth trying to convince them that there'd be greater profit in combining Sonic 1, 2 and 3&K into one product, rather than trying to sell each one individually. If classic Sonic had just one strong platform from which to express itself, its popularity could only grow more and more in the form of fan-made levels and online competitions. Archetypes never die; they just continue to sell again and again. In an era of digital distribution it would have the potential to be one of the most popular 2d games of all time. Factor in micro-transactions for obtaining in-game taunts during online races, individual character accessories, and extra characters like Fang, Amy, Chaotix, Metal Sonic, Eggman etc – there'd be great takings to be made. A level-editor – with instantly downloadable levels as soon as players connect – would make the project self-sustaining; the profit and popularity of such a cult would be never-ending.

However far you choose to take it, I wish the whole team success with the project and the best possible success with life ambitions and dreams, which matter more than anything else

This post has been edited by Athelstone: 28 March 2012 - 11:08 AM

[scanline99]

Ritz, on 28 March 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

I'm not actually going to play this, but that title screen made me melt. Who was responsible for that, and how long did it take to animate? On average, how much time was spent rendering each individual frame? It accounts for half of the game's development time, right?

Thank you kindly for the compliment Ritz. I actually had this completed over the course of a week during Christmas 2010 - as an aside, by January 15th 2011, all the art assets for the game were ready to go and it was just the coding that remained for the following year (much to my surprise) - sadly this was very much out of my hands. I roughed out the animation by hand in first (I.e. sketches, on "ones" at 30fps) in a day or so and then cleaned up and painted each sketch individually in Photoshop afterwards which was the time consuming bit (took about 2 days apiece for Sonic, then Tails). The emblem and those surrounding animations took me another day and then I comped the lot in After Effects and had it sent to LOst who faithfully put all the assets back together in-game exactly as I had demonstrated in my mock-up. Glad you finally got to see it at least .

[Falk]

Ell678, on 28 March 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

Downloaded, enjoyed it. I didn't get any Virus alerts, using ZoneAlarm and AVG. One thing I will mention is when you are using a multi monitor setup (Surround / Eyefinity) the game will default to the left monitor, and full screen just blows the resolution up sky high without changing the aspect ratio to fit the screens. As far as I know, there isn't a way to move the windowed version either. Just a small niggle, nothing major, but I would like to be able to move the window to the centre. Or give us Surround support :P

Excellent job regardless guys.

Welp, I'm on a multi monitor setup with my main monitor on the right at 1920x1080, and it worked as you expect it would.

This post has been edited by Falk: 28 March 2012 - 11:11 AM

[Volpino]

LOst, on 28 March 2012 - 01:11 AM, said:

The physics can never be 100% like the original. The game is based off Sonic 3, with some changes "for the good" to limit some actions to Sonic 2.

I hope that doesn't mean you've all retconed the idea of Tails flying and Knuckles being in the game. Because I was looking forward to that when online play was discussed.

This post has been edited by Volpino: 28 March 2012 - 11:18 AM

[Ritz]

scanline99, on 28 March 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Ritz, on 28 March 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

I'm not actually going to play this, but that title screen made me melt. Who was responsible for that, and how long did it take to animate? On average, how much time was spent rendering each individual frame? It accounts for half of the game's development time, right?

Thank you kindly for the compliment Ritz. I actually had this completed over the course of a week during Christmas 2010 - as an aside, by January 15th 2011, all the art assets for the game were ready to go and it was just the coding that remained for the following year (much to my surprise) - sadly this was very much out of my hands. I roughed out the animation by hand in first (I.e. sketches, on "ones" at 30fps) in a day or so and then cleaned up and painted each sketch individually in Photoshop afterwards which was the time consuming bit (took about 2 days apiece for Sonic, then Tails). The emblem and those surrounding animations took me another day and then I comped the lot in After Effects and had it sent to LOst who faithfully put all the assets back together in-game exactly as I had demonstrated in my mock-up. Glad you finally got to see it at least .

I wasn't actually expecting a reply so quickly, or at all! Good man.

Shit, you guys are actually painting these now? Just the sprites, or has the Illustrator blending process been phased out entirely? I'd love to hear some insight on how you're getting this flawless airbrushed look in Photoshop. Don't tell me you're just using a soft-edged brush for everything, I'd die. Who else is working on this? I can tell you didn't do the background. You've raised the bar too high, rest of the team can't keep up. Glad you saved this project.

[redhotsonic]

Seems like I can't play the game. The 32-bit immediately get's deleted because it's a trojan (I know it's not, but it says so anyway). But the 64-bit is there. My laptop is 64-bit, so I loaded it. The game loads up with a green screen, and just sits there, no matter what setting I change, and my drivers and etc is up-to-date.

[Rolken]

Windows only? It's 2012 and it's time to embrace multiplatform. I (and I suspect, quite a few other programmers) would be open to porting or other code improvements and assistance.

You should provide some kind of information or overtures to technically capable people; embrace the people who are curious and want to help you instead of throwing up barriers.

This post has been edited by Rolken: 28 March 2012 - 11:43 AM

[Cerulean Nights]

Ritz, on 28 March 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

I wasn't actually expecting a reply so quickly, or at all! Good man.

Shit, you guys are actually painting these now? Just the sprites, or has the Illustrator blending process been phased out entirely? I'd love to hear some insight on how you're getting this flawless airbrushed look in Photoshop. Don't tell me you're just using a soft-edged brush for everything, I'd die. Who else is working on this? I can tell you didn't do the background. You've raised the bar too high, rest of the team can't keep up. Glad you saved this project.

All of the sprites are drawn in vector, using unique shading methods we have come to evolve over the course of the project. None of the sprites are actually hand drawn in the traditional sense, there all no brushes involved whatsoever! The process that these get created is this - animation guru scanline99 makes an animated rough sketch of a sprite if it's needed, then I convert it to Photoshop vectors and shade them using our special method. Color steps in illustrator was inane way of doing things, so when we joined the project we pretty much scrapped anything done in that style. We did this for everything you see in the game sans the grass, level blocks, and background elements. I'm very glad to hear that you can see how much work we've put into this, we are both very proud of what we accomplished and really taught ourselves a lot. So much so that we teamed up in the real world and created our own game development company. If you see a game coming out soon that shows our staple art style, you'll know it's us!

[CornetTheory]

^--wow, timing

Ritz, on 28 March 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

Shit, you guys are actually painting these now? Just the sprites, or has the Illustrator blending process been phased out entirely? I'd love to hear some insight on how you're getting this flawless airbrushed look in Photoshop. Don't tell me you're just using a soft-edged brush for everything, I'd die. Who else is working on this? I can tell you didn't do the background. You've raised the bar too high, rest of the team can't keep up. Glad you saved this project.

For the Title Screen Island and the HTZ clouds/islands.. etc., I used Photoshop with a tablet and normal round brush. varying softness.

This post has been edited by CornetTheory: 28 March 2012 - 11:49 AM

[Cinossu]

So, after 10-15 times trying to get it working, I finally managed to. It's.. nice. Not great, not amazing, just nice, in my opinion. Sorry. Why, you ask? Let's start from the beginning (I'll get to the loading/DRM/virus false alert woes later)..

Starting up, we have the project by Team S2HD logo, followed by the small disclaimer. Then, the title screen pops in and, while the effects are all fancy and smooth, what the hell is Sonic doing with his hand? It looks really odd. :s Apart from that, everything is fine.

I have to admit, I was impressed with the effects on the title card, I hadn't expected that. Then the level starts and.. everything seems so flat. I don't know quite what I expected, but even with the extensive animation, and apple-esque gradients, and the bright colours, everything seems so lifeless. The animations of the trees, especially, still feel like tentacles. While all the work that's gone into it is impressive, it still feels.. dull, in this played form.

The music is great, and Tee Lopes fails to disappoint as always, but as others have pointed out the boss music seems.. lacking? I think there's a bar or two missing too, which makes it seem far more lacking than it should when really it's just a length thing. Sound effects.. are bog-standard, nothing to say there.

The credits, while fancy, is nothing more than an extended set of demo/script paths, similar to how a demo plays out when you leave the game at the title screen. Sorry guys, not too impressive.

The engine.. yeah, it feels okay, but to me something about it feels clunky. The whole real-angles thing, the whole more accurate stuff and pixel-perfect makes it feel very, and I hate to say it, Sonic Worlds. Horrible to say, and I mean no offense to those who use Sonic Worlds, but this isn't and shouldn't be the feel of the real 360° physics engine. If I'm wrong about this, then I apologise, but it still feels that way to me.

So yeah, the overall impression of the thing is.. just nice. :s Sorry.


Now, on to the more fun aspects of this discussion~

Loading-wise, the 64-bit EXE doesn't want to work on here full stop. It just refuses to do anything but sit there and eat up CPU resources and RAM. The 32-bit one, like most other people, seems to get to varying places before hanging on the black screen of nothingness. As I said at the beginning, it took around 10-15 tries to get it to work past the title screen.

The whole obfuscating shit, the false-positives about the virus, etc.. why? What was the point in this? This also brings up the lawl DRM and the no reverse-engineering issue.. I get the whole point of wanting to protect your work, hell I'm on a similar rampage about Megamix a lot of the time, but surely there were better methods than this, especially a screen about a license that doesn't (and can't) exist!

A mixed bag, guys. It's nice, and I can appreciate all the effort you've put into it separately, but altogether that's it to me.

EDIT: That said, I wish you all the best of luck if you go on with original projects. With things completely under your own control and design, I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

[Falk]

Considering there were 3 (5 really) games based on physics where the smallest y-axis granularity was a giant pixel and hence movement across small bumps in an otherwise horizontal plane is extremely 'rugged' (for lack of better word), the only way to emulate that feel would be to similarly use giant pixels for physics calculation purposes to preserve the ruggedness.

It definitely doesn't feel like the originals, but I fail to see the Sonic Worlds comparison.

[redhotsonic]

I still can't get the game to load on 64-bit. Pressing any jump button or enter makes the screen flash black but stays green after. I can't try 32-bit as it gets deleted automatically by my virus protector.

[Rolken]

Cerulean Nights, on 28 March 2012 - 11:45 AM, said:

I'm very glad to hear that you can see how much work we've put into this, we are both very proud of what we accomplished and really taught ourselves a lot. So much so that we teamed up in the real world and created our own game development company. If you see a game coming out soon that shows our staple art style, you'll know it's us!

This is interesting. Good luck; game development is a ruthless market.

[Cerulean Nights]

Rolken, on 28 March 2012 - 12:00 PM, said:

This is interesting. Good luck; game development is a ruthless market.

It is, and we're extremely fortunate that things have gone well for us so far.