Am the only person here who likes the background as is and doesn't understand why people are griping about it? .. Must be :P Anyways, my two cents: The name of this zone, keeping with the color theme, should be "Chartreuse Shoreline". God, why do I love funny color names?
So much for my creative name :P Ok, how about Shimmer Beach Zone? (my second choice is Crystalline Coast Zone, but I learned in another forum that keeping a theme of levels eventually gets old :P)
I'm going to agree with the others who feel we may need a change from the Tropical Zone - if this is still using the Sonic 4 concept. I like the art, its good and may be able to use somewhere else. If we look at the first levels in the games and expand the motif from there, we can look at some potential first levels. How about a Sunny Bright Meadow? May sound duller but if there is good art pooled it can be interesting. Or perhaps moving from the green motif and concerting on the secondary water element the first few levels had, then things like the first level being based on a hightech dock with the sun glittering beautifully. Think Oil Ocean, but not as harsh, with Emerald Hill or Angel Island's layout. Nice, gentle to break the player in but keeping speedy sections as well. The boss can be fought on a Beachhead and take the road to the Circus Zone.
because circle tool sucks. My alternative isn't perfect but it's an improvement. Personally I think you'd be better off animating it in some way, like Oil Ocean's. and as far as your hexagonal ground goes maybe do what I've just done and have one or two a lighter (or darker) shade? Oh and while I'm here, a while back this little project inspired me to make a few mockups of my own: I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.
For now, the first level will remain a tropical zone. As for the graphics in the level if you notice, they all were not directly taken from Rika's hack. There have been many changes made to them and there are still changes being made. Also, there are already some chosen names for the zone but if we find some new good ones, they will be added to the list when the deciding poll is created.
For now - would that be implying some consideration later? :P Although, if this was decided at the Sonic 4 forum before it moved to Retro, it may be worth over some ground again. You have a larger audience so you could get really neat ideas. While I'm not imply everything should be thrown out (There is a lot of cool stuff at the moment) It won't hurt to over established ideas .
(I just want to add that I made the two backgrounds on a 8x8 grid, so it can scroll correctly by 8 pixels lines)
<!--quoteo(post=243508:date=Nov 10 2008, 10:56 AM:name=Black Squirrel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Squirrel @ Nov 10 2008, 10:56 AM) I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.[/quote] These are fantastic! Seriously, can we use this instead? I absolutely love that pattern—it makes the ground look infinitely more detailed than the previous foreground.
Tileset's here. But as I said you're probably better off finding better grass/foreground objects since mine aren't too great.
No, it's not. If you're going to provide some sort of counter-argument or point against an opinion anyone has, be constructive about it or don't bother posting. There's a reason you were banned from the last Sonic 4 forum.
Although I'm coming in a bit late here, I thought it'd be pretty cool for a starting stage to take place in an autumnal forest. Preferably an overcast one, too. It'd be more brown and orange than brown and green, but, eh, I'd still think it'd look pretty good. Maybe a later level...?
Really? The overused checkard pattern? I really don't like that idea, plus it looks similar to the first level of Sonic advance.. Yes, the level needs more detail, but I don't like the idea of shading the individual hexagons. All the first levels, save AIZ, used a fairly low detail simple pattern.
It's no more "overused" than the pattern you came up with, quite bluntly. Maybe the shapes could be changed around a bit, admittedly, but it already looks much more detailed than what you came up with. If you think you can improve on yours, so be it, but so far this is looking like it could capture the feeling of a first level much better...
<!--quoteo(post=243508:date=Nov 10 2008, 07:56 AM:name=Black Squirrel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Squirrel @ Nov 10 2008, 07:56 AM) because circle tool sucks. My alternative isn't perfect but it's an improvement. Personally I think you'd be better off animating it in some way, like Oil Ocean's. and as far as your hexagonal ground goes maybe do what I've just done and have one or two a lighter (or darker) shade? Oh and while I'm here, a while back this little project inspired me to make a few mockups of my own: I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.[/quote] HELL TO THE YES. I've been pushing to see more detailed sprites in S4, but everyone seemed to be under the impression that Sonic CD-esque = better.
Yeah, because levels like Mushroom Hill Zone are SO Sonic CD-esque, right? At this point, I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't be part of this project. I think I have a different vision of this game than what's it's being turned into...
You musn't think about backing out. These are simply ideas being brought out for consideration.. no final decisions have been made yet. Besides, I'm leaning more towards your design at the moment as they are more original-looking for a Sonic game.
First of all that isn't hexagonal, it's octogonal. Though maybe a hexagonal pattern would actually work... I don't recall having seen this kind of level with that pattern.