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Important Project Structure Discussion

Discussion in 'Project: Sonic Retro (Archive)' started by Stealth, Nov 21, 2008.

  1. Overlord

    Overlord

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    A couple of retro gaming books, falsely or otherwise, list Crackers as "Sonic 4", so that might be the source.
     
  2. Although these side-discussions have produced some interesting and useful posts, only a handful of people have addressed the point that Stealth made in his original post:
    Based on the listed items and the posts in this topic, I'd say that the following order is what I'd strive for:
    1.) Faithfulness in Spirit
    2.) Something New
    3.) Development Time
    4.) Accessibility
    5.) Faithfulness in Technical Design

    And here's a bit of the why:
    The Faithfulness in Spirit seems blindingly obvious as a first choice to me; above all else we want the end product to feel like a Sonic game, don't we?

    The Something New bit I had not considered very much before reading this topic, but the posts by Jayextee and STHX got me thinking and I agree with them wholeheartedly.
    Limiting ourselves to the mindset of WWSD (What Would Sega Do?) will only hamper creativity and hurt us in the end.

    Development Time is a tough one to place; a part of me is saying "oh boy this is exciting let's get this awesome game done so we can all play and enjoy it!" but at the same time I know that rushing does not produce quality work. In any case, we really need to get someone on the issue of determining how to manage contributors; as-is it comes off as a giant clusterfuck. If we can get someone to step in and organize things we will be able to get more quality work finished faster.

    Accessibility is another tough one to place; I was under the impression that this was to be a (Windows) PC game with ports to other OSes likely following. This is an issue that has not been discussed very much, however, and I really feel like my assessment is more of an assumption than anything based on solid decisions. We really need to discuss this one amongst ourselves and decide what to do here, but not before we tackle the things I've previously listed.

    Faithfulness in Technical Design is rather low on my list for the same reason that the Something New bit is high: If we are not developing for the Genesis, why make the game with its limits in mind? Don't get me wrong here; I'm not suggesting we create something on the level of F.E.A.R. or Crysis, either. We should be shooting for something along the middle; a game that will run on the majority of users' PCs.
    ...although that is again going with the assumption that this project is to be PC-based.


    And we move on to the next part of Stealth's original post:
    I don't mean this as ANY sort of insult to E02 as from what I've seen at SAGE it looks like it is a very nice tool for creating games, but I'd really like to get a Custom Engine if at all possible.
    The advantages of using an engine tailor-made for this project are that we could easily request features within reasonable limits [If we changed our mind hundreds of times over things then any sane programmer would up and quit] and it could possibly be completely portable.
    The disadvantage is that nobody has stepped forward to create an engine for us, and rightfully so! Creating a game engine from scratch isn't exactly something that your average person does in their spare time! It takes lots of planning, time, and energy.
    After all, look at how long it took the Sonic 2 HD project to find a programmer!

    E02 of course would be my second choice; it doesn't have the advantages of creating our own engine from scratch, but it does have the advantage of being available to us right now.
    An aspect of this that I haven't seen covered is that we would still need our own scripting team to actually create the game itself, but this should in theory be much less work than creating an entire engine from scratch; I only briefly played around with E02 at SAGE, and even then all I did was read up on as many of the files as made sense to me at the time.

    Genesis would be my last choice; I see no benefits to this option other than previous Sonic games being on it, and even that one is questionable as a benefit.
    Indeed, while the community does have some information on programming for the Genesis' processors, there is much more information available on programming in higher-level programming languages for PC.




    What does everyone else think about these topics?
     
  3. Rokkan

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    I don't think we should limit graphics, programming and sound limitation to Genesis's capabilities. C'mon, we're doing a game for the PC, limitations will only cause more trouble among the development. However, about graphics, they don't need to follow a color or a pallette limitation, all that the pixel-artists need to have in mind is good sense. A sprite of a pallette of 40 different colors? Hell no.
    Also, yeah, we should try making improvements and new stuff to this game. Not wanting to have the "What Would SEGA Do" thought but, they always innovate in new games of the hedgehog, even spinoffs like Knuckles' Chaotix had major improvements based on its predecessors.
     
  4. Mobiethian

    Mobiethian

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    Fellow members and contributors: At this time, I will be stepping down from my position as Project Leader. A new opportunity became available to me and I can't turn it down for it is something that I wanted for a long time. I will still offer my services as a contributor here. This means my leadership position is up for grabs. Anyone interested? Chimpo?.. Rave?... Stealth?
     
  5. Rokkan

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    I feel flattered that I was actually mentioned, and I feel like I've got the retroness feel, but after the whole shit that happened in the Sprites (whoops, Concept/Ideas rite?) topic I don't think that people would actually like me as a leader.

    EDIT: OK, I was mentioned again by thefifthelephant fucking put me in
     
  6. Ollie

    Ollie

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    Actually, I disagree, adding limitations to sprites created since it will set a style on how everything will look, this way, everything should all fit in the same style.
     
  7. Rokkan

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    Answering a post 1 month and a half older.
    Really clever.
    Chimpo already stated a limit, as far as I read, so there's no point arguing here.
     
  8. Ritz

    Ritz

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    There's a time limit on when we can respond to a post on Important Project Structure?
     
  9. Ollie

    Ollie

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    Shit, I never noticed the time of it, I swear it was a recent post, my bad, I was looking through each topic at college, so I was only flicking through, no need to be an ass about it. =P
     
  10. Rokkan

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    To that post there is, if you read what was below those two lines.
    But I love when people doesn't pay attention to the meaning of the whole message and just pick what's convenient for them to reply.
     
  11. Ollie

    Ollie

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    :words:
     
  12. Rokkan

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    Fuck, I laughed.
    And yes, sorry for being an ass to [acronym="Ollie only, I still hate you all <3"]you[/acronym].