Sonic Mania Plus (Consoles Physical; PC Digital) - Non-Leaks Thread

For chrono, a simple thing like a ghost would be cool, just like in race games when you compare to yourself, or even others to see how they achieved those times. Don't know if that's possible though

 

Ooh, that's actually a really interesting idea! Presumably you'd have to select someone from the leaderboard to download the ghost for their best time?

 

Just a heads up: A DLC for Sonic Mania has been added to Steam two days ago. I went to check after Stealth stated on Twitter that he is back with his propietary engine work, HCGE.

The DLC still has all its details hidden. This is a bit surprising considering that Plus was uploaded as a separate branch...

 

I'm assuming a branch is like it's own game right? Since Plus will function as both DLC and it's own thing doesn't this make sense then? I'm assuming they'll still allow for people to just buy the vanilla version. Or maybe this DLC just contains bug fixes that would otherwise only come with Plus?

 

Thanks for the heads up. If Stealth is back to doing his own thing then Christ the Mania team must have produced Plus at light speed. We're looking at roughly ~5 months of dev time? Perhaps the game's coming sooner than we think. Maybe June? Late August was just an Amazon place holder after all - and they're almost always inaccurate.

 

Maybe Stealth wasn't working on Plus though. It's possible they could have just got Taxman back. They had some other team in place of PagodaWest Games too right? If it was this close to being done though wouldn't we have a solid release date by now though?

 

From Stealth's site update:

"First in this long-overdue update, in case you've been hiding under a rock, Sonic Mania was finally released on August 15, 2017! Headcannon takes great pride in having co-developed this game, and we hope that you've enjoyed playing it! If you still haven't seen it, click the link for more information. Also, don't forget to look forward to the enhanced Sonic Mania Plus!"

I think this strongly implies Stealth is involved in Mania Plus. Stealth was with Team Mania when they visited GDC last month. This and the fact that Mania Plus is getting tweaks to the boss-fights (Stealth having programmed most of them in the original version) leaves no doubt that Stealth is involved in Mania Plus.

I recall that Taxman was supposed to have a meeting with SEGA around September/October last year? This I imagine is when Mania Plus was green-lite. So that could mean at least six months of development, right?

As for that other team helping out, could that be more to do with the expansion of competition mode from 2 players to 4 players?

 

He could have also gotten fired or decided to break up with the team over internal drama. Or the rest of the game is being worked on by the team that they outsourced to. Maybe they can steal artwork from Sonic Battle again, but this time with Sega's permission.

Edit: This was a mostly serious post. Sega probably wasn't happy with his outburst over the DRM situation even though everyone probably agrees with him on that.

 

Do we actually have any real basis to make such an assumption as to what the situation is concerning Stealth and Mania?

Besides, I'm pretty sure there was a recent photo from one of the Mania devs that showed Stealth with the team after the Mania Plus announcement. Could be wrong though.

 

There is a very simple matter that confirms Stealth's active participation in Mania Plus: It's in the "Games" dropdown on his website as an upcoming project. It would be misleading to potential future employers to effectively claim double credit for the same work twice; therefore by Occam's razor he be working on it.

 

Yeah place me firmly in the camp that thinks Stealth worked on Sonic Mania Plus and there was no fallout for his previous actions that would have resulted in his removal from the project i.e. him and Sega are more than likely still on amicable terms and he's still part of Team Mania. My best guess is that he's doing his own thing now because quite simply the game's done.

Also on a somewhat related note, anyone have a link to his comments on the DRM situation? Honestly had no idea he was vehemently against it and seems to have spoken so.

 

The comments you're asking about were deleted. They were posted on Steam.

My previous comment wasn't suggesting that he was never involved, just that he potentially ended his involvement early. The game could be done as you theorize, but the lack of activity from other team members yet and the fact that Sega hasn't shown a single screenshot yet is interesting.

 

Ah okay - yeah I catch your drift now. I really respect Stealth and hold him in high regard so I do hope everything is cool with him and Sega. There is something mysterious about this so hopefully here at Retro we can solve what's going on. I'm quite confident the game might be done but yeah they would have shown off the game by now via a trailer or screens if the game was close on the horizon.

 

What if not the game, but just his share of the job is done, at least for now? He could have some spare time for his own projects while the team does some other things. I know this may sound weird since he's been part of the core team, but, if all that remains is something he's not in charg of, he could still leading the project while using his programming skills for his own purposes. Just saying.

 

Stealth still talks to the other Mania Team members on Twitter and he's taken a picture of himself with the group (albeit he's the one taking the picture). That wouldn't make sense if he was in serious trouble.

 

A lot of Mania contributors (Brad, Hunter, Midio) have posted that they're looking for work, so I think it's simply safe to say Mania Plus is wrapping up.

 

Yeah, that's true. They've said on twitter they're looking for work.

I'd imagine Mania Plus wouldn't have taken as long as the original did to develop (about a year or so). Perhaps MP has been in development for about half that time (about six months).

Hopefully we won't have to wait too long until MP releases.

 

If mania plus is nearly done, then i wonder why hasn't Sega mentioned a release date? (or at least a smaller release window)

 

QA testing, marketing.

 

Why doesn't Sega hire the Mania team to bring the remastered games to new platforms, especially as 2D games seem to be a big seller on Switch. They could bring CD, 1 & 2 over with extended 2P options and Knuckles in CD. Or they could have the remaster other Sonic games.

Sega is getting M2 to bring Sonic to Switch. M2 do great work, but it seems a waste of their efforts, when the Mania team could do so much more with Retro engine.