[Ell678]

Hi all, I'd like to present the fangame I have been working on over the last few months, called Sonic the Hedgehog: Incursion. It is a full 2D Sonic game made in UDK, made possible by the SGDK codebase by Xaklse. I started work on this in July last year. So far, the first zone is fully playable, as is the second, and progress is being made on the third and fourth. In addition to having two acts per zone, ala Sonic 2 /3, each level has a third act that has a gimmick, or has slightly different goals. For example, the first zone has a chase on a surfboard, requiring the player to jump over obstacles and enemies, reminiscent of Sky Chase Zone. The second zone has a small exploration puzzle, and so on. There is a story, of course, I am just not ready to talk about it yet. It will be kept to a minimum in game though.

The main purpose behind this reveal is to get help. I had intended to get more work done before I revealed the project here, but I keep hitting snags. If you can help in these areas -

Modelling / animation
UI / Menus
Programming

Or in any other field then please let me know, I'l take all the help I can get!


Videos

https://www.youtube....h?v=8yJyi-cM3TY

https://www.youtube....h?v=1NTNNtpHIrQ

Here is a download link for the demo.

Credits
Sonic Team / Sega for all things Sonic
Epic Games for UDK
Xaklse for SGDK
Red 6095 for the Ristar "Planet Flora" remix
My New Soundtrack for the Sonic 3 Boss remix

This post has been edited by Ell678: 04 May 2015 - 05:19 AM

[Dark Sonic]

Something looks... off. I can't quite put my finger on it but it just seems a bit rigid in the foreground and it has a lot of detail in the background. That or maybe the camera seems too low. I can't tell. Great start either way though.

lol California Girls.

EDIT: I know what it is. With only the ground and no foreground below it it looks kind of funny. It'd be like if Green Hill Zone you only saw the grass and not the checkered pattern below it.

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 20 April 2014 - 09:53 AM

[winterhell]

This is unplayable. Many gameplay bugs. Air control is very hard.

Do you expect people to play with WASD AND left control or the mouse left? Its good that at least there is gamepad support.
As for the camera, you might want to tilt it slightly downwards and move it a bit up. Currently it looks like its facing straight ahead on the Z axis.

[Ell678]

I've never had any issues with air control - but I play with a 360 pad, which SGDK has native support for. I hardly think it's unplayable.

[Falk]

I think I can pin it down to two things:

1) As mentioned, the ground extends a little too far towards the camera. Most 2.5D games (not just Sonic) manufacture reasons to 'cut away' the foreground to distance things from the camera.

2) Camera follows Sonic too rigidly. He shouldn't be stuck dead center of the screen. The screen should 'catch up' organically to Sonic's movement, and then when Sonic goes past a certain velocity threshold, it should 'look ahead' to give more of a view of upcoming obstacles, etc.

This post has been edited by Falk: 20 April 2014 - 05:06 PM

[Dashtube]

Just uploaded a playthrough of the entire demo. My main gripe is that Sonic's air control could use some work and maybe bringing some features back like the stomp which I think would have been useful in alot of situations. Aside from that though, this is shaping up to be a really great fangame, and it this pace it might just become the first full 2.D Sonic fangame.

This post has been edited by Dashtube: 20 April 2014 - 10:40 PM

[Ell678]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, it's given me things to think about.

[Xaklse]

My list />

• Enemies that hover on ground are too fast.
  
• Boss should need less hits to beat or change the behaviour after some.
  
• The rolling animation doesn't look good, did you try to check the "Disable Scripted Roll" option?
  
• Something is wrong with air control, did you change it?
  
• Camera should show more stuff, make sure that it's affected by Sonic velocity.
  
• Ziplines should be faster.
  
• Fireworks for daytime?
  
• Thin platforms need another model.
  
• Sea is blinding.

[Ell678]

I'm not quite sure what has happened with the air control, considering I hadn't changed it from the defaults. I think it does actually feel different to other levels in the game but I can't put my finger on it. I'l look into it further.

As for the camera, I had deliberatly made it tight to emulate the Megadrive games but it doesn't seem very popular. I have since replaced it with a camera that is slightly affected by Sonic's movement. In faster areas, this does help greatly as you can see a little further. Thanks for the feedback!

Edit: What do you guys think about the actual level layout? Bear in mind it is only the first level.

This post has been edited by Ell678: 03 May 2014 - 12:01 PM

[Falk]

Ell678, on 03 May 2014 - 11:57 AM, said:

As for the camera, I had deliberatly made it tight to emulate the Megadrive games but it doesn't seem very popular.

https://www.youtube....h?v=CqOlpQ7sepE

Sonic never was 100% in the center of the camera 100% of the time in Sonic 1 either.

[Ell678]

Here are a couple of shots of how the camera works now when you pick up speed.




Oh...and despite trying to be clever and original with the music, it doesn't seem to have worked, so I'l look into a replacement.

[TimmiT]

Wouldn't angling the camera like that make the platforming more imprecise?

[Ell678]

It's not like that all the time. When the player isn't moving, or isn't moving quickly it is just how it was in the demo. Sonic is moving very fast in the bottom picture, so that angle is as severe as it can possibly get. It doesn't hamper the platforming at all

[Aerosol]

I think I'd have to see it in motion to make a better judgement on that.

[Ell678]

Well, I played about with it some more. I have two options here, which one do you guys think is best? Obviously I'd rather get this right early on.

Option 1.

Option 2.