Design a 3D Sonic game!

SA2 sucks. It's linear bullshit; there are path splits, but few of substance. And the physics are a godawful downgrade from Adventure 1.

 

I'd do a Chao MMO. Where I suppose you could do your own furry avatar like in Gen8's Furry Dollmakers.

 

I'd probably make it play similarly to Sonic Unleashed daytime.

It'd take place in one giant hub world with seven hot spots. The hot spots would be regional areas with two levels (acts, per se), one boss, and one hidden special stage entrance. They would contain platforming puzzles of their own, similar to Arid Sands Act 3 if you've played the DLC of that game, as a means of accessing the levels/bonuses. The hub would be connected by tunnels that play similarly to the speed levels.

Levels would have a bunch of shortcuts, bonus routes, and diverging pathways, and each contain their own platform/puzzle gimmick or two. No medal hunting or any of that shit. From the hub world you could play different missions or SA2 style setups where you have to collect a certain number of rings, beat the clock, and one challenge unique to that level.

Getting all S-ranks would unlock a Hard Mode which strings all of the levels together rather than having hub exploration. Finding all of the Chaos Emeralds would unlock Super Sonic, but not in levels. Completing all the missions unlocks a retro level or two.

Story would be simple and contain little spoken dialog. Kind of like S3&K but a little bigger.

Oh, and Chao world or bust.

 

It's definitely linear, but SA2's physics feel pretty much like Genesis physics in 3D to me. You can't get up hills without spindashing, speed is attained by momentum, etc. SA1's were good, but SA2's felt more solid to me.

 

I always had kind of a simple idea... Sonic and Knuckles in the Hidden Palace, trying to stop Robotnik from stealing the emeralds. As Robotnik tried to pick up the Master Emerald, something happens and the emeralds burst into 5 or 6 pieces. Each emerald gets sent to a different dimension or something, I don't know, story didn't really matter. Anyway, the emeralds were set up like:
o---o
/ \
o o
| M |
o o
\__o___/
Except more circular. Robotnik gets sent through some portal or some shit, whatever, with the master emerald where the master emerald is and the power from the burst caves in the hidden palace.

Now, every time you stepped on a pad you'd get sent to the dimension they were sent to, each being a different world. Now, all the worlds would be very dark with a hint of better times, and every time you got an emerald piece the4y'd get a little better. So you'd have to get 5 pieces from each, with turning it all good, and then go to the next world. Kind of like a hub system - you could get to world 2 with only 1 or 2 emerald pieces, but you'd still have to get them all in the end. Now, you get them all, blablabla, and the gateway to where the master emerald is. An airborne level, you get 50 rings and go super sonic. It's mostly used as a training level for Super mode, and you finish the level and leave, unable to find the master emerald or Robotnik.

In a burst of light, Sonic comes out, where Knuckles is trying to break his way out, and bursts out as Super Sonic, breaking through the wall and going straight to the sky, where Robotnik is making his escape. You fly onto the ship, running out of rings, and play the final full level. After gaining 50 rings, you turn Super Sonic in space, blablabla insert Doomsday esque zone here.

Now, the game would kinda play like a faster SM64. It would use a targeting system a la OOT, so you could actually hit the enemies, and a computer controlled camera. It's be very faithgul to the old games but still somewhat ion the realm of 3d games.

 

I would ignore the art direction SA2 gave off and just base the artstyle off a fusion of the classics, SA1 and some of the 2005 "tech demo" of Sonic Nextgen (minus lanky Sonic). Classic geometric pop art fuses with rich HD detail and realism of Unleashed. Unleashed-styled Sonic recurrs with darker eyes that don't stand out so much, and a mixed use of both classic badniks and the Nextgen mechas, and Dr. Robotnik appears as his Unleashed-styled version without those unnessecary goggles (just a pet peeve of mine), and a more suave and menacing personality (like off Nextgen), and remains as the final boss and the leading villain.

Controls, like Vendettagainst said, will be much like a faster and more streamlined Mario 64 with somewhat simpler controls. Of course, part of the point in the game would be to keep momentum, so simple parkour maneuvers like walljumping, vaulting, and (to a lesser extent) instant-wallrunning would be implemented to aid movement. Ball physics are fully implemented when rolling, and Spindashing is done with "crouch + jump". There would be an OoT-styled lock on camera that gives you the ability to use a soft homing attack on enemies and objects without cheating out the gameplay all too much. And adding in the somersault/somerslide would be a little bonus for the more modern fans (who like that and all), and would help a little consistency with a supposed sequel to an Adventure title.

The control setup would be much like this (Xbox 360 controls):
Left stick - movement
A button, Y button - Jump , Air Slash
B button, X button - Somersault, somersault-slide
Right stick - Camera
Left and right bumpers - rotate camera
Left trigger - OoT-esque lockon
Right trigger - Crouch, Spin Attack

There would be 10 to 12 Zones, and they would be open and explorable, filled with both equal amounts of platforming, obstacles, level-specific gimmicks, and slopes and hills and loops and the works. The major point behind playing them is to make it to the Goal Ring at the end of the stage. Zones are sperated into Acts that are entered into with a Sonic World-like hubworld, which even includes the little markers that give you the lot of missions. After completing the list of missions in the record time, a Big Ring appears in a part of the hubworld, where Sonic will enter the Special Stage, which would be just like a newer interpretation of S3DBlast Saturn's stage.

The story would probably be mostly centered around Sonic and Eggman (and maybe Tails). Speaking of which, Tails and Knuckles would probably appear and be playable (and possibly be no different in gameplay other than flight abilities, ground attacks and level order). The story may consist of removing the whole "Heroes-Shadow" plothole schtick, and just moving on with another "holy crap Eggbotnik's done it again this time with an even BIGGER basestationwhateverthing" and Sonic goes to save the day, Tails tags along because he's Tails and Knuckles borkeded his Master Emerald.. again. Then near the end suddenly we see random crazy stuff happening after the Chaos Emeralds go beserk and WOOSH randomly ULTIMATESHOCK, Shadow is back from the dead because "insertbetterreasoningthanShTH" and he doesn't have amnesia and is actually cool like he was at the end of SA2, and they save the world all-together from Eggbotnik; and insert random final boss with Super Sonic and Eggman death machine. And Super Sonic in levels and maybe a Shadow skin for Sonic. Maybe.

 

Hmm... well, I guess if I wanted to keep my job, I'd have to make something to appeal to the kiddies, too. So, it'd be the new Sonic, although, use of his friends would be kept to a strict minimum, unless that the story could NOT continue without that happening. If Sonic's new friends MUST be playable, have them unlockable skins of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles that don't affect the plot, although they can have new voice clips.

The plot would be where Robotnik decides that the sealed monster route just isn't working, and turns the whole world into Eggmanland all by himself, twisting different places on Earth/Mobius/whatever into different parks of the 'park', conveniently making them into obstacle courses that only Sonic, Tails and Knuckles could get through. That'd be it. Same kind of mood as Unleashed, wouldn't take itself seriously, but make Sonic a little more cocky and a little more of a butthole. Like the OVA, but milder.

The gameplay itself would be a little like Unleashed, with much more platforming, more paths to take, and less bullshit parts. No boost pads, overuse of grind rails or springs, and no boost meter. Maybe this time, have Tails follow behind Sonic like he did in Sonic 2, making sure not to do anything that'd piss the player off. I guess he could be a secret character with a fly ability. Knuckles would have secret paths to himself, maybe with slower, more methodic platforming. Characters could be switched at the HUB quickly, and although some characters would have easier times with some parts than others, you'd never be forced to use one except for the obligatory Super Sonic fight.

The controls would work like this. You use the analog stick to move, the X/A button to jump, and the B/O buttons to spin dash/roll/stomp. Somebody else here had a really great idea, and I'll credit whoever thought of it if they remind me. But the idea was to make one of the triggers a speed button. Normally, your character would move at Adventure speed, but holding down the speed button would make him start to run at Unleashed speed. It'd be the only way to cross loops and such, with no dash pads to help you out. Of course, there'd be plenty to stop you from boosting all the way through the level, but nothing that'd kill you, like bottomless pits. Everything would be under your control, too, so no QTEs or waiting for Sonic to get done grinding on a rail with no obstacles.

Make sure there's exploration and stuff to collect to unlock skins/music/movies, although they shouldn't be needed to beat the game or unlock levels like the sun/moon medals. I'm not really sure how unlocking the special stage would work, maybe a key hidden in the level. The special stage itself would be sort of like the one from S3&K, only you're on a time limit instead of losing as soon as you touch a red sphere, there'd be enemies and gimmicks to avoid, and it'd be on a 3D sphere with smooth movement.

Whew. That's all. Of course, if I could, I'd get rid of all the modern elements, but I'm just putting those in because fans are money, classic or new.

 

Are 2.5D designs allowed to be mentioned in this topic? If not, I have a 3D design I can pitch, but I'd rather go with the simpler 2.5D style if I can.

 

I would believe so. What would be so wrong as to write about a 2.5D game?

 

Because it's a 3D design thread. Making it 2.5D kinda circumvents the point.

 

Well isn't that essentially just a 2D game with 3D graphics? I believe the point is to design a 3D game.

 

Well, you can do a lot of things in 2.5D that you can't necessarily do in 2D... but yeah, thats what I'm saying.

 

Aye, but no-one ever said 3D gameplay, did they?

..ok, maybe they did.

Still, DW, I'm rather intrigued by your 3D idea. It's now colored me curious as to what it's about.

 

Well, to get the concept started...

Camera Style - 3rd person, facing the side with an upward drag. Basically 45 degree isometric, but from the same basic angle as a 2D game. Up and down moves to and away from the forground. Left and right progresses in the camera panning direction.

I'm borrowing some ideas from a friend which he had for a 2D game... mainly a concept we revolving around spinning. Also, the camera concept is mainly to make the 2D mechanics of rolling down embankments more practical.

Since up and down are occupied, there is a crouch button for that function.

Whenever the player is spinning (jumping in spin animation, spindash revving, or just plain spinning, plus various gimmick oriented effects), an angular momentum meter is shown. How this meter is increased and what it does depends on the context. While jumping, it raises constantly depending on how fast you are moving to the left or the right and which way you are facing (though only one direction can be charged and if you switch direction, the charge has to be overcome). If you hold the crouch button while hitting the ground from a jump, your angular momentum is released and you speed up depending on how high you raised your angular momentum. Obviously from a spindash you'd just rev it up like normal. And then some gimmicks would rely on angular momentum. Think kind of in terms of the gimmicks from the 2D games that got faster depending on how you operated with them. You could maybe push in sync with something that spins to make your angular momentum increase and make the gimmick move faster. While spinning like on the ground, it would mostly just increase your radius of attack, add cool little effect like flinging dirt and crap, and perhaps be used with some gimmicks that you spin into.

The 3D elements wouldn't be stressed too heavily. You could drop off cliffs by moving 'below' them and there could be some path splitting that sends you to different areas in the extra plane, but it would mostly be used to avoid hazards.

Later on I might add some more specifics to this post.

 

So, like, you're knuckles, right? And you're on the floating island. Only it is all 3D and stuff!
Anyways, you're using the left analog stick to move, get it? And suddenly something's all up in your grill and you're like "yo, get outta my face" and then you press one of the face buttons (A/B/X/Y, Square/Triangle/Circle/Cross, A/B) and you jump and go "pow" and then they die.

And then you somehow get the super-awesome camera that almost never breaks to mess up somehow, so you have to re-center it behind you, so you press Left/Right bumper or L1/R1 or the 1/2 button and it swoops back behind you and everything's cool, right. But what if you wanted to point the camera someplace else, get an edge up on the haters. Well it's obvious you use the right analog stick to do that, duh (unless you use the wii in which case you suck and have to use the dpad).

And then you're all "bitch, imma spindash now" so then you hold L2/R2 or left/right trigger or Z/C and then hit those jumping face buttons and go "vroom vroom" and then you let go of the crouch button and go "fwoosh" off in whatever direction you were facing.

Oh, yeah, just holding the crouch button makes you crouch unless you were moving in which case you spin roll.

Anyways, you remember now what you are doing. Strange shit be going down homes and only knuckles can get to the bottom of it because he's cool like that. So you go around and you collect that sweet bling and kick the haters outta your turf.

In plain English:
You play as knuckles as he defends the floating island from [Eggman | Enemy of the Week]. You do this using the spindash and knuckles's glide/climb ability. Knuckles controls as follows:
Left analog stick moves.
Face buttons jump. Double jump = glide.
Triggers crouch. Crouch while moving = roll. Crouch+Jump = spindash
Other button centers camera behind Knuckles.
Right analog stick (dpad on wiimote+nunchuck) = camera control.

Knuckles has to explore all of the floating island as rendered in beautiful 3-D. Angel Island all the way to Hidden Palace, defeating enemies along the way. Story probably involves Eggman attempting to steal the master emerald for SCIENCE or something. Since Sonic isn't on the island at the moment, he isn't aware of this. It's up to Knuckles to save the day and thwart Eggman before he reaches the emerald or something. Or Knuckles has to get it back before Eggman gets away.

Optional: Actually add sonic to the game, but he isn't as cool as Knuckles so nevermind.

 

This.

To me Sonic is all about speed, and powering through levels at a high rate. It gives me a kick.

I also second this, the music should represent speed and go with the rate you plow through the level at. Songs such as Spring Stadium and Marble Zone are too slow, perhaps bump up the tempo, put a nice beat or something in the background?

I'd whack in a more upbeat version of Ice Cap Zone Act 1, and would like to create the level in 3D format to see how it would turn out. Scrap the horrible swings and put in more speed pads (Like the ones in Sonic 3D) just to add more speed.

I will stop rambling now

 

I liked a few levels out of Sonic 06 (Even though the engine wasn't that great) Crisis City has lots of room to explore...So did Kingdom Valley. The way that each character used the exact same layout but it felt like a different zone (for example shadow's kingdom valley and say, sonic's), I like that as well.

 

So, add some of the major flaws of the current 3D games?

 

Flaws for me meaning, falling off edges?

Please explain.

 

Sonic 2 had them.