General Project Thread & Feedback

By making it in-built rather than a separate program I had hoped it would end up user-friendly, but I suspect you'll find it much easier when there's an actual interface on-screen to tell you what's going on.

As we're going a bit off-topic, best move this discussion back into the Special Stage thread.

 

Oh, but this is the idea thread, isn't it? Anyway, here's a mock-up. Not much else talking around here :p


I hope you get the general idea. Everything is selected in grid, feeling like the good old Genesis, but with modern graphics. There's 4 tools, and with the zoom tool, you can get to a specific part of the stage and the Set Pieces change from the tubes to the rings and bombs which you place as you would on the demo you provided. There you can zoom out again.


... on the other hand, we could also just add a small menu at the view you get as you're playing it, saving a lot of time, something which I just realised I wasted on making this. Oh well. Live and learn I guess.

 

Don't forget a picture of the Chaos Emerald itself on there - unless you haven't decided a suitable picture of it yet?

 

To those of you questioning the programming: no one on the staff is treating LOst like the messiah of code. He's built a fantastic engine to work with, and as none of the rest of us have a programming background, we ask him for clarification on the progress he's made to understand what's going on just like anyone else. That said, LOst built the engine from the ground up and it belongs to him. It's his to do with as he sees fit. He wants to keep it closed, so that's his prerogative. I'd hoped that showing the resources he's been using so far would inspire people to help out, not retread the same issues as before. Yelling at him over it doesn't help the project, and it certainly won't do anything to persuade him to your views.

 

For the special stage editor, I think it would be better to have it in a style similar to the Rollver Coaster Tycoon track builder. A 2D blue print just wouldn't do.

 

Wait, Sims-style? Not only does it probably take more time to code, it also loses the feeling of controlling a Genesis, e.g. arrow keys and 1 button. No mouse involved.

Anyway, all of the stuff discussed here is purely hypothetical. We should be glad if we can get an infinite special stage in there. Which reminds me: How will you be able to die in that mode? A constant depletion of rings until counter reaches zero? Or touch a bomb and you fail?

 

Well if you have the "collect x rings" checkpoint system in place, you just have to keep collecting rings, and if you don't have enough rings for a checkpoint, you fail, or you go down a different path, or something.

 

What would be the purpose of an infinite special stage be?

 

To be another feature added to S2HD to give it yet more replay value.

 

Sorry, I meant what is the idea behind it, how would it work? Do you mean auto-generated stages, or user-made stages that go on for as long as possible, or?

 

Probably auto. Now if it could change colors occasionally, that would be even cooler!

 

It would probably have different sections (e.g. rings of bombs, double helix of rings, dodging bombs, etc) that would be stitched together. Something like that, maybe.

 

'Sonic 2 Colors HD' so it is then :v:

Seriously though, the fading to transparency is sounding like a sound idea to me.

Either that, or perhaps we could just blur the track in the distance, and will gradually get sharper as it gets nearer?

 

Depth-of-field FTW! Of course, to make it look right it will still need the fade out effect. And also, what I was talking about is when the difficulty ramps up in the infinite SS, the color changes.

 

Infinity SS.... that's just given me a great idea! What about if you want to have a "Super" hard mode, you could speed things up a little and play as Super Sonic in the Special Stages (just NOT his theme tune, that would drive anyone up the wall after long enough!)

 

Depth-of-field is not a good choice, because with that applied as a whole the sky won't appear in focus, which is a waste of a good background, and if you just did DOF on the tube while the sky was crisp and sharp, it would look well out-of-place, and still not mask oncoming pieces. (This is going a bit off topic again. )

 

Actually, the Special Stage tune would do that as well. Let's settle on a couple of remixes (or re-imagines) to freshen it up every other 3/5 minutes.
The Super Sonic does sound pretty neat and shouldn't be THAT hard to make.

Also, Synergy, an infinite automated loop with various alternating patterns.

 

I'm glad to see the Special Stage is generating this much discussion. But from here on out, please post up your thoughts about it in the thread already dedicated to it.

 

Just letting you people know on before-hand, my Wacom won't work. I hope I'm able to fix it tomorrow, but until then, I can't work on pieces.
This could've not come at a worse time, now could it? : (