Sonic 2D Blast?

No. If you read my previous post- I'm only using this CONCEPT art to give an IDEA of how the 3D bosses could work on a 2D plain, both in attack pattern and look. Anybody can pick them up and incorporate new art elements into them. I've only just started contributing to this thread. Go back and you can see Synchroniser and Titan's excellent art/drawings for the zones and there are also some other admittedly decent badnik/gimmick sprites contributed by other people.

However, saying that when it comes down to the bosses I am actually being a tad serious. I'm no hacker but from beta edition hacks I've played it seems easier for programmers to incorporate previous Sonic game elements before going on to create their own. So, if this is ever going to get off the ground for now some people may just have to except the first edition isn't going to be amazing.


Never-the-less, if you wish I could ask Titan to send me his level designs and then incorporate the concept bosses I've designed into them.

 

And now, moving on. Here is a concept idea for the Spring Stadium Boss.





Level Design Idea-





Okay, now at first glass this boss may look easy thanks to the springs and upper platforms in the level that I've designed but if anybody remembers in the actual Spring Stadium battle Robotnik doesn't have a base pattern. All he does really is home in on Sonic until there is a hit- at which point he temporarily retreats to the skies. Baring this in mind, if its possible to somehow program the boss so that he doesn't "go through" the wall- then I recommend once again using this "homing in" idea to attack Sonic. And again- if its not too difficult maybe the boss could be sped up after every hit.


The level design, using Spring Yard as a base I tried to get as similar a feel as I possibly could. However, if your going for Sonic 2 then maybe for this round Casino Night might be better.

Finally, I also noticed that during the actual fight Sonic is prone to stepping on spikes which suddenly "shoot up" at him. If somebody can program spikes to only jump up again this would be brilliant. However, if again we are just aiming low to get something off the ground then instead perhaps it might be best just to feature the traditional up/down spikes which move on their own accord.

Let me know what you guys think for this one.

 

I did read it, I was just making sure the rom I have with the art IN GAME wasnt wasted.

 

Whoa. My apologises, I spent time browsing through the whole thread earlier but I really must have missed this.

But yes- this is just concept art. Don't take it that I'm trying to forcefeed them down into the final piece. I'm just trying to re-create that same boss feel on the 2d platofrm using old Sonic-goodness and trying to work out the best ways the boss battle could work.

Where is your in game art by the way? I really would love to see this.

 

I would like to see this rom too. Would you post it?

I've been thinking about which of the trilogy to base this hack on. Sonic 1 seems to be slower than Sonic 2 which would give it a disadvantage, and I heard that Sonic 3 and Knuckles is a bit more difficult to hack. Perhaps Sonic 2 then.

 

Sollution: See soniNeko. It removed the speed-cap and raised the speed limit in Sonic 1 (Nineko over did it though ). You would also have the room for all the levels; S3D used 6 levels and 16 acts; S1 also had 6 levels and 16 acts. Final Zone would need to have it's art et cetera redirected and dick about with the ASM. A Sonic 2 version wouldn't hurt though.

 

Currently looking at the games and still a little stumped on which one, I'm going to fiddle about with sonic 1 and 2 in the meantime

Though code/levels from Sonic 1 and 2 can be combined I think? Specially if we use Sonic 2 as a base.

Speaking of I was wondering, Ristar is based on the Sonic 1 Engine as I recall right? Wonder if theres any way to use objects from Ristar in Sonic. As that could provide a way to make the warp ring end of level thing?

 

It's not really based on Sonic, persay—it just shares the same sound engine (SMPS) and some of the same stock compression formats, such as Nemesis compression. To my knowledge, no direct connection has been made between the engine structure in Ristar and the Sonic engine.

Interestingly, Ristar does use the same format for level mappings as the Sonic games—level porting is relatively trivial between the two games.

 

Sonic 2 would be best IMO, 128x128 chunks make things alot easier in terms of level design.

Of course you could always port 128x128 to Sonic 1.......

 

Em, regarding the title screen heres a little present:

 

Looking Good!


So everybody is pretty much in agreement for using Sonic 2 as a base then? Shall we just clarify that here and now so it saves everybody time?


Also, with regards to these boss concepts, are they actually proving useful? If not no biggy. Just let me know and I'll just move onto something else.

 

I think Sonic 2 should be the base then. Level design is easier as mentioned before, Sonic's speed and acceleration are pretty much perfect, and the spindash is already there. (Even though it can be ported to Sonic 1). I think it's the best choice.

 

Here's a crack I've had at Gene Gadget. I hope this gives you some perspective of what the fight could be like. For this one I think it is fairly self-explanatory. At first I figured it would be slightly too easy on a 2d platform but if you try to use the image and play it out in your mind...

...I think it would be just as challenging because of the footwork.




Close-Up Image of Robotnik




Also, with regards to the flickies ordeal. How about instead of having them fly around Sonic, you simply have to free them from a target number of badniks scattered around the act and once the number has been freed a special stage ring appears somewhere within the zone (not neccessarily at the end) so you can progress to the next stage?

 

All your boss concept screens are looking excellent!
Wonder how will you do for the last bosses...

 

..WOW. I'm loving what I see here now!!

Boss concept art, title screen art...

I'm glad this project didn't hit the trash yet!!

 

Actually I think the Gene Gadget boss in 2D would be a lot harder than the 3D one, because of the simple fact you can't dodge by running into another direction but that you have to jump, and have good timing at that.

 

I've started designing Green Grove Act 1. Using Synchoniser's map as inspiration and seeing how that goes. Not doing any art editing yet, though tempted to play around with the sonic spriteset a bit.

Thought about the Flicky issue as well. I do wonder how hard it would be to implement a Flicky counter. Though worst comes to worst we can always modify the animals to be flickies and leave it at that?

 

Yeah, best to aim low for now. Like I said, its better to have a half-decent hack over no hack at all.

I'm sure there must be some way to implement the flicky counter. Although I agree for now its best just to have different coloured birds pop out of the badniks perhaps?

One thing though- if your designing the levels, I know this shouldn't be too much of a problem in Sonic 2 but never-the-less its perhaps best not to cut Sonic off at any point so that he cannot go back. If there is ever going to be any hope of the flicky counter being introduced he needs that room to explore.


How difficult would it be to incorporate the Special Ring as the "Act ending" by the way? Does anybody know how to do it?


(by the way- to keep it simple how about instead of having to pay knuckles, for now we just us regular starposts and just insert fixed animations of Tails and Knuckles alongside of them?)

 

That would be a good way to easily make the special stage entrances. As for the Flickies, I would think it would be best that they are optional to rescue for now, as in change the animal sprites into Flickies sprites. (In the end, maybe if you decide to rescue them all you get an extra ending screen, as simple as one that says "You're too Cool" like in Sonic CD.)

 

Making the Special Ring act as a signpost would be easy. Just replace having it send you to a special stage with the same routines as the signpost.