Sonic ATS - Released!

because, after all, PC game development is very standardized like consoles, and if a bug appears or doesn't appear on one computer it will be the same for every other computer, and hobbyists obviously have the money and resources for detailed bug testing.

sarcasm aside, it does appear you don't grasp how difficult it is to create a bug-free anything ever - even if you have good testing. he's just one guy, and for all you know, for him and his testers, whatever game-breaking issues you ran into never surfaced. If you don't want to put your money where your mouth is and hire LakeFeperd a quality assurance team, stop acting like you're entitled to have a bug-free day 1 experience on a fucking freeware fangame. (being bug-free is hard enough for AAA developers with huge budgets!) just report the bug and move on with your day.

 

I know the engine this game is running on is infamous for this, but is there ANY way to get this game running faster?

It's literally going at 3 frames per seconds on my laptop.

 

And that's an insult how? Building up a portfolio is a good thing. Aren't you the same guy who's gonna be conducting a real live orchestra soon? I rest my case.

 

A pretty good point. There are some MAC players out there, and I'm about to play it on Linux myself through WINE in a little while. Maybe this game could be packaged with Wine for MAC users, like what Strife had someone do for the latest Freedom Planet demo?

I agree with Hinchy. He just released the game today, and couldn't exactly hire an entire team of test players, I'd bet. For fan games, it's normal for little bugs like that to crop up, and they'll be fixed before you know it. It's not like he released physical copies of the game without hiring a debug team, like the guys porting Earthworm Jim 2 to the GBA did. (If that info's right? Read that years ago on a random website cataloging EWJ ports and their differences.) You're holding him to the standards of a professional game developer, something he obviously doesn't have the resources or time for.

This overly-negative type of dickery is exactly why I left a Sonic community before; couldn't have any fun without some bitter, obstinate jerk snarking at mere children, and stirring up stupid, pointless drama, like this right now. It's okay to have a less than stellar opinion of this game, but you've done everything short of posting a picture of the Golden Poo award, and that's not right.

 

Oh gosh, I don't know. Maybe it's because you made it sound like Falk doesn't give two shits about what his music is being used for and he just slapped some sounds together to make it.

No, I must be imaging things. You're right. There's nothing insulting about this sentence at all.

 

Ya the framerate, man my comp can run Generations perfectly and this thing likes to take it's sweet time. Not your fault but still kind of annoying. Anyways I'll point out a few of the bugs I experienced with this game if it might help:

Horizon Heights Zone
Special - I finish the level and it says GOT THROUGH ACT 2 rather than S

Sugar Splash Zone
- Those small springs don't bounce you as high as they should making some places inaccessible
- If Sonic dies on the sugar waterfall you can still jump up and down as a dead Sonic in the waterfall
Special - After I turned into Super Sonic post leaving a sugar waterfall, Super Sonic's sprites were overlapping Normal Sonic's sprites instead of removing them, so I can see normal Sonic right behind Super
- Why doesn't Tails get a sugar high?

Cyan City zone
Special - same as before, it said GOT THROUGH ACT 3 rather than S
- Super Sonic bounces off the spiked balls in the fan section like he got hurt when he should just go through them
- You can use the flame and spike shield powers while on the fans

Moon Mansion Zone Act 1 - When playing as Super Sonic I ran past the end of act sign and I died having to start from the beginning (didn't hit a checkpoint)

Redhot Ride Zone - those wall bumpers do not work as Super Sonic. I had to wait for Super to run out of rings to use them

General bugs
- The end of act sign area is just glitchy in every level. If you finish the level and the camera is above where the sign should be rather than below it, the camera will indefinitely scroll upwards. Sometimes the camera goes too far past where the end of act camera should go. You can almost always jump over the end of act sign which I feel like shouldn't happen
- Big rings still show up as Super Sonic
- which if you jump in said rings your glitter effect will still be floating above the ring
- Super Sonic's music speed up affects the end of act song
- Speed Shoes + Super Sonic = Even more sped up music
- Invincibility + Super Sonic = Invinicibility music never stopping
- Auto script boss runs act kind of strange once you finish (same with special stages). Sometimes you'll turn the other way and moonwalk basically, sometimes the screen will keep scrolling but you'll be standing still, or sometimes you'll just roll indefinitely
- Only some of the stages where you have a stationary boss at the end result in Sonic doing his end of act pose, the rest he just stands there and gets impatient
- if you get hit a certain way with a shield on you'll lose rings but not your shield
- On certain occasions you'll carry your shield over with you to a new act or special stage. Special stage 2 I started off with a bubble shield twice, and most levels I finished with Super Sonic and shield I ended up starting the next level with a shield
- Sonic's ducking animations with the Kirby powerup is rather strange. It loops the second to last and final sprites in that animation continuously.
- On the secrets menu if you scroll down past debug mode and haven't unlocked it yet you won't be able to scroll back up, you can scroll down to loop back to the top 2 options but pressing up below debug will push you back down to the last option
- An enemy hit me mid Super Sonic transformation and I lost all my rings
- In the special act level select, Moon Mansion is listed as "Castle Zone" - Working title much XD
- Speaking of the special act level select, are there supposed to be 2 rings for Foliage Furnace?

Nitpicks
- The level select should let you choose whatever act you want, particularly when it comes to special ring hunting
- I've said it about your last game and I'll say it again, I despise your end of act screen layout. I can't tell what's going on with the points since after 10 rings it just says 999 and in general it just looks sloppy.
- Super Sonic should be able to use shield powers
- You should be able to reset individual levels if selected from level select. Also an option to return to the level select or main menu rather that the game turn on screen would be nice
- Tails could use some swimming sprites

That's all I can think of for now, but if I find anymore I'll bring em here. I like this game a lot but it's a bit rough around the edges.

 

Here's my take on all of this:

I think it's very fair to compare this to a "professional" game. I mean, in the end either you enjoyed the experience or not.

On the music end, I understand why some people don't like the music because it doesn't sound like Sonic. To be honest, that was our goal. We did not want to create music that sounded like between Sonic 2 and 3. We wanted a fresh unique experience that had not been previously been implemented in a Sonic game. It's totally justified if you prefer a more "genesis" sound because we purposely avoided that. We as a team believe this was the best approach to make a product that felt nostalgic, yet fresh.

 

Selective reading, missing the point, straw manning, incorrect facts.

Please leave your case rested.

 

So let's make a general analysis of the game here.

What I loved:

• The music. Oh, boy. I really liked almost all the tracks in this game. Awesome job!
• The level tropes, they were interesting, even if sometimes a bit strange.
• The visuals, for the most part.

What I liked:

• Sonic and Tails's sprites.
• Some gimmicks here and there.
• The changes in each act of a level.

What I found bland/awkward:

• The badniks.
• Most bosses (and the very last one, specially!).
• Some levels that seemed a little too linear.
• Sonic feels way too heavy.

Overall, I quite liked it. A great job for a fangame, and it is amazing the amount of content that exists in it. Congratulations to all involved!

 

Relaying what I've reported to Falk, a few niggles arose on my end for whatever reason, both involving the Special Acts.

Playing through Horizon Heights' Special, there wasn't any music playing in the background - DJ Max-E's "Hot and Cold" tune didn't start with the only sounds being jumping, Spin Dashing, flying, ring collecting, etc... being heard.

The other issue is that, even though I've collected the Star Ring for it, I can't access Foliage Furnace Special Act 1 through the Special Levels menu. Keep hitting Enter and it still doesn't let me in... D;

 

Re: FFZ Special Act

Spoiler

in the meantime there's some sort of (unconfirmed by me at least) glitch that allows you to select locked levels by Enter -> reselect really quickly before the level loads? Could try that

 

So because of mucking about with the code to snag the audio, I've been listening to the soundtrack all day. Fantastic stuff so much. I think the only weak point for me is within the entirety of Moon Mansion, but I think that's more because I'm not a fan of "haunted" music most of the time.

Still, several of these tracks have made their way to my mp3 player already.

 

So I ran into this on MegaGWolf's older stream:

Spoiler

Uh... Okay. Well on one hand, I'm a little perturbed that you didn't say anything about this to me... Or did you? I can't remember, you might have mentioned it in IRC in the past. Not that I mind, of course, but I could get in trouble with Ziyo Ling if she found out (especially since this looks like her old design). One of our agreements for me using her character is that I insert copyright information wherever she appears.

On the other hand, this wasn't my project, so it's probably fine. It was a cute cameo, and I love the sprite work. She looks great in your style. xD

 

Thats one of the perks of using a general purpose game making software and not a direct language.
Here on my Pentium 4 even at the lowest resolution the CPU usage is 98-99%. Sonic steers like a tank probably because of this, and thus I cant play the game. Its even heavier than the MMF2 build of Freedom Planet, which @3.06GHz overclock and massive air conditioning is somewhat playable with the occational slowdowns 1-2 times a minute.

@Ross-Irving the game may be far from perfect, but how many Sonic fan games can you name that have more than one levelZone and are better than this? Literally a handful, amirite.

 

Is there a way to force After the Sequel to run in 256-color mode? It's the only way Freedom Planet, or at least older builds of it, will run under WINE without playing like a dying animal at 3FPS. So maybe that'd ease up your CPU usage, if the option's there in this case.

Darn it, my tendency to click spoiler tags, despite them existing for a reason, got the better of me. O:< Regardless, if I had found that easter egg on my own, I would have laughed until I fell out of my chair, then proceeded to howl even more and randomly catch on fire while rolling on the floor; that was a seriously unexpected surprise! Just how big of an evil grin did you have when you plotted that little secret, Lake?

The OST is on Falk's soundcloud too, (Dunno if there's a download button on there.) and I already gave it a listen while drawing. Felt a bit meh with the Moon Mansion tracks myself, but the rest were legit ear-gasms. Totally keeping them in my music library too.

_{EDIT : Got ninja'd; needed to add more text!}

 

If it is, I imagine it's not been posted for a reason. Best to respect that until they deem it suitable for release. I can work with these straight from game rips.

 

I can confirm the OST is coming soon. I'm not quite sure why it's not released yet, but there is a good reason I'm sure, and I think I have an inkling of what it is. But it's almost ready.