Can you imagine if taxman was working on Retro Sonic on the side and just released the full game one day?
When he says he's done a lot of work, he's not kidding, by the way. Hopefully it's safe for me to say this but, gosh, like two years ago he sent me a build of Sonic XG to play test, asking if the game was up to snuff enough to release. The game was almost entirely complete (as I recall), but had a few rough edges. I pointed out a handful oversights, and made commentary on things I didn't jibe with. It wasn't too much later that he went silent on the game, so I feel partially responsible. He thanked me for my input, but I've always wondered how close he was to releasing the game and if my commentary added more work than he expected to things. I've been holding my breath for the release just to absolve the guilt I've been feeling. The point I'm trying to make here is that I'm sure whenever the game releases, no matter what state he thinks it is in, it'll be great.
Thanks for for your input and the insight. All of that is super interesting. Sounds like the game could potentially be close to release - providing Joe's health issues improve and he's able to resume work on the game. I hope he's able to finish it as it would be a shame to not release something that's almost done. Hoping for the best.
I've got a chance to play beta couple of years ago as well and I can assure you it's absolutely worth the wait.
Yeah, it's a shame Joe has been having health issues. Hope he ends up being alright, and can finish this game one day. In the meantime, I discovered these old demos of Sonic XG from 2002-2003 a while ago: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9TF8Zvvgj_XaWxFMG5lUWtCSUk Believe it or not, the project actually started as Sonic XG, then became Sonic Forever, then Sonic XG again. These demos were all publicly released on the official website, which I found with the Wayback Machine. Could link to the site as well, if I can find it again. Worth mentioning, I believe there is no footage on YouTube of these old demos, and I don't believe the wiki article here mentions them at all.
Google Drive says these files are infected with a virus and thus cannot be downloaded... You should check on that.
Huh, there shouldn't be a virus in them. Maybe I should try uploading them elsewhere? Edit: Windows Defender found no threats when I scanned them. Not sure if I should trust that, but also know I've had these files for a while with no issues. Also, here's an alternate link: https://mega.nz/#!xbI0QSYB!sojejRuY1uFqh2Lm0gTc3_uk6HeqMaUgP3w3mQ1WRpc
Despite the age of the project, it's still impressive just how good the game looks. It was the first fangame I saw that I thought actually looked like it could be a real Sonic 4.
Yeah you have to understand the time period those Sonic XG demos were released. Sonic XG was the first game with Sonic Team level graphics and the game even in its infancy was a generation ahead of anything anyone else was making. That's why I'm so ardent and hopeful about Joe finishing this, health issues of course taking absolute priority. It'll be an amazing fucking game and probably a contender for best Sonic fangame ever released. Hope to God it sees release one day.
Well yeah, but for the time they must have been somewhat impressive. My favorite would have to be Demo 2, with its Smash Mouth and Nickelback (not really). You can obviously tell these were made in the early 2000s. Edit: Here's the link to the original website they were from, added to the Wayback Machine to save time: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://fanmade.emulationzone.org/tewkewl/SXG/
I think I remember seeing this all the way back then. The screenshots look familiar. Make no mistake, this was pretty impressive back then. I can remember being envious of people making their own Sonic engines in Multimedia Fusion, and people came up with some neat combinations of artwork to create some spiffy levels. Seeing the screenshots just reminds me of how much simpler things were then with fangaming.
Pretty sure Euan once sent me even earlier demos over AIM back in the day, basically engine tests. Might still have an old hard drive lying around that had some of them on it, but I'll be doubtful if it still works.
Ahh so much to say, where to start? Thanks so much for the kindness from everyone, I've not been in the best of places as most of you know. I'm coping for now, I guess I never really imagined how much things would start to affect daily life. Either way, after the seriously unexpected e-mails from gofundme I obviously headed here out of confusion to see what happened. I've actually now spent the last few weeks just a few hours a day getting back into where I was with XG, it's been slow getting to grips with whatever the hell I was doing at the time but a really enjoyable experience and reminder of how far it had come. (I'm assuming it's due to being on and off painkillers for such a long period but my memory of what I've done and shown people is absolutely awful, it has been genuinely surprising and awesome at times to find whole levels and bosses I had no idea I had made, but clearly definitely have.) Blaze- I feel awful now but it was nothing to do with what you said! Your advice was fantastic and did cause me to make huge changes to certain zones if I remember correctly, nothing but improvements came from that feedback. I definitely just wasn't handling things well at the time so I guess found it easier to basically disappear from the internet. So I'm going to frequent here now, XG is in progress AGAIN, nothing I want to show off just yet but i'll make a point of getting something together soon. Quick rundown of things people may not be aware of because I have no idea what I've told everyone i'll be honest: It's in lovely widescreen now, knuckles is now red and not pink, engine has massive improvements to the movement and physics compared to old builds of XG (it feels classic now, at least to me), lots of character sprite improvements and new animations, lots of improvements and tidying to level backgrounds and level design etc.. there's loads that's been done. Apologies to everyone for leaving them hanging in such a way, this has really given me drive to get things moving again- expect updates and stuff. Happy to answer anything you might want to know! Again, massive thanks to everyone for support and kindness!
Really awesome to know you're alright, and that this project isn't dead! I suppose it would be nice to know approximately when this game will come out. I mean, I can understand if you don't have a date yet, but an estimate would be nice. Also, I suppose knowing a bit more about Sonic XG's development history could be nice. I actually discovered those old demos/website, but a lot of people didn't know those existed. Finally, will Sonic XG get an original soundtrack now? I know before it was just remixes, but it would be nice if you found a composer. That is, if you don't already have one for remixes that can also make original tracks (the remixes could very well be on purpose, and they are still cool either way). Keep up the great work, and don't rush. I know everyone is eager to play the game, but it's better that it comes out good but later, than for it to come out rushed and sloppy.
I'm really excited to hear the game is being continued, and I wish you luck in your endeavors. Game development can have all sorts of problems rising from the most unexpected of places, and you shouldn't feel bad for needing to get through some of it on your own. You do what you feel is best during development, if you need to take another break to clear your head, that's perfectly fine, it's not like you're currently doing this for a big-name studio or something. Can't wait for whatever is to be shown next!
Lovely to see you here Nitemare and you're more than welcome! Fucking fantastic to see that Sonic XG is back on track and looking forward to the future updates. EDIT: Just one more thing dude. Hope my financial assist helped you. Expecting a cash injection soon and intend to help you again!
Starturbo: I honestly can't say, I feel like such a broken record with the whole soon soon thing but I just don't know. I'll see how progress goes over the next few weeks and maybe have a look at an estimated release then. As far as a history of XG goes, I wrote up a huge piece to go on what was intended to be the XG website a good while ago, as always I have no idea which hard drive that's on so until I can find that, i'll go over quickly what I can remember from the top of my head. Euan started it solo before I even joined SFGHQ (which was 2002), my introduction to it was the demo with Peak Panic, Desert Dash and Palm Paradiso. At the time to me it was up there with the height of fangaming, with things like The Fated Hour, Retro Sonic and Time Attacked. (At the time ;P). I got talking to Euan over AIM around the time he merged the game with MystHedgehogs Sonic Eternal Rings, becoming Sonic Forever. Myst then disappeared for a good while so shortly after the merge Euan then asked if I'd be willing to collaborate with him on it. At the time I was working on Sonic 360 but I was more than happy to bin that off for a chance to work on XG/SonicForever. If I remember correctly we went back to the name Sonic XG because we had no confirmation from Myst it was fine to use his zones and assets so we played it safe and stuck with our own work and title. Just after the release of the doomsday/final fall demo we both got talking to Christian, he had just released the build of Retro Sonic with Egg Garden and the beautiful golem type boss thing with spikeballs for hands, our discussions went the only way they really could, he loved the style and flair of XG, we loved his engine... Retro Sonic XG happened. Things started to move very slowly here as obviously we were restricted to Christians work pace, I couldn't really help out with his engine and I still hadn't got the mystery behind Euans graphical stylings so until we were in a position to start building levels I was doing tedious jobs like cutting the backgrounds down into 128 x 128 tiles and reducing the colour count from the millions Euan had a habit of using. I slowly drifted off into real life things as did Euan shortly after I believe, I was at college and he was at university. I think it was a good year or so from then until I learnt it had been merged with Slingerlands Sonic Nexus and now had the fun title of Retro Nexus XG or whatever it was. I was still busy with real life things but after a while dabbled with the idea of starting Sonic 360 again, nothing ever too serious happened with that other than a fancy engine I felt close enough to traditional games to make what I was just calling Sonic and Knuckles 2 at the time. After a while I learnt the whole Retro Nexus XG project had been canned, not knowing exactly why I spoke to Christian who explained things properly. It didn't take me long to give in to temptation and start playing around with it again, planning to only make Sonic XG Lite, with 6 zones I had recovered/re-made, I uploaded a cheeky preview to youtube which eventually got discovered, oddly enough by Christian I believe who made this thread about it. He was then nice enough to contact me and send me a massive archive of XG assets he had, including lots of things for Retro XG that I hadn't actually seen yet. Since then it's just been me on and off. I'll be honest I'm starting to think Euan didn't actually even start to make the game, he found it in an evil tomb and thought it'd be fun to finish. Anyway thats mostly what happened, the last few days I've been doing more tedious jobs like finishing off animations for super tails and knuckles (things like pushing, wobbling, the ones you always say you'll get round to but don't), more going over levels fixing things up from the change to widescreen. (This broke so much and caused such a delay in things, but totally worth it.) Cleaning up a few backgrounds and creating proper ceiling/wall tiles in places where I felt they were lazy. Oh and a fancy new main menu, options screen and data select! They look better in motion i'll be honest, a massive improvement to what I had before. 360: Yeah it has you honestly have no idea. Thanks again so much to yourself and everyone, i'll do my best to make it all worth it. Expect zone screenshots soon!
Thanks for responding! That's a lot of text, but I appreciate it! Also, the menu looks really nice. Can't wait to play this someday!
