I seriously believe that the unused layout is, in fact, the single-cart multiplayer level. The GBA supports getting multiboot code downloaded over the link cable into RAM to be played; one of the main uses for this is to allow up to 4 players play a multiplayer game, but with only one copy of the game used. This is present in Advance 1 and 2 with a Capture the Flag-esque game mode, in which players run through a small zone collecting the most of something (I forget what the goal was in Advance 1, but in Advance 2 it was Chao). The reason it's looking garbled is most likely because the graphics are compressed, as the entire mutliboot binary has to be shoved down the link cable to each player, so they had to do SOMETHING to make the download go quicker, and the GBA BIOS already has a LZ77 decompression routine for the game to use. I wonder if a modern emulator like mGBA can capture these multiboot downloads?
Howdy folks! After so many years of inactivity on Sonic hacking (although I regularly browse here just to observe other hacks in progress), I'm back in my element again, playing around with special stages... I wanted to put a modern artistic spin on S1... Results screen (Failure) "SPECIAL STAGE" just looked a little too plain to me Results screen (Collected emerald) The letters are in gold to indicate success However, this same result pops up when you fail a stage with a Chaos Emerald currently in possession... What can I do to get it to load "SPECIAL STAGE" when failing at any time, even with emeralds in possession? Results screen (All emeralds collected) The letters are in gold to indicate success The title cards are a little spaced, but I can fix that... And I really want to get rid of that oval... New special stage art (I may scrap the background and replace it with something entirely new) What do y'all think of my art, especially the Chaos Emeralds?
I think it's lovely! Have you touched up the Knuckles sprite too? It certainly looks different at a glance.
Just a short video of me testing some things. The primary focus is the replacement of homing attack. Sonic now has the bullet dash a la Sonic Freedom. It was super fun to code, and I feel is a good replacement for the alternative in a 2D enviroment.
The development of Hellfire Saga is coming to an end. We have implemented all the ideas we had, the game is completable from start to finish. At the moment there are very small details and testing left until the project is completely finished. We can't give any exact dates yet, but we have something to show and we're sure that you won't have long to wait before we announce the release date.
Development of Hellfire Saga is on the finish line and we're ready to announce the release date in a new trailer. The grand finale is near!
Doing a bit of tinkering with the HUD. The numbers represent CPU usage, sprites used, and camera x/y position.
A side project I've been working on: Sorta semi-based on the Windows 95 on Mega Drive parody some time back if anyone remembers? As cool as it was, I felt disappointed. I would love to have seen the windows being dragged and resized... So I'm going to dabble in free time and make a proper operating system, at least... as proper as you can get on a console, we'll see. Might end up becoming a dead project, who knows right? Just need to look at the X-BAND keyboards... (Yes, the Mega Drive had a keyboard! Who knew!)
Here's something I've been hyperfixating on for the past three days: With the release of the HSON object format and HedgeSet, custom object layouts for Sonic Frontiers are now possible. There's no visual editor yet, you have to use a text editor, but it's a start. This is a very early, unpolished proof of concept for a mod idea I have called Kronos Island Expanded. The idea is simply to take the Rhea Island terrain and incorporate it into Kronos Island's gameplay. Shuffled around portals, guardians, challenges, and added memory tokens as well to make the island fully featured. No guarantee this will actually be finished, because it's extremely ambitious and would take a LOT of work, but I wanted to do this much just to say it's possible. Spoiler: Images
I ported Hyper Sonic from Sonic 3 & Knuckles back to Sonic 1. It was hard to set up but I managed to get it working and I'm proud of how it turned out:
Spoiler No, it's not a secret boss, but... In 2010-2011, I saw a video on YouTube featuring an updated boss for Hydrocity Zone Act 2. But it's been a long time, and now I can't find that video or even a ROM with that boss. Maybe some of you remember that video? In any case, I decided to try to recreate that boss from memory. And the ROM will also be available for download. Enjoy...
A couple more screenshots of Kronos Island Expanded Proof of Concept, now featuring enemies and objects lifted from the beta object layout (purple coins, some rings, rail generators, etc) because why not. Spoiler: Images
