Sonic AYII

I'm not technical, so I don't know much about this sort of thing, but from what I can gather Game Maker can be a pain is the arse. It's good that you're trying though and it seems to be coming along well. I saw a remixed version of SMB3 that someone made in Game Maker, it it was very difficult to tell that it wasn't one of the special levels in the japanese GBA version. If you try hard you can get the physics to work pretty well. I hope that it stays togetehr with whatever you have planned, especially if there's any hot action, which as far as the old Sonic games go, should be okay. There was never anything too much going on, and the worst of it was the airship cutscenes in Sonic 3 & K, or the Death Egg explosion.

 

Game Maker is a custom language running in Delphi, an interpreted language, which runs all of the graphics through software. So its like slow layered on slow layered on slow. That and its ways of handling graphics are difficult to bend to your will and rely on pretty outdated ideas. There's all kinds of gimmicky limitations and if you want more powerful features you will probably have to layer more slowness on top of your already piled slow. I would really like to see a project like this in something not as craptastic as Game Maker.

 

GM's biggest limitation is speed. It is a CPU whore.

Otherwise, you can code whatever the hell you want pretty easily, and GM will happily do it, just in that asspile of layered slowness Mr Lange describes above.
GM hasn't been software-rendered for a while now though, GM6 and up moved nearly all drawing to having 3D acceleration. Doesn't stop GM from being pretty slow without some major optimizations on the your part due to how it manages objects.

Most people stop working on a GM game simply because they either a: get bored of working on it or b: it is running too slowly on their machine at that point, and getting it back up to speed is not any effort they want to put into it.

Best thing you can do for a GM game if you continue with this route: do all your development on an older machine, so that you can properly optimize if anything comes up. Not too much older, if it's not as powerful as a netbook of today, it's way too old.


Also, more on topic, this engine looks pretty slick.
I like that idea of Sonic having a sprite for when he's on a slope but at a standstill, it's something that's bugged me a bit in loads of games with slopes, and I'm a little surprised I've never seen it implemented.

 

Honestly, I think that if you really work away at the art, someone with the chops to pull off a really great engine in a more practical manner (ie: not Game Maker) will take notice and be willing to make/lend an engine for the project.

What progress you've made so far on the engine is impressive, but I'm almost certain you're going to hit a wall using Game Maker.

 

I agree with this. Play to your strengths, Sonica. I.e making fantastic artwork and there will almost definitely be an engine ready for you when the time comes.

 

@Sonica

You really should PM Mercury about using his engine because the physics and it's light CPU usage is what you really need for this "Sonic 4 as you imagined it" to work. Bold effort at what you are going to do but I'm gonna tell you right up now if you don't have the core gameplay correct, the rest is going to fall flat on it's face.

EDIT:

(confused GM with that other engine that I've seen Classic Sonic and Sonic Axiom use, which is crap and I don't understand why people still use that engine.)

 

Axiom still shits over the official Sonic 4 though. In fact, it's really rather brilliant!

 

I got it mixed up with that other one that loads of fan games use. I thought that one Mercury used was called Ashette.

Personally I got kinda board half way through playing that and a good part of that was because of the physics.

 

I don't really know how I feel about this project. I certainly didn't imagine Sonic 4 as a rehash of Sonic CD graphics or music. It seems lots of people have their nostalgia goggles on way too hard.

 

Where are you seeing that?

 

That palmtree looks familiar...I can't quite put my finger on it

Edit:
Oh, right

http://s2hd.sonicretro.org/cl/Visual-Changelog---Palm-Tree-Concept-Art.html

 

It's a generic looking cartoon stlye palm tree. I think it's just a coincidence.

 

Honestly, the cocunuts are the only thing that looks familiar on it. But it's not like those are hard to make, anyway. Also the shadows beeing casted on top of it from the leaves are diferent, when the S4FG have more blured shadows, the S2HD have them more straight.

The leaves have a different shape and shading, and the branches don't look like at all of course. Like Rika Chou said, just some generic cartoon palm tree.

 

Find me an image of a cartoon palmtree with the EXACT shading style we used on Sonic 2 HD anywhere else and I will bow down and admit I was wrong. But being that everything about the two trees are EXACTLY THE SAME, not similar, but the same, it is more than just coincidence. It's practically a copy and paste job from our own. I am all for people using S2HD as inspiration, I even embraced Sonic 3 HD art and encouraged them to use what we had learned, but it is not right to take someone's hard work and flat out rip it off. The evidence is right in front of you, and it's pretty impossible to deny and I am shocked people are trying to.

 

Thanks Sonica. Good luck with the project, I think it shows a lot of potential!

 

psst

Shouldn't Sonic 2 HD's palm trees have semi-transparent leaves (and have the low polygon look of Sonic 1)?