http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJxHbtyLgk&list=PL94E128D4184DFFA0&feature=plpp_play_all That was tedious as heck.
Okay! Here's my opinion of it, though I haven't had the chance to finish the game to completion quite yet. I held out playing it because I knew that the SAGE 2012 edition was coming and didn't want to spoil it with the first version First off, can't say anything about this game before mentioning this brilliant soundtrack: it really, really blows my mind the effort that went into it. It's consistently good througout. As far as gameplay goes, this is some of the best level design I've seen in a fan-game (though I can only speak for the design up until Lost Levels), right up there with Sonic Axiom and Sonic Classic as my favorites. The gimmicks are creative and well implemented, and I'm addicted to trying to get through as quickly as possible. So far the only level that really left me "meh" was Lost Levels. Act 1 was very empty, Act 2 was very confusing, and I haven't had a chance to play Act 3 yet, but I will as soon as I can after work Controls are a bit strange to me, though. I like how well placed jumps increase your momentum like it feels it should, but Sonic seems to go up tall hills with ease, even if his current momentum doesn't feel like it should be able to carry him through. Art direction succeeds very well for what it is! One thing that I generally dislike about fangames that I've played, with the exception of Sonic Axiom, is that a lot of times the game makers throw tiles and backgrounds together that may look good on their own, but together just don't look cohesive. This game is another exception to that, in that there is nothing in the art style that clashes to me. Excellent job! I especially like Sonic's new sprite, it's like a very cool combo between Sonic 1/Sonic 3's sprites. A very solid package, but that floatiness that pervades the controls (except, peculiarly, the jumping, which works fine), takes a bit away for me. But level design, music and presentation mostly make up for it. 8/10 from me. Awesome job, guys
I will play this when I get home; for now, the soundtrack has been on my iPod since this morning and I've been programming at work to it all day; you could sell the thing, it's of a very high professional quality.
sorry for the bubble glitch, I thought I've fixed it. (yes I increased the timer and added the counter from the original games) and if you guys are having problems with slowdown, try playing on the lowest resolution. to change the controls simply press Ctrl+Y
First, I noticed that "Metro Madness Zone" is most definitely not the name of Cloudy Crowd's boss. Second, I've run into a problem (?) with the final boss: Spoiler The *final* one. For one, the boss can sometimes pin Super against the edge of the screen during his invincibility. Second, when I land enough hits, the screen fades to white, I hear explosions, and the boss doesn't end? I'm dead confused. Also, I only have two lives left so I'd rather sit here and listen to the music while paused than waste time not knowing what's going on. Also, it calls itself the boss of Titanic Tower. EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out. You can't hit Eggman again after defeating him or it'll lock you in the battle. EDIT inside the spoiler
it doesn't metter how much you beta test the game, you still will find more and more gliches. I'm sorry to say I wont be fixing any of those, this is the final release of BTS, gotta move on! I'll see you guys at SAGE with ATS's demo :v:
S'alright, the titlecard glitch seems to be an occasional thing anyway. Still fantastic. Also, Perilous Paradise's music is so Kirby it's like all the Kirby from the previous edition leaked into it. And the boss music is the best thing ever.
Just wanted to pop in over here too and give props over here as well for how fantastic the soundtrack is. I haven't had a chance to play the game yet but I will later today! I am really excited to play it since everything seems like a labour of love and there is a certain sense of professionalism about all this. The soundtrack in particular is the only experience I have with this new release and it is pretty much one of the best videogame soundtracks I have heard in a long while, I really dig it. Keep up the awesome work guys! I'll post again probably once I play the game
Yeah, I actually downloaded the OST and I really don't care that much about fangames or SAGE =P Great job, falk!
... and Funk Fiction, and KgZ, and Andy Tunstall. :P yes, I love this soundtrack too! it's gorgeous all around. most of it is going directly to my MP3 player.
Falk did a great job directing and mastering the soundtrack. Nothing like using state of the art professional equipment that costs probably half a million dollars on a fan game. I'm really happy that you guys have been so enthusiastic over the soundtrack. Most of us will be coming back for After the Sequel as well, so expect even better music to come out.
This makes me happy. Also hey hi welcome to retro enjoy your stay. And as I mentioned earlier, fantastic job on Perilous Paradise (especially the boss)! Speaking of which, did the boss's pattern (or the platform sequence) change any, Lake? Because it took me four minutes to get enough of the tall platforms to deal enough hits. I don't remember it taking that long before.
Adding to what Bliv said, awesome job on Wood Zone! :D Most sexy, compliments Lost Levels pretty well!
I just played and beat the whole thing again to hear the new tunes in context, and also because I never got around to beating it properly last year. Sonic BTS is truly one of the best and most epic things to have ever come from this community, and the whole team should be extremely proud of a job well done. Way to go, guys!
Hmm, with how much new music you've all accrued, I have to wonder why you left a few tracks unaltered. Special stage? Game over? Also why is the last section of the level clear jingle cut off?
I'm not sure as to the other points, but the clear jingle is cut off for a pretty good reason. On a side note, I forgot what the limit was, how close to failure was 17 time points?
Welp, I've had a stretch of more than a few hours of sleep and time to think things over. Here comes my tl;dr little soapbox for anyone interested! To put it in perspective, earlier today with the project wrapped up, I 'took a nap' with a massive headache and instead overslept badly and missed a class, then woke up hours later with diarrhea and gastric. To be quite honest, I'm in my penultimate semester at college, taking a lot of important subjects and I've been pushing myself beyond any reasonable measure for the past (two) week(s or so). Even then, I wanted to do as good a job as possible for the release in time for SAGE because very frankly, for me, this is both a training ground and a portfolio (I.e. posterity) thing for me. It's a terribly silly yet understandable catch-22 situation out in the industry that to get hired to make games, you need to have had X years of experience and/or some previous work on games to show. This project was born out of two things: My love for the Sonic franchise (and how much BTS struck a chord with me way back when it was just released) and as a practical means of addressing that catch-22. Being able to look back and say 'hey, look at this OST I produced; sure it's not a commercial game and sure it's got a lot of Sonic related material in it, but let's pretend it an official game for a moment; this is what I can do, from concept, to planning, to organizing a team, to composing, arranging & remixing, to production, to recording a live band and negotiating licenses (credits song anyone ), to mastering an album, to implementation, to promotion (Youtube channel, etc)". So yeah, I'm doing this for the fun of it, and yet at the same time I'm not, so forgive me if I ever take aspects of this and/or ATS way too seriously and offend people. I want to thank Lake again for letting me go ahead with this crazy venture. The original music in the game was very, very characteristic of what I liked about BTS in the first place - it didn't strictly try to copy the 'Sonic' Sonic formula and it was just loads of fun anyway, and we literally were looking at 50 tracks not counting jingles and cutscenes such (Act 1-3 + boss + special stage for each of 10 zones, then Arcane Altitude, Death Egg, Final boss) which is a tall order - much more music than the typical indie game. I've composed, arranged and remixed more things in a more diverse set of styles than I have for the rest of my life. This project, alongside my internship, has taught me how to streamline my workflow for all the important shit like versioning, delivery and backup (and frankly, how to push both a team and myself when it comes to crunch time without falling apart). Over the course of the ~8 months on this project I've spent a good part of 5 grand on music software/plugins, DAW updates, sample libraries etc. Not just for this project alone, but for my career in future- all the shit which really would have long-term practical use for the entire pipeline of music production in myriad genres. I've taken countless of these tracks to mix, monitor and eventually master on $200,000 consoles in $500,000 rooms at Berklee studios. Essentially, the core of why I managed to pull through with all of the above is this: you guys who were interested in my Sonic Unleashed interactive music stuff from back in November may know I was in Film Scoring in Berklee at the time. Since then, for reasons I won't go into, shit hit the fan in many ways and I've dropped from being a dual major in Film Scoring and Music Production & Engineering to simply doing a single major in MP&E. Following through on every step of the project is essentially my way of convincing myself that it's not what's written on the degree that counts, it's the passion for doing something and the willpower to pull through with it, not to mention I promised someone very important to me that I -would- pull through. That being said, there were things that absolutely couldn't be finished on time regardless. We didn't have time to do any of the cutscenes other than the OP/ED, nor do an adequate job overall for the special stages in time. Here's a copypasta from over at SFGHQ On the topic of dirty laundry, we were also even considering dropping unique arrangements from some levels and just repeating across act1/2 at one point. I'm very, -very- glad we took the time to push and finish off all the levels, anyway, since TT2 is pure $eck$. There are some of the original music left in that was planned from the start (LL4, CC3/boss, game over) just because of the homage context, but other things that were an oversight (alternative clear jingles for certain bosses, Super Sonic), or that simply we finally agreed we didn't have the time to do (cutscenes, special stages). There are other misc things we could have communicated better, like the duration of Invincibility, Speed Shoes and drowning, all of which bug me and I apologize if the mismatching lengths detract from the gameplay experience. Also to explain the clear jingle, how it is in-game is actually how it's supposed to be, with the timings always being polished that the next level or cutscene cue would come in right after that floaty chord. I guess my mistake was either a) making an altered version with that final chord resolution for the soundtrack or b) releasing that version into public eye a few months early, building an aural expectation that was unlike the original implementation. Of course, it doesn't help that we didn't have time to polish the game so that all the timings were photo-finish perfect, nor does it help that the cutscenes don't have the music that I wanted them to have. ;p All that aside, Lake is absolutely right that we can't spend more time on this. We need to move on to ATS and other things, and a big part of successful projects is knowing when to let go. A small part of me still does want to see a maintenance patch by others with familiarity with MMF2/Sonic Worlds (Damizean? Mr Lange? ) with no new content/music/graphic changes just to fix all the bugs that people eventually find, but that's a battle for another time. Thanks for your interest in and compliments regarding this new version and the soundtrack guys. It definitely means a lot to us. edit: Reading back on this it sounds like I'm being very morose/defensive. I'm not. I'm extremely proud of what we've accomplished. :U
I don't think you come off defensive at all. I think it's important to reflect on your successes and mistakes in the aftermath. Personally, I find it very insightful to read these "soapbox" monologues so I can learn or relate to my own experiences. I think what could have been better (and unfortunately I am responsible for as well) was the lack of communication at times. Fortunately, I think that will resolve know that we have a specific forum to conjugate and discuss game related matters in After the Sequel. On a side note, could you list what plug-ins or hardware you purchased within those past 8 or so months?
