I will always remember the live stream.. watching the fans at the convention go wild is one of the most memorable moments for me I always laugh at how the production team struggled to play the trailer and poor Aaron had to keep stalling everyone until they finally got it.
They also revealed the game’s logo early by accident, with Aaron going "let's pretend you didn't see that" in a panic I had to get up at like 3 am to watch this fucking trainwreck of a stream and I loved every second of it lol
Never really thought about how the tagline would be done in different languages... + - "MANIA ni yoru, MANIA no tame no sakuhin" Anyway, it's quite lovely drawing (=v=) Always adored the sketchbook elevator/trippy boxart runway area used in all those animations~
Here's the tweet from the English Sonic Twitter account for Tyson Hesse's art: https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/1427057612940447747
So this isn't official or anything but this Mystic Cave mod's been released. Looks like one of the most legit fan stages I've ever seen, right up there with like the Misfits Pack.
Oh ya how they made the ice gimmick into a mine cart instead? Genius. Making that octopus boss a burrowbot was also an excellent idea (hell just including burrowbots there makes so much sense and I never realized it til now)
I played through the level. It's great. I would usually be a bit iffy about the stage relying so much on signposts but I think they fit the level aesthetic well and one stage in a game which is a bit overtly mazy like that is fine by me. In many ways it feels like an elaboration on Sonic 1 more than anything else with its more traditional platforming and puzzle challenges. One point of criticism I have is that it sometimes does the Generations thing of having the upper path be very punishing to stay on. Lots of collapsing blocks and unclimable hills. But otherwise it's a thumbs up from me! I'm going to play through it a few times with the characters. Really wish Plus added stages like this rather than Encore.
Yeah, the mod scene for Mania continues to fill the gap for a sequel some of us wish for slowly over time. I wish there was an easier way to manage some of these high quality mods to become a near full "Mania 2" in essence, but it's just not reasonably possible right now. This is a good one along with the Misfits Pack stages.
Right? If only there was some way we could package groups of mods as one game, even if said mods occupy the same level slots. It'd make for some crazy interesting runs. A whole 12 level pack of completely new zones? Amazing. Idk maybe there could be a way for the mod loader to A. Set the game path in advance by selecting all 12 zones that need to load in the specific order you need them (So if 2 mods take up GHZ you'd load GHZ twice) and then B. After each zone the game goes back to the mod loader and loads the next mod in line? You could correspond a mod to a level and it'd load that mod's level, so if its a mod with 4 levels, if you corresponded the mod with GHZ it'd load whatever's in that mod pack's GHZ level slot. Wouldn't know where to start with how to code this but idk, if we can get a randomizer, an online mod that has more levels than Mania even has (surely they figured out something similar to this), and a mod that turns Mania into like a SHUMP somehow, I don't see how this isn't possible, someone would just have to have enough interest to figure it out.
The Press Garden Splats spawners are very well known score farms, much like Sonic 3's Launch Base bird sensors. Unlike the birds, the Splats are smart enough to stop spawning while you charge spindash. Though, they do endlessly respawn if you stay on the ground and run back and forth and roll to kill them, or just stay in the air and badnik bounce with height as in the video. After fooling around in debug, I've isolated that Mirage Saloon Act 1 Encore camera lock up to happen approximately here: Spoiler: Crossing over THIS Point Sadly debug doesn't seem to show anything camera boundary related afaik, so someone more knowledgeable with the game's inner workings will have to check that place out and see what's up with it.
Sounds like the dream of Mania 2 is officially dead. Evening Star announced their next project is an original game with a new publisher. Source: https://twitter.com/eveningstarstdo/status/1443999281736683524
Sega dun pulled a Sega... In other news I'm excited to see what Eveningstar is working on. It would be nice if 3D platformers came back into the spotlight.
