[Thorn]

EDIT: Beta for SAGE 2011 is here.

MSN log, October 26, 2007.
Tweaker: what I suggest, first off, is that you and DNX take what you've done and make use of it. Don't let it rot, start up your own hack ...

So, um, we did. Then DNX got hit with an MSN virus, and I stopped hearing from him for three and a half months, until I PMed his yesterday. He replied with "I haven't worked on it lately," and admittedly neither have I. So I'm posting the scraps. :P
Here's a video of what we have to date. I trust you're all smart enough to read the description before posting anything else. The video doesn't show much of what DNX added, though, due to aforementioned lack of contact. Most of his work, such as Sonic CD Metal Sonic for a Death Egg boss, worked it's way to the SCAA, so you can view it there.

On top of that, I had got bored and prepared some music to use after porting the Sonic 1 sound driver over to Sonic 2. Unfortunately, I got nothing but a billion "addressing mode not allowed here lol" errors at compile time, so that's on the waiting list. I've made small MP3s (no, not VGMs, because half of YouTube wouldn't know what those were) of the created files, one for the first act and another for a Casino Night act, and put them on my SkyDrive here. The original of the Sonic Rivals 2 song is there for comparison as well.

I'm not releasing this atm due to it needing a lot more polish (I.e. running downhill sprites were simply churned through RotSprite), and due to plans to toss some of the source material to another hacker.

So, um... comments on what we have? Or at least what you can see/hear of it?

This post has been edited by Thorn: 18 September 2011 - 09:26 PM

[HighFrictionZone]

Good. There needs to be more good Sonic 2 hacks. The video de-syncs partway through playback for me, but meh. Seems pretty solid regardless. I will note, however, that - and this is entirely a personal issue on my part - the Sonic 2 special stages make my dizzy and on one occasion I have thrown up. I realize there is nothing you could do about the me-getting-sick part, but if you are ever bored and need something to do, Sonic 1 style special stages as an option you can toggle?

This post has been edited by HighFrictionZone: 30 May 2008 - 12:22 AM

[Alriightyman]

I love the level designs! It looks very cool, especially the waterfall background in EHZ2. I can't wait to see a release on this, it looks fun. Good job keep it up!

[Thorn]

HighFrictionZone, on May 30 2008, 01:22 AM, said:

Good. There needs to be more good Sonic 2 hacks. The video de-syncs partway through playback for me, but meh. Seems pretty solid regardless. I will note, however, that - and this is entirely a personal issue on my part - the Sonic 2 special stages make my dizzy and on one occasion I have thrown up. I realize there is nothing you could do about the me-getting-sick part, but if you are ever bored and need something to do, Sonic 1 style special stages as an option you can toggle?

Not much I can do about the desynching; the base file on my computer is fine, so blame YouTube. My lack of ASM knowledge seriously limits the idea of Sonic 1 special stages. However, may I point you to the glory that is Dramamine. I have taken it on many a vacation and haven't got motion/sea sick yet, and I normally get carsick from playing GameBoy on the road. X)

...wait, Sonic 1 special stages don't make you dizzy?
...wow.

[P.P.A.]

Me neither, I like them. I do get dizzy from Sonic 3 & Knuckles' Special Stages though, ugh. Sonic 2 I dunno, they're too uninteresting to play so I never bothered to find out.

On topic:
*already played an earlier version of it* :awesome:
If this is half as good as Sonic Turbo I'm already excited. I'm not playing this again until the music is changed though. ESPECIALLY EHZ AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IF I HEAR THAT FUCKING SONG ONE MORE TIME
The Blue Coast track you plan to replace it with is awesome, so it seems I won't have to worry about it. :P

This post has been edited by P.P.A.: 30 May 2008 - 08:57 AM

[Spanner]

Nice work as usual, Thorn.
Could you upload these tunes to a different uploader, WinAMP isn't playing the songs at all.

[Thorn]

^Somebody else told me that he was having problems getting them to play, but he only told me that it was his "music player" that wouldn't play it and didn't specify which one. I've downloaded the songs from my SkyDrive and got them to play in Windows Media Player and Audacity, and I have WinAMP on another computer so I'll test that soon. If somebody can tell me if they can/can't make them work on these players, then I'll blame WinAMP or try to re-encode them.

EDIT: Okay, I ran them through WinAMP, and found the problem. Blue Coast 1 (SMPS) is a .wav file, because every MP3 I made of it garbled the background parts or bloated the filesize. As far as I can tell from my XP machine, WinAMP doesn't recognize .wav files. What kind of crap is that? I got the other files to work, though.

This post has been edited by Thorn: 30 May 2008 - 11:50 AM

[P.P.A.]

They ran fine for me in Lilith.
I am only making this post so everyone wonders what weird, unheard music player I use.

This post has been edited by P.P.A.: 30 May 2008 - 02:25 PM

[Thehackery]

Isn't the talk about special stages making people dizzy straying off topic?
I have no dizziness problems on any special stages. Good thing too, as I'm working on the special stages in my Sonic 1 hack.

[Ayla]

It's alright to be a little off topic, hackery. He was stating something about the hack itself and suggesting a feature for the hack, thus it's still on topic =)

[Thorn]

Okay, a small beta is available here, so DL and comment on anything and everything, please. Music, art, layout, bugs... every tip counts. If you're looking for screens, the video from the first post is pretty close to the current beta.

Current Status
- Layouts up to Chemical Plant 2 are finished, and Special Stage 1 is done
- Sonic 1 Sound Driver ported, about half of tunes modified to work correctly
- Hub /overworld system half-implemented

Eventually-To-Be
- Character-specific programming (I.e. Tails flying)
- More layouts and special stages, obviously
-DNXDelta doesn't have much in this beta, but he's working on other things such as this.



Issues
- Sonic 1 Sound Driver is buggy as hell. Srsly.
- Layouts are designed with character-specific abilities in mind, so some things are unreachable.

Credits
shobiz - general tech help as well as guide for S3K Rings in S2
All who worked on the S1 Sound Driver in S2
Irixion - traded information to him, received S3K DAC in return :P

This post has been edited by Thorn: 08 July 2008 - 09:21 PM

[Puto]

Thorn, on Jul 9 2008, 03:08 AM, said:

- Sonic 1 Sound Driver is buggy as hell. Srsly.

I'd suggest asking Tweaker for the clone driver, it'd save you the trouble of going about fixing all of the issues.

[Tweaker]

Wow, this is seriously cool. Your layouts are absolutely stellar, and capture a lot of the speed together with the "Sonic" feeling. They flow so well!

I'm especially impressed with how you designed the overworld system—I didn't even know I wasn't playing a normal level until I collected a ring and went to a brand new level. :o

The music is okay, but I'm sort of iffy about it; Race to Win is well imported, but I don't really like that song in general and don't think it fits too well. The voice edit for CPZ was decent as well, but I think it needs some editing to sound a bit more "proper," if you will.

As for the clone driver, you're more than welcome to it. It sounds like you need it, anyway, judging by that spindash sound. =P

Keep up the great work! I hope to see this hack get even better in the future.

[Irixion]

Like I said in IRC, this is pure sex. Keep up the great work!

[shobiz]

Amazing stuff - the layouts are extremely well-designed and loads of fun to play through, and the art/palette edits are awesome as well. The overworld system is quite creative as well - like Tweaker, until I hit a ring I had no idea I wasn't playing a normal level (actually in my case, I just kept on running straight and landed up in CPZ before I had any idea what was going on)

The only thing I didn't like were the boss arenas - way too easy. In the EHZ boss area, the platforms don't really change much, and in the CPZ boss area you can just go underneath him and deck him. Other than that, this is absolutely fantastic - you guys have done an amazing job.