[360]

Hey everyone. I have returned to Sonic fangaming. I thought this would never happen but I have a substantial amount of time on my hands at the moment and wanted to do something enjoyable and productive. Sonic Neon represents my return. Running on the latest release of Sonic Worlds; Sonic Neon is a new and potentially innovative Sonic fangame with some original and new ideas. Sonic Neon sees Sonic thrust into a nocturnal cityscape where he must collect neon spheres of light. At least for the first zone. The objective is to collect every colour of the rainbow. Once every colour is collected something special and magical happens. I want to keep precisely what happens a secret until the demo release. Suffice to say it is something profound. So profound it represents a massive technical challenge to pull off in MMF2. I'm making decent progress with it and this feature should be available and active in time for the demo release.

Screenshots. Just a note here. These are very work in progress and subject to change.











The main objective and theme I'm going for here is a game to which the atmosphere is compelling and immersive. I want the player to be zoned in on the game when playing. In order to achieve this I feel that sound and music is of the imperative. In terms of the game's soundtrack the music I was thinking of going for is something like this. I may use this track. I may choose another. I feel that this track conveys the type of emotion I'm going for. I've always believed that sound is super important to the type of feeling and emotion you get when playing a game. I truly want Sonic Neon to be a unique experience. Something different. Something memorable. There's obviously a long way to go here but I am confident that I can get a demo out. A demo quite soon.

That's everything for now. Thoughts and opinions?

PS: If you like the music I linked to I strongly recommend this track. Not suited for a game but beautiful none the less.

This post has been edited by 360: 13 January 2013 - 02:12 AM

[Mercury]

Oh, brilliant using Teen Daze! I recently heard Brooklyn Sunburn and thought it'd be perfect for a snowy zone.

I like what I see of those screenshots, too. I'm excited to see where this project goes.

[Scripten]

Very nice stuff. That city background is one of the best I've seen for this kind of environment.

[dsrb]

Spoiler: it's from Streets of Rage

And it gets used everywhere. I saw a Dizzy fangame using it the other week, chrissake! Of course, it didn't work anywhere nearly as well there as it does here, mostly due to the foreground using stark green and brown colours (not that far off the omnipresent green and red of the Sp*ctr*m version).

[360]

Thank you to everyone who replied. Positive feedback is always good to hear. I'm working on the demo as we speak. Anymore opinions?

[Thousand Pancake]

Those balls of light in the screenshots look kind of unnatural and tacked on compared to the rest of the scenery. Perhaps you could make them radiate a little more widely and softly?

The background also seems incongruous with the foreground. It looks scaled.

This post has been edited by Thousand Pancake: 14 January 2013 - 11:12 PM

[360]

Progress continues though at a much slower pace. I'm focused and concentrating on reviving the Superhuman Kickstarter at the moment so there's not really been much time for Sonic Neon. I am determined however to push for a one level demo of this as "proof of concept". I really want you guys to be able to play this and see some of these ideas in action. The feedback I've received here (and to a lesser extent on Sfghq) has been mostly positive and constructive. Graphics have never really been my strong point so I'm proud of the work I have created so far. I have been dreaming about this game for a long time and I want to focus my energy into actually producing and completing something as opposed to constantly visualising what the game could be. Overall you guys have been really positive and encouraging and I appreciate that. Once the Superhuman Kickstarter winds down I'll resume work on Sonic Neon. It's very enjoyable working on fangames and to be honest I forgot how enjoyable it actually was. I loved working on Sonic Neon's first level and producing those screenshots and have a feeling it will be the same when developing the demo.

TLDR: The Superhuman Kickstarter is dominating my time at the moment. Once the Kickstarter winds down Sonic Neon will resume development with a view to releasing a "proof of concept" demo in the near future. The demo will be released here on Sonic Retro.

This post has been edited by 360: 18 January 2013 - 02:48 PM

[Luca]

Man, that's awesome! It's the kind of fangames I like because you combine original ideas with the classic 16-bits (or 8-bits, I don't remeber :S) sonic gameplay. I mean, it's really hard to make something that seems to be of the classic sonic era, in my opinion. I trust you to achive your goals, and I can't just wait for a demo!

[360]

Sonic Neon has received some positive responses on both Retro and Sfghq. Positive responses that have encouraged me to go full-speed ahead on the demo. Given that the Superhuman Kickstarter looks beyond saving at this point I think I'm going to switch focus to Sonic Neon. Here's hoping that the demo will adhere to the vision I have for this project. I don't want to commit to a release date at this point but you should be playing a demo of this in the not too distant future.

This post has been edited by 360: 20 January 2013 - 09:39 PM

[360]

I think the question I want to ask is; is there enough interest in a one-level demo of Sonic Neon? Based on what you have read and seen thus far?

[Tiller]

Sure. I don't see why not. If you're trying to do something different with the standard Sonic game. Immersion is something we could use a lot more of in Sonic games. Music like you said is one of the bigger atmosphere builders, but honestly...maybe a departure from the normal tile set build of typical Sonic games would also be warranted. Basically differences in set pieces, make it feel like you're making progress through an act rather than running through a cut and dry stage dressed up in a theme. Not sure if that is at all clear but I can't really articulate this well. More Sonic Generations feel of a world, less Sonic Advance 3 rollercoaster incoherence.