Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Caitlin - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

I recently got a weird idea in my head over the past few nights, and I want to work on it here and there while I do more important things in my life. However, one of the key ingredients is that this just can't work in a 2D environment. Game Maker has 3D capabilities, but nowhere near powerful enough for my needs. And honestly, I think it's time to graduate from kindergarten and look into something respectable.

Preferably, I'd be looking for something that's open source and free. Or at the very least, free to use. I'll worry about paying for a license if I ever actually get this thing off the ground and decide to monetize it. I keep hearing things about Unreal, Unity, Source, etc. Looking at them is making my head explode at the moment, so I was wondering if anyone who has experience with this kind of stuff would be willing to give a few pointers. *pokes Gen*

Coding my own 3D engine from scratch would be ideal, but I really doubt I'd have the skills for that. That's why I'd be looking to base it off of something that's relatively easy to build off of.

If any details are needed as to what exactly I want to accomplish, full 3D movement (for example, Super Sonic/Super Silver in SA2's final boss) is key. If an engine is hardcoded with gravity towards a certain direction that would be a bitch to remove, I don't think I'd be interested.

If this belongs in Tech Discussion since it's not 100% about Sonic, fair enough, move it.

edit: I just realised my example is terrible. Basically it'd be kind of like a flight simulator, though not as complex. I'd be able to roll, pitch, yaw and move upside down in any angle I wanted at any angle. That's a bit more descriptive.

I haven't paid attention to the Sonic franchise much since Sonic Heroes came out (don't ask me why I'm here, I don't know), so I'm probably missing something very obvious here. I keep seeing mention of a "time eater" when discussions about Sonic arise between friends and other communities I visit, but I have no idea what they're referring to.

A quick glance around the wiki isn't showing anything, so I may not even have the right franchise. But I figured I'd ask anyways.

Over the past few months, I've been taking some weekend classes in digital security, which will ultimately lead up to OMG BIGGER SECRET THINGS. We have an assignment that will lead into our next chapter: create an encryption method. He didn't say how complex or simple, just to get it done by the next weekend.

So, I think I've got something. It's admittedly probably very easy to crack as I've only worked on it for about an hour (20 of those minutes being spent to program a quick encrypter and decrypter program pair).

Assuming no hints, as honestly your "enemy" will not know what to expect in terms of which encryption method is being used, I want to see if anyone can solve this:

0Y02X14201V1X481XU04W0W11X0VY08W2Z70V4U14Y120W03420V34W1781XU0Y1X4W02Y12XU0W180V
W00X4W170V31W1Y044550VY1W18W00X00Z8W06W17812

That is the code to crack. You have until June 4th, 12:00 AM EST to crack it. Good luck.

After the week is up, I'm afraid I won't be able to give the answer out if the teacher of the class determines that I've made the best encryption method out of the rest of the class. He said he'll use the best method for something, so if I give out the answer, eventually it could be reverse engineered a lot easier than if it's just left to sit. :P However, since that's unlikely, feel free to get your hopes up.

edit: the string decided to bastardise itself, fixed

I got into a discussion with some people from another hacking community, one where several members also have membership here. They've stated that they feel like the sonic hacking community is pretty much dying and mainly shifting towards focusing on the new games in a "casual gamer" sense, one that doesn't care to see how things work in the new games.

I never really thought about it until now. Granted I don't pay attention as much as I used to the hacking forums here, but things seem to be slowing to a crawl. I haven't seen a hack thread get updated in god knows how long. Less and less people are joining to showcase what they have because less and less people are into it, it seems. All I see for the most part nowadays is research into Sonic Adventure as well as tools being released. Never actually any content. (by the way this isn't me kicking and screaming that I want more out of this forum, as it honestly doesn't bother me either way)

Anyone have any thoughts or baseless speculation like mine?

I have no idea where the idea for this came from. I was sitting around reading the newspaper when bam, this idea came to mind. So, with an NES debugger in one hand and a hex editor in the other, I figured out how to make this hard; all I had to was change one byte!

Download link

There isn't anything visually different about it, so screenshots would be a moot point. The only change to the ROM is disabling the experience gaining subroutine (or rerouting it, at least) so that you can't level up no matter what you do. So you start at level 1 in attack, defense and magic and that's all you get for the rest of the game. You can collect the Magic and Heart containers to ease the pain of this quest, but bonus points if you get places without either.

Currently in this form, the game is unfinishable. If you don't collect any Magic containers, you won't be able to cast Fairy (which you need in... the 4th palace?). I dunno if you'll be able to cast Reflect for the Giant Wizrobe boss, and you won't be able to cast Thunder to make Thunderbird vulnerable to damage. I spent a few hours looking through the ROM trying to find the MP costs of these spells to make them usable, but had no luck. If anyone would be able to shed any light on that (or even help me find it!) I'd be very, very grateful.

I am personally falling back in love with this game by being stuck at 1/1/1. I've had to be VERY careful, and the Shield spell has been my best friend ever. If you take this challenge, go slowly; never underestimate your enemy.