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

I was browsing around for a game engine to use in a project and I stumbled up on this little guy.
http://orx-project.org/

What I find interesting about this engine is...well it's basically the kind of engine I would want to make! It's entirely done with C (although I'd do C++), runs on damn near everything, and is very data-driven. A lot of the work is done with ini-style config files where you don't have to recompile.

I actually tried to make an engine a bit like this back when I was taking some college classes. Of course it was a lot more limited and for a text adventure so it's nice to see there's a mature engine like this.

What do you guys think? Ever work with it before yourselves or have another game engine that may do me better?

Good news Overlord! I'm not a "macfag" anymore because I have got rid of my Apple products. Well except the headphones cuse they're pretty comfortable to me.

Anyway I had an iPad and hocked it to try out the "Google Phone" Nexus One. But I still loved being able to pay $25 a month for data and JUST DATA instead of getting a voice plan I didn't want to use. So I called AT&T and asked them what I would need to purchase to use my Nexus One on their network. They wanted me to pay $40 fucking bucks a month for a bare minimum required voice plan that had 450 minutes. Of course AT&T does have pay as you go voice plans where you pay $3 a day on any day you actually use the voice feature. But of course you aren't allowed to use that on a smart phone. So at a minimum AT&T wanted me to pay around $60 for a shitty voice plan and my current data plan.

Yeah. Fuck that.

So I kept the MicroSIM from my iPad because I liked only paying $25 a month that can be canceled and re-ordered any time. I toyed around with the settings for my APN but eventually I got the iPad MicroSIM working just fine on my Nexus One.



TL;DR: Screw you AT&T. I'll keep my data plan thank you!

I've been thinking this over for a long time and I think it's ready to be put to the test.

Basically, I feel like the Sonic characters are so numerous and extended at this point that you could very easily insert them into any other medium and it would fit in. A character for each role that would be at least relatively suited to them. I even wanted to do a flash series of inserting Sonic characters into various movie trailer parodies. But I don't have the time to draw that shit so this thread will have to do.

So go ahead. Pick a franchise, a series, a comic book, a movie, a book, anything you could think of and tell how you would manage to insert Sonic characters in the most complete way possible.

To start:

The Matrix. Why not? Lots of action, high speed, robots. There's other reasons it works though. For example the story line of machines versus nature can be easily parodied through SatAM. Sonic of course fits the role of Neo and Sally for Trinity. Tails could serve the role of the two operators (I forget both names but one is Tank). Morpheus is Knuckles without a doubt. Tikal can fit the Oracle. Robotnik would make a pretty entertaining architect. Agent Smith would have to Shadow of course and I could see Vector, Mighty, and Espio filling the spot for the other agents. Unfortunately I can't remember everything I worked out, but I did think out a pretty through casting list. I know I had a place for Nack but it doesn't come to mind right now.

In any case, there ya go. What do you guys have? (Note: Feel free to insert them into real historical events too if you really want to. That could be a bit of fun.)

So I was discussing with Tweaker and a few other people just how much of an influence this character/game series "Sonic" has had on our lives. Then the thought occurred to me that this could be a really interesting topic in the forums. And since I haven't posted in a while (or made a new a topic) here it goes!

I can actually recall a large chunk of my personality and life being ultimately affected by this little game series. For one, the first forum I ever joined was SFGHQ. The reason being of course that I had an interest in making games and I loved Sonic so it fit together quite nicely. And as of this day I still pursue that dream and I'm going to college for Game Programming. This is after trying out courses in Game Design and Game Art as well.

On a more personal level...well I'm pretty sure anyone around here who knows me well enough can attest that I'm a furry. I don't think it's too hard to draw your conclusions from there but besides just contributing to me being a furry, the fact that I am part of that group is what brought me to the current relationship I have now (and has lasted a bit over 4 years).

Personality wise I do have to say that I probably aspire to the kind of attitude Sonic as a character maintains. Don't stress out, be a good friend, have no regrets, etc. It's probably also why I really love things that go fast or maybe more angular/geometric art styles given the artistic direction of the old Genesis games. Not to mention the music and attitude having a slight 80's vibe to them which might be why I think 80's music is so radical.

Corney as it may be though, share your story. We're all Sonic fans so what has that done for you in life?

I've been itching to start a modding project recently. REALLY itching. So I cam up with a few mod ideas and ultimately, decided to go with a mod that was based within the SatAM universe.

The first mod idea was the SatAM one, but thought it would be too unoriginal for what I was shooting for so put it aside. Instead I came up with an idea involving a small team of snipers versus a large team of ground troops. It sounded cool, but in the end would be very difficult to balance and would probably end up very one-sided even with good balancing. Lastly I came up with a mod that was to take place in Aperture Science labs from Portal during the time GlaDOS (the computer that talks to you in Portal) was first turned on and taking over the lab. It would have involved clever ways to use portals in combat but since you can't work with Portal's source code without a full Source engine license, that mod was eliminated too.

So this left me with the SatAM mod. At first it was kind of a joke and just a passing thought, but I started watching over my DVDs of the series and noticed that there is a REALLY expansive universe to take advantage of in the series. There's tons of locations with varying architecture, backgrounds, and interesting environments as well as a large variety of weapons, machines, and open space to create your own place in the SatAM universe.

Here's the idea in a nutshell (and very subject to change):

• It will be both a multiplayer mod and, if the multiplayer proves successful, a single-player campaign.
  
• The player will not take the role of one of the main characters of the show, but start off in a complete different part of Mobius. The player (or players) will be in contact with Sonic and the others in Knothole though and will likely have to arrive there at some point in the game.
  
• On occasion, the player will be presented with a robotisized opponent. In this case, they must try to AVOID destroying them if possible given the moral implications of doing so.
  
• Weapons will range from lasers, jerry-rigged projectile weapons, and explosive (including but not limited to water balloons, insta-rust balloons, and bomb pods).
  
• I may include the option to choose from first or third person views, but if not it will either be one or the other. Since the goal is to feel as engrossed in the SatAM Mobius as possible, it'll most likely be first person (plus that doesn't require much more additional programming =P )
  
• Also falling in line with the idea of feeling like part of the SatAM world, there will be voice acting and nostalgic tid-bits brought to life with the Source engine. For example, working spy cameras that float around and track the players at times and communications or encounters with well-known characters like Robotnik or Knothole's freedom fighters.
  
• A simple explanation of gameplay is a stealth-action shooter. In terms of the greater over-all goal, it's to create a SatAM-based mod with unique characters and locales unexplored within the show and the chance to interact with the known SatAM universe. Players should feel like they're part of a classic 90's cartoon which rings true to the SatAM vibe.

If you would like to help me with the project, drop me an email ([email protected]) and let me know what you're good at and even a few examples of work. For this first phase of development (a multiplayer mod) I'll need:

• C++ Programmer (I can do some code myself, but could use help)
  
• A conceptual artist. This job is pretty light-weight for now since many assets exists from the show for reference but some need to be slightly revised and put in a format that's easy for 3D modeling.
  
• Character skinning. Since we'll have unique characters, they will need textures as well as models. Bonus points if you can do level textures as well!
  
• One or Two mappers. Since we won't need too many maps at first and I can already cover some of the mapping, I don't need many people for this. Having a few people to work on maps though helps a lot since they can get pretty time-consuming.
  
• Voice actors. Again, pretty minor but I could use some people to do some standard voices.
  
• Sound effects/engineering. Because of some of the unique weapons, there will probably be the need for some unique sound effects. ie; Water balloon splashes, laser sounds, etc.
  
• A NAME!! I'm at a loss when it comes to what to call this mod. I don't want it to be extremely obvious this is a SatAM mod by the title because I don't want to give the feeling that you'll be playing Sonic and it'll be like a regular Sonic game that takes place in SatAM. It should have a name that represents the general state of the planet rather then Sonic or the main characters themselves.

And that's about all there is to say regarding the project right now. Currently I'm working on a map of Ironlock Prison and plan to use that as the testing area for a while. It's pretty easy to recreate but still does a great job of representing what SatAM is like. Please, go ahead and let me know if you want to work on the project with en email (like I said earlier). You could also PM me here or just reply to the topic. If you just reply though it would be nice to get a PM or email with it so I can keep it aside somewhere.

Quick Edit:
Also I know this may or may not belong in this particular forum, but since it could fall under a lot of categories I wasn't really sure where to put it. =P Tweaker said here works so I just decided to go with it.