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[COMPLETED] Sonic Frenzy Adventure

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by BlueFrenzy, May 18, 2020.

Replace Or remove fan characters?

  1. Replace (Ex: Darkspeed becomes shadow)

    36.7%
  2. Remove (Still playable through cheats / extra section)

    63.3%
  1. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    SONIC FRENZY ADVENTURE DOWNLOAD
    https://mega.nz/file/Tg9jhKRD#vlvF13P9kLCmmQOZj2k7JA6XLScXH1WPfCMQX0oC8gs
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    Follow me to get the updates :
    https://twitter.com/FrenzyKun


    hpz2.png otz.png sfa1.png otz1b.png boss3.png ehzbetter.png hpz1.png sfaexp.gif mez1.png

    Hello,
    It has been passed about 13 years since the last time I touched this project. It was around 2004 when I started this ambicious project. Dozens of levels, 5 playable characters, including 2 original ones for a story I was wanting to tell. Scope was waaay ahead of what a 16 year old person could do. 4 years later live asked me to move on. My time for working in the project was gone, my efforts should go towards something that reports me money and, on top of that, I lost my data in the hard drive I saved all my work, not only from this project but from many others.

    The other day, due to the coronavirus free time, I found several files in an old pendrive where I hold on to a backup. After carefully looking through them, I noticed that I built more than 20 levels. That's way too much!
    So I decided to close that step in my life. I know that the scene right now is much more different than in 2005 when I showcased this game for the first time. There are amazing projects out there that outshines everything I could have done at the time, and my own ability as game designer and level designer is far from what it was.

    So, I decided to, despite everything, give it a shot. I will pack all the levels I made, make a quick clean up, and come back in a few weeks to show the results. I will delete many things, including the very first level, which is probably one of the worse ones I've ever created, and bring many of the ones that I think are fun enough.

    So, if you don't mind a 2005 style fangame, something before Sonic Worlds was a thing, just wait a little longer :)

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I am updating a bit the post with the overall changes of SFA respecting the classic sonic games. Feel free to discuss it. Can you find the reasoning behind of the decisions?

    Rings
    Overall the ring system in sonic games makes battle situations extremely easy due to how easy is to brute force through. Some mechanics changed in order to address this issue.
    • If you receive a second hit before you get a ring that is not the one you dropped, no rings will appear. This limits your survival to 3 hits in places where there are no rings.
    Ring level
    There are 4 ring levels: Bronze, silver, golden and hyper. Get one "Ring level Up" monitor to level up. You lose all your levels if you lose one life.
    The ring level affects the following features:
    • The number of rings you can recover after a hit (from only 5 at bronze level to 30 at hyper level)
    • The speed of the rings when magneted.
    • At hyper level, rings worth x2.
    Shields
    The shields doesn't provide powers to sonic, but rather, passive effects. Every shield protects you against one hit.
    • Green shield: basic shield with no special powers.
    • Blue sheld: allows to breathe underwater
    • Red shield: makes you immune to fire and fire projectiles
    • Pink shield: magnets the rings
    • Purple shield: destroys badniks when lost
    • Gold shield: It has all the properties above. When receiving a hit, it becomes a green shield.
    Powers
    Sonic is the only character able to use these powers by double jumping. Pressing CTRL key allows to switch between the powers. Find the power monitors to unlock the power. All the powers are lost if you lose one life.
    • Flame power: Propels Sonic forward at high speed
    • Wind power: Allows to double jump
    • Water power: Allows for slow falling
    • Earth power: Propels down at high speed. You can bounce high breaking things and break some frail platforms.
    • Light power: Mixture of flame and wind power.
    Super Sonic
    Only Sonic and the fan character Darkspeed can transform into their super forms.
    Find the giant rings hidden in the levels to access the special stages. Complete the special stage to earn one chaos emerald. Get the 7 chaos emeralds to unlock super sonic.

    In order to transform into super sonic you need to find one of the giant rings hidden in the level. There are 3 Giant rings on each level.
    Each giant ring gives you 20 rings instead of the usual 50.


    Levels
    The game is composed of 11 zones with several acts each. At the end of each act you have a boss fight. There are two extra boss battles at the end of the game.
    Reach one zone to be able to start the game from that zone.


    Story & progression
    The original story has been deprecated in order to show something simple. Still, a small story has to be done to make sense of the latest Zones.
    "At the ruins of the Death Egg, an evil specter has taken the control of EggRobo. Using the ruins of the Death egg he started to build his own mechanical empire. He built 3 different power plants in order to get the resources necessary to build his machines"

    The game is split into 4 stages:
    1. Stage 1: Conquer the Oil Tower: Eggrobo is extracting and burning the oil under the sand of the dessert to feed the robots.
    2. Stage 2: Conquer the Hydroelectric Plant: The damp feeds with electricity the whole empire.
    3. Stage 3: Conquer the Netherworld Base: The hot magma is not only a reliable energy source but also rich in molten iron, useful to build robots.
    4. Stage 4: Conquer Eggrobo: Without anywhere to escape, follow EggRobo into his secret base.
    Characters
    There are 5 playeble characters:
    • Sonic: Uses the powers found in the monitors
    • Tails: Can fly for short periods of time. His flight is more controllable than in the genesis games.
    • Knuckles: Can glide and climb. His movement is more agile than in the genesis games.
    • Darkspeed: Fan character. Can shoot himself in any direction when double jumping. Also, can roll boost by pressing CRTL. He's powerful but also represents the hard mode.
    • Ania: Fan character. Can levitate, shoot energy beams and swim. <- She's probably going to be deprecated.
    There are routes exclusive for each character. Some characters even start some levels in different places. Also, some of the bosses have small behavior differences between characters.

    Goals and Achievements
    The game will keep track of the following:
    • Score: what's your highest score? A game over will reset it to zero. The extra lifes you have at the end of the game will greatly boost your score.
    • Giant rings per level: Each level has 3 giant rings hidden. Can you take them all in one go?
    • Extra level: There's an extra level available once the game has been completed with all the characters. The Maze is a challenge only suitable for the most engaged players who really enjoys exploring every corner of the game. Can you find the 4 different exits?
    • Chao Eggs: Every level has a chao egg hidden somewhere. Can you find them all?
    Progress
    Keep in mind that this progress is towards the final goal of finishing the game. Many small glitches and visual errors may pop here and there. The game is completely playable, but at some points it's a bit ugly and unpolished. I won't be able to make the fixes necessary, else, I would not be able to release the game. In the future I may open source the files so anyone could polish the game, modify it or take whatever they want from it. So, when I say completed, it doesn't mean it is perfect, but that it is ready to ship.

    Expected delivery date: SAGE 2020
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2020
  2. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Working on my art!
    Oh I remember this game! I loved it when I was younger.

    I'd love to see a redo on it, so good luck with the project!
     
  3. Sally Rose

    Sally Rose

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    This sounds amazing . id be jazzed. Will you still be doing a final level/ boss and implamenting the story? Or no? Hopefully so. And 11 levels sound bad ass. Even if its bassed on a 2005 build if the level design is at least somewhat good then a good game is a good game regardless of its model make date. I just hope that youll be able to fux any oddities from the 2005 codeing. Aka ishues when running on modren hardware. You may wanna do post modren bug fixing . most notably game save functions and level clearing accurate detection.

    Edit

    I speak from experience. Is why i bring it up.

    Oh and test controler support and full screen or if no control supourt say so so folks know to use xpadder or something.
     
  4. Rudie Radio Waves

    Rudie Radio Waves

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    Many a game.
    Oh man, I love those old Sonic fangames. It's awesome that you decided to give it another shot.
    These screenshots look very good... I can't wait to try this!
    Best of luck, my dude!
     
  5. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    That was one of my first issues. I managed to update multimedia fusion 2 to the latest version, although it did come with more problems. Still, I adapted the resolution to 16:9 and fixed most of those issues.

    I still have some problems, like, if I don't run the program as an administrator it doesn't save the files. I have to figure out a workaroud. Maybe it works fine on an stand alone. Any tip to help me save time?

    Also, I will implement a final boss, but not the original story. Basically, what prevented me to finish the game was waiting for the help to make the story. It required art and it was almost impossible to find a person who was willing to work on it. Because of that I kept expanding the game (Rather than fixing the core issues and polish, which was another mistake from my part), and that's how I ended up with so many levels on the first place.

    I have to post someday what happened. I am sure it might help some people to prevent these mistakes from happening again.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2020
  6. Sally Rose

    Sally Rose

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    heres some tips, a fast n dirty work around is try to get saveing to work, but as a work arround use a code system, ie like old school mega man, every levery will have a code you can see when in pause screen. that way if for some reason a save doesnt save, then the player can just punch in the code in the code screen to warp to the level. and for story, nothing fancy is needed, just do sonic 3 and knuckles in game sprite movement style cut scens, it can tell the story you want, just in a more retro way. it will be cool and retro.

    EDIt

    takeing the mega man idea futher, a sweet idea for the final level would be to do a massive boss refight room before the true final boss. I would go nuts for that! a true clasic Mega man style ending to a sonic game. something ive wanted for ages.
     
  7. Man I remember being excited for this over a decade ago! Best of luck, I hope to see this finished regardless of how it's probably aged.
     
  8. Yoritoshi

    Yoritoshi

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    Never forgot about this, Sonic Utopia and Everlasting Song, man. It's going to be rad to play it again.
     
  9. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    Too bad: I really have nothing saved from Sonic Utopia.
    I was trying to create an open world styled sonic game, so it probably would have never reached an end xD.
     
  10. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    I'm really glad to hear this. Thank you! Every few years I've searched for this and Everlasting Song on google to check for new developments.
     
  11. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    Well, actually during these years I had eversong as a personal project. Unlike fangames,that project could report me some money.
    Unfortunately, the team itself didn't work well together. We ported the game to a custom engine, but the person responsible decided to not to work on it anylonger and it was unstable. The artist wanted something different as well and was wanting something more in the direction of god of war. We were all working in the meantime so it took years for little advance. Nowadays, with such amazing metroidvanias in the market, I am not sure it will work.

    That's why I will finish SFA, to close that step of my life, before I keep on with a personal project that now is completely under my control and I won't depend on third parties to finish it.
     
  12. Skeit

    Skeit

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    One of the best fangame demos back in 2008! I even asked for it in 2018.
    I'm from Wuhan, the first city where the coronavirus came to burst all over the world. It is comforting the virus has helped something good by any means!
    Good luck!
     
  13. Chaud

    Chaud

    Member
    Wow, it's amazing how in such sad circumstances, some interesting and happy things have resurfaced out of nowhere! i've noticed something similar in other communities I also participate in (MODs, romhacks) where people ended up going back to abandoned projects and advancing or even publishing something. This is very nice! It looks great!

    Since of the 20 levels you will only publish 8 in the final game... I was curious, could you at least show some pics (even if unfinished) of each level that will be abandoned? Just out of curiosity, it's amazing that a project that advanced so much ended up not being released before!
     
  14. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    20 levels as acts. In the end It will have 11 zones. I closed several levels that were a bit halfway through, so actually there's a few ones that are shorter than usual or have less than usual paths. Most of the levels lost were lost because I had no backup file. So, sadly, I don't even have a picture to share.
    As far as I remember I lost the following:
    - Evening Valley Zone: Inspired in the exteriors of Marble Zone in a sunset for act 1 and eveningh for act 2. Orange colors. One of the very first levels I created. It was not very good and I was going to deprecate it anyway.
    - Dead Gardens Zone: Inspired in a Rose garden /victorian garden. Dark purple ruins and yellowish vegetation, brambles, black fences.
    - Mad Chase Zone: Sky Chase inspired running through a fleet of red spaceships deploying enemies and hazards.
    - Lightspeed zone: Super sonic boss battle running over the ocean against the enemy.
    - Mecha Sonic miniboss: Stand alone boss fight against mecha Sonic.
    - Gatekeeper miniboss: Stand alone boss fight against a shapeshifter machine who replicates several minibosses with slightly harder variations in a "boss rush" style combat.

    I also lost:
    - Chao battle minigame: RPG style minigame where the chao used elemental attacks by turns. I had a video in my youtube channel.
    - Bonus stages: Inspired in sonic 1 GG's bonus stages. You can have a look in the old trailer.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Also, I am having a doubt about how to proceed, so maybe you people can help me decide.
    I have a few features that doesn't make sense anymore because of story reasons. For instance, I have two fan characters that were supposed to have an impact in the storyline. Also, a Boss battle against one of those and a whole level that was supposed to be part of the climax of the extra story. None of those makes sense now.

    So I decided to move it as some kind of easter egg in the Garbage dump section that will unlock if you complete the game with all the characters.
    So, my question is the following:
    Should I dump the extra fan characters in the Garbage dump and leave the game as Sonic, Tails & knuckles?
    Should I replace the fan characters by other ones? For instance, Darkspeed is in the end an alter ego of Shadow?

    Poll added.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
  15. Rudie Radio Waves

    Rudie Radio Waves

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    Many a game.
    Just voted. I really want you to keep the fancharacters. I love that you resurrected a 2005-ish era fangame, and if I were you, I'd stay as true as possible to that "aesthetic" if that makes any sense.
     
  16. Chaud

    Chaud

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    I agree! I'd tell you to keep them, I think it's part of what creates this early 2000s fangame vibe. And to be super honest, story is the thing I'm least worried about in a Sonic game, in the sense that I usually ignore it and often even skip the cutscenes and stuff like that. For me, "Eggman BAD, need my chaoemeraldus omg Super Sayajin" is motivation enough! :V

    For example, I love Freedom Planet, but I can literally only play it in Classic mode. Just let me run, jump, and go like a jet through the colorful scenery and done. Tell me there's a bad guy I need to jump on and I'm happy to do it. By not making Sonic kiss any human princesses or anything like that, I'm satisfied with whatever the game brings.
     
  17. Sally Rose

    Sally Rose

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    yeah i say keep the fan chairs, and do still try to add in the secret fight and super sonic fight, you only truly need to do a mini hand of of on no so n so has the thingy, lets go super n fuck shit up, a short simple in game sprite cut scene and ur good to go, or heck go ultra lazy and show a still image of bad guy holding the mcguffin/in the doomsday weapon and then angry sonic/whomst ever and boom super/secret fight go

    tldr its a sonic game, no need for long winded explinations, just do a simple fast oh no look at this, me angry now. and your good to go
     
  18. LarkSS

    LarkSS

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    Hey BlueFrenzy - long time no see! I actually just became a member here. Really cool to see you're still around and willing to share a slice of your earlier life. I think the majority of us have been caught stuffing too much content into our projects at one point or another.

    I voted for fan character removal, strictly to make your life easier as you have enough on your plate with cleaning up and packing your content. In regards to indefinite wait times on your spriters, I'm definitely guilty! :rolleyes: I still have the Sonic sprite I was working on for you back then, but I'm sure it's missing too many of the non-basic animations to be worth salvaging.

    I was a little sad to hear that you lost the special stages... however, it shouldn't be a difficult undertaking. Not sure if your game was made in MMF2, but I still have my copy installed and I can help out with that if you'd like. I'd envision a few hours a day over a week would take care of engine building, importing of assets, and creating the 7 stage layouts. In the worst case scenario, you just don't include it. ;)
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2020
  19. BlueFrenzy

    BlueFrenzy

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    Long time no see!
    Actually, it was never your fault or anything. As lead of the project is also my job to keep people motivated and reducing their plate as well. I think I was very demanding at the time and it was part of why it was hard to progress. Lesson learnt.

    Actually, what I lost was the bonus stages, not the special stages. The special stages also aged very poorly but they are there and supersonic is still in the current build :)

    Most part of the tedious work is already done, since I had to readapt the game to 16:9 and since every level is a stand alone I had to do it by hand on all the levels. All the special stage rings had been setup and the game can be played from the beginning to the end. I need to prepare a help menu, finish the final boss, complete the episodic bosses that were half baked and make the menus. Then, some control and display stuff, clean up the major annoying bugs, make a complete playthrough with all the characters and fix everything I find. Then, I will release it as beta so everybody can play it, report issues and, if there's anything serious like a lock, I will fix it. If it's minor I think I will report it in some wiki so when I open source the game, anyone, if they want, can fix it if desired.
     
  20. LarkSS

    LarkSS

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    Good to hear that I misunderstood about the special stages. Bonus stages can be lived without! I'll be looking forward to your release, whatever state it comes in. I know MMF is not good for team development, but feel free to reach out if you want any extra help i.e. boss coding, UI design, etc.