[New to E02? Check the lower portion of this post for info] This is a major update, bringing about new and better editing interfaces, new and enhanced functionality and ease-of-use script features, and other feature updates such as stereo and Ogg Vorbis music support! There is more, but the specifics are too numerous to list here. Please see the the What's New document Also, those who have been keeping up may have noticed that I've been promising for a while to update the old Sonic example scripts with much better formatting and commenting to make it easier to read and manage. It was a long and boring process, but it's finally complete! On top of that, the functionality has been greatly expanded, including the addition of Tails and Knuckles as playable characters, and as a playable game, it has been expanded to include the same Green Hill zone from the 2008 Project Mettrix demo, as well as an all-new level using Green Hill and Labyrinth Zone objects, graphics based on PlaySega's online Flash Sonic the Hedgehog editor, and two new bosses - "Gemstone Garden Zone". There are even Bonus and Special Stages. Once again, there are too many updates to go into complete detail, so please view the ReadMe document There is also a gameplay video spanning Gemstone Garden from start to finish, though it doesn't cover all possible routes, and only shows the location of two of the nine Special Stage rings (It is possible to get all 7 Chaos Emeralds. There are 7 "difficulty levels", plus a "hidden" eighth difficulty. The layouts are generated randomly each time) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVD1aQH6ZCg[/youtube] -------------------------------------------------------- E02 is a versatile, performance-oriented engine for creating many different types of 2D games. Any game developed with E02 will run on any supported system (assuming the spec of the lowest-supported system has been considered), which currently include: Windows, Linux, Intel/PowerPC MacOSX, PSP (Custom Firmware), Wii (Homebrew Channel), and GP2X Wiz For more information, check out the official site: http://stealth.hapisan.com/E02 Games currently in-development for E02 include: Megaman: Triple Threat - http://stealth.hapisan.com/MMTT Sonic the Hedgehog: Project Mettrix - http://stealth.hapisan.com/Mettrix Currently-Available game templates include: Generic Template - Just enough to be able to put something on the screen and fiddle with it Sonic the Hedgehog Example Game - Made from the same scripts and data as Project Mettrix; six gameplay levels, two types of bonus level, and more demonstrating many features from the original Genesis games including complete Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles player characters, and provides a basis on which new levels, enemies, items, and abilities can be added http://stealth.hapisan.com/E02/#Templates For discussion and support, visit the Forum: http://stealth.hapisan.com/Forum Or the official IRC channel: Server- irc.badnik.net Channel- #OC The following resources are also available for instant update notification: http://www.twitter.com/E02Stealth http://www.youtube.com/OCStealth
Well hot damn I'll be checking this out. Great work Stealth. Edit: The accuracy of the Sonic engine is unbelievable. It's virtually indistinguishable from the Genesis games, with only sound and the occasional graphical quirk hinting that it's not.
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Holy heavenly sow. I've been waiting for this, Stealth. I'm taking a look at it right now. Any plans on an Android port?
thank you VERY much for this. Here I am hoping it's easy to use for noobs like me with a fangame on mind.
E02 closes (does not crash? no crashlog on the console) when you enter a special stage in Gemstone Garden in the Mac build. (Running on the latest OS, 10.8)
I... what? Well, I assume you're talking about one of the old posts on my forum. Between E02's current state and the amount of time I have to dedicate to it right now, messing with resolution is very low priority. Considering that what I have gets the job done without leaving anyone out, I think time is still much better spent on functionality and usability than things like worrying about how to transparently manage varying resolution for a hundred different desktop setups and devices If I had one, I could sure give it a try :P http://stealth.hapisan.com/Donation/ ^ That's how the Wiz became supported E02 is primarily a 2D engine. I might look into some 3D after I've done some more work on the 2D game aspects, the editing interface, and probably producing a few more basic usage examples, but most likely not any sooner Oh. It was a downloads problem.. I had over 200 files to add to a files list for the download, and in the end I appear to have forgotten a single one. Naturally it was in the one place I forgot to test- the Special Stage Try downloading it again to get the missing file. Sorry about that... Also, one other thing. For Linux and Mac ports, you can still get quit error messages like missing files, but only if you've run the program from the command-line. If the program mysteriously quits like this, you might be able to get some information about it that way
This is going to be more of a general pointer than specific to E02, but oh well. In this day and age (Yes, I know the engine emulates a retro era) games typically worry about two aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9, generally with the vertical viewing area being identical between the two and the widescreen resolution having 33% more horizontal span (or field of view in the case of 3D games) compared to the standard resolution. That's basically two 'different setups' to worry about, with simple stretching handling all the varying resolutions and such. This pretty much has been standard since the HD era, and even on platforms where the resolution isn't one of those two aspect ratios (I.e. Wii) game engines more often than not still render based on either of those two (often included in options) and stretch, just because many modern TV sets will conform to a HD standard.
Man, I'm really getting the "this day and age" treatment? "New" doesn't automatically mean "better", you know :P In regard to wide screen in specific, I really don't see it as one of those "just do it" things. As the developer of E02, I have to consider what kind of impact my choices in available features and how they're used will have on the game developer. In general, before I implement anything, I had better be damned sure I'm happy with it, because the last thing anyone needs is for me to make mistakes that complicate things, otherwise have a long-lasting negative impact on one or more features, or end up requiring end-users to make their own changes to compensate for any corrections I have to make. I can't rush into any particular feature without running that kind of risk, and that's why I have to be very careful about what I choose to implement, and when and how it's implemented. On a slight tangent, that's why the developer tools are only recently getting more attention- for me, the most important thing is to have something to develop -for-, and that functionality and performance not be restricted by hasty tool design choices To move back to the subject of the screen aspect, I'll start by saying that I haven't felt that it was important enough in relation to anything else to have given it much thought, given the multitude of other things that need to be addressed to make E02 more complete and usable. In that respect, I can't implement it until I do, because implementing features I'm not at least around 75% comfortable with just seems like an extremely bad idea. Issues I can think of already are that I'm really not of a mind to completely drop 4:3 as it is still possible to display a lesser resolution on a larger screen, while the opposite is impossible. That would also mean that if I were to implement aspect in such a way as it would be locked per-game, I can see many people choosing 16:9 just for the sake of it, which would make it unusable in situations where 4:3 were ever to still be required. If I were to implement gameplay user control of screen aspect (the person playing the game can choose 4:3 or 16:9), every single game developer would have to account for both options. This becomes an important matter when you consider aspect-specific game mechanics, like single-screen-sized boss arenas and the like. Take, for example, Sonic 1's boss arenas. They wouldn't directly translate to wide aspect, and would require modification to lessen the impact that the extra width would have on gameplay All I'm saying is that this sort of thing is more of a difficult matter for a general tool developer to handle than, for example, the designer of an individual game. This would apply to the 3D question posed above, too
I'll say this much. As far as I know, every Android phone that supports 2.3 and up has a 16:9 screen. So if you get a hold of an Android phone, there's that to consider. Actually, I'll say something else. There is an Android emulator. I don't mean to be pushy, but I don't see why you can't test and debug with that. Is there a problem with it?
That's not exactly a real problem. The PSP has a screen resolution of 480x272, and I currently deal with that by centering the 320x224 screen in a black border. Conversely, I can say that, for example, the Wiz has a fixed resolution of 320x240, and therefore wouldn't be able to handle any widescreen "enhancement". 320x224 is thoroughly sufficient for the duration of developing the core engine and development tools, and as a base, guarantees greater compatibility Yes, there is. The emulator is fifty times slower than molassas, does nothing for me in terms of multitouch, and actually does not otherwise cover the full range of features of a real device. For instance, if you look hard enough, you'll find that the emulator does not support OpenGL ES 2, although that's what they push for you to use. There are things that run on devices that will not run on the emulator, including, and you'll see you don't give me enough credit, some of my own tests In any case, an emulator is never sufficient for real platform testing, because it is not the same environment. My ability to properly build and maintain any platform version of E02 hinges entirely on whether or not I personally own that platform, so you'll have to wait until I do
Why are you restricting yourself for the sake of single screen boss arenas at 4:3? There was a massive discussion in the S2HD forum about this and the best way around it was to make the single boss arenas wider. This didn't sacrifice the 4:3 aspect because the intention was to make the screen resolution dynamic so it was a single screen at 16:9 while the screen moved in 4:3. You could say it's not the pure way to play Sonic but this is only going to be an issue if you are going to do the original classics as they are and only the purists care about shit like that. Most of us have made the jump to 16:9 because technology has all gone that way so it's not for the sake of it and the only platform that still has 4:3 is the PC, which won't last much longer because the screens are going obsolete. Most of us are sick of playing games with massive boarders at the side just because the purists want their precious single screen boss arena at 4:3 in a classic Sonic title that is nothing more than 5% of the game. Another thing is that people using the E02 engine will for the most part be making their own Sonic game so they're not restricted to that resolution and people that want to use 4:3 can simply use the dynamic option. There is absolutely nothing stopping this from working and I've seen games that have done more effort than a simple 16:9 to 4:3 aspect, R-Type dimensions did this with 3D to pixel art with a push of a button while playing the game. I understand the want to play at 4:3 because playing mame arcade games on a 16:9 drives me nuts but your engine isn't restricted by old game restrictions. No slowdowns, unlimited colours, unlimited sound channels, human hearing quality sound, hell you can even add screen filters and FX plugins if you want, it's just silly to fix the resolution at 4:3 for the sake of legacy.
Show of hands - how many people are dead-set on ignoring the fact that some of the code in E02 dates back to 1997 and that the whole thing, being a complete, "powerful", and generic game engine, meant for use by anyone, for practically anything, has been built roughly 97% from scratch, by one person, for free, in spare time? I'd ask you to tell me, honestly, if I were to backtrack right now and retrofit E02 with 16:9 support, would any more people actually be making use of it than are attempting to right now, even in silent, but the only way you could prove your answer to me is to show me those people making use of E02 as-is. 16:9 support wouldn't have helped back in 2009 when the entire script system hinged entirely on using number values to identify Commands. It probably wouldn't even have helped once I had changed that so you could use alias names, because entering expressions was still a total hassle until I added keyword support a couple of releases back, and it was much more incomplete then than it is as of only about three days ago. I've heard from people who hated using the editor in 8x8 tile mode (ignoring the copy/paste feature) up until I added Stamps, again, only about two releases back. But I suppose a wide play area during gameplay is much more important than actually being able to develop the game, right? You're seriously going to make blind assumptions about my motivation and start slinging insults at me? That's pretty awesome of you
Well I come under didn't know rather than ignoring the fact that the engine was dating back to 97. Hearing that you've been working on it for 15 years is news to me. The fact that you have been asked shows that some people want it and the fact that the move towards a dominance of 16:9 resolution shows that it's something "relevant" though my point was never about these things it was about showing that 16:9 can work in a 4:3 screen with a bit of magic and some compromise if redoing the classics. Hey I'm not throwing insults at you personally am I. Since when does purist mean Stealth and if you're offended by the word silly then you need to look at the context closely. Don't get defensive because I say something that's not to your liking.
What these entitled folks making feature requests need to realise is that widescreen / dynamic resolution support is one of the most obnoxious, headachey things in the world. Stealth isn't your employee; scale it back a little, guys.
All fair points. I had thought that the emulator was updated to not be slower than molasses and lacking any proper access to the features of a real device. That aside, what kind of device would you want to test on? An Android phone running 2.3 can be had for very cheap. I'd send one your way myself if I had a game I was done with and wanted to make it available on Android.
Yes they recently added hardware GPU acceleration, and even more recent intel atom x86 Android image in the Android SDK. So yeah, now its not 50 times slower but just 2-5 times.
