Gimmicks and Gadgets you'd like to see in a Sonic Zone

You have to use a crane to lift a platform into position so you can jump onto it.

 

Not so much a gimmick, but I'd love to see an entire level rotate like the special stage.

YEP, AN ENTIRE LEVEL. The engine's (barely) cut out for collision at any angle that would arise as a result of this; and think about the large spiked pit which is later going to be a ceiling to run under, huh?

I know this would require some beastly hardware and a coder with large Sputnik testicles. But it would be AWESOME.

 

A Slingshot Ring, ala Knuckles Chaotix, where you pull a ring attached to an elastic band to propel you to new heights.

Could work in any direction and given the force applied, will send you in the opposite direction at that speed. Could be used to jump large gaps, reach new heights and could be used over a gap as an elastic swing. It could be used in that manner to go around a HUGE loop.

There are probably more uses, but I will stop there.

 

I like this a lot. A more stable, stationary 'handle' for Chaotix's gimmick could be really fun, and some devilish puzzles could arise from it.

 

Jayextee: "Moving rings"
RGamer2009: "Slingshot Ring ala Knuckles Chaotix"

Ding! Two smart suggestions here.

I have a hard time coming up with gimmicks. The physics and speed alone are often enough to entertain for hours on end, they don't seem very predictable (not that it affects your experience playing negatively). How many people can say "When I spindash off this diagonal hill, I know where Sonic's gonna land"? The other thing about gimmicks is that the player should have the choice to get "off" the gimmick if they want to go up or down to another path, don't trap them inside so they get pissed. For example, those rotating wooden circles in the Sonic XG demo are great, because you can spin round and round while it moves and you can get off them any time you damn please. Where you go depends on your timing.

So for a good gimmick, the player needs to have the choice of using it so they're not forced to go to a path of the gimmick's choosingf, and, should they decide to get "off" the gimmick all of a sudden, the challenge of the actual act is not reduced in any way.

The pushed spring reminds me of the trampoline you could carry in Super Mario World, so that would slow the gameplay in a Sonic game down, and not in a good way. The beam of light is also an interesting idea, as long as it doesn't force a player down a path. A zone that rotates entirely is also interesting, but it might be to the player's benefit if it rotates occasionally, so it doesn't feel like a maze (like Wacky Workbench, no thanks). A mystery monitor might work, but I don't think many people would like the dumb luck of getting Robotnik after they've collected 135 rings in an act.

By the way, I'm not trying to shoot down ideas, I'm predisposed towards certain gimmicks and what I think made the old games good gimmick-wise.

 

What if it was a bird badnik like flybot 767 in launch base zone that constantly respawns when you activate it, but it has spikes as its beak with the power to break "Knuckles only" blocks and barriers. So you have to lure the badnik over to the barrier to break it to proceed. Kinda similar to baiting following flying badniks to chase you long distances in S3K to glitch stuff.

 

Have roulette wheels been done in casino-style levels before? I'd like to see the character dash into one, and, depending on the speed, have it stop at a certain point, giving a reward or penalty, or even a spring to an alternate path.

Maybe a surfboarding/wakeboarding section in the beach stages. Based on when you jump off a wave, the further you fly, getting rewards and determining where you land. This could also go for snowboarding and streetboarding, but probably would have to include actual jump ramps.

This is more of a boss gimmick than a level one, but: after a sky-high battle with the boss machine, you and Eggman plummet to the ground. But wait! Eggman isn't done yet, and is shooting obstacles at you as you fall. By avoiding enough obstacles for a long enough period of time, your speed builds up such that you go into ball mode, enabling you to deliver a blow to Eggman. Hit him enough and he's finally defeated, and you get caught by the Tornado. Fail to do so in time and faceplant on the ground at terminal velocity...

I seem to recall an idea (from a certain community project) that involved a pile of fallen leaves: run over them and it's a ramp, spin through them and the leaf pile breaks up, opening up a blocked area.

How about gears that require a spin dash to work? Sort of like a differently-angled bolt from Metropolis Zone. You spin at a certain spot to open a door ahead. Or, you could pass a gear that looks optional in a water level, but it actually changes the water flow to alter the height of the water or the pressure from a fountain which would propel you upward. This latter one could also be done with air pressure.

I think it'd be interesting to have a powerful character, like Knuckles, be able to smash certain spots while underwater to loose a single air bubble, to compensate for his lower speed while moving underwater. In contrast, other character types would have their own aquatic advantages, such as Tails' swimming, or Sonic's ability to run over the surface.

The timed doors in Pirates' Island from Rush Adventure were sort of neat, but they didn't offer much in the way of alternate gameplay - just some power-ups. I'd like to see something like that used for more interesting consequences.

 

Interesting side note: did you know that Super Mario World used a similar technique first? In one of the Choco Plains levels, passing the 2nd screen in 25 seconds would access a different 3rd screen.

 

Hrm. What if you somehow combined the moving ring and the slingshot ring ideas previously mentioned. Like, the ring is sliding back and forth and there is another ring attached to it by chain. As the main ring slides around, the other follows, dangling below. If you grab the other ring, you pull it down some. If you touch ground, you remain stationary until you release the jump button, otherwise you slide back-and-forth like those sliding grab handles in Launch Base Zone. But if you can touch ground, you remain stationary, while the primary ring continues to move, stretching the chain out. If you let go of jump, you snap back in the direction of the primary ring, being propelled off in whatever direction you get launched at, and at whatever speed you get launched at.

As for ideas that don't involve stealing other people's ideas and combining them....
How about a variable water level that can be user controlled? Like, if Sonic passes a specific point at a certain speed, it sets the water level to maximum, which makes a floating platform bridge that can be used to cross a gap to a secret area. If sonic falls between the platforms, however, he has to navigate the area below under water!

 

Hm, maybe not. The SNES could rotate whole levels pretty easily -- case in point being Mohawk and Headphone Jack.

I juts think it'd make a guy dizzy.

 

And CastleVania IV. And Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. And Cameltry. HOW COULD I FORGET THE MIGHTY CAMELTRY? :'(

Dizziness would be part of the experience, I reckon; the level wouldn't be a huge clusterfuck of traps in lieu of this.

 

Maybe a giant cork screw Sonic runs on that makes a gate rise up that he has to quickly jump off the cork and run underneath the gate before it blocks his path again or squishes him.

 

I would love to see autogenerated bridges that loop around parts of the level, or, maybe a revolutionary lens design, or, oh, I don't know, a few more of the concepts seen HERE!!! >

 

I had an idea once for a casino level badnik. It was modeled similarly to a Moto-Bug, and featured spikes on its top, a spotlight in front, and a bumper in back. If it saw you with the spotlight, it would lower its spikes and charge you, allowing you to jump over it and destroy it from its now-exposed behind.

I also had an idea for a first or second level boss. The eggmobile would be equipped with a weight on a chain (akin to those in Marble Zone) which Eggman would attempt to drop on Sonic. To hit him, you would have to jump onto the weight and the jump up, but the catch there would be that the bottom of the eggmobile protrude a long spike once the weight was up high enough. You would have to jump quickly enough, or dodge around the spike.

 

Have you not considered that maybe part of the reason it was scrapped was because it was a bit crap?
Especially the camera design. I've seen those videos and they gave me a headache!

 

The X-treme ball was pretty cool, for a level only (or even, the bonus stage), not the whole game made out of it. And that camera is pretty horrible. I don't understand the love for extreme. The level that the poster posted is the only one I like. All of the other levels might have some part I like a lot, but everything else is boring, rinse and repeat.

 

- There's always the good old mushroomized-machine that flips your left with your right as far as controls are concerned.

- A variation on the swinging vine and the moving platform where you move up and down to avoid pain in between corresponding jumps either to other platforms or more swinging vines or whatever.

- A platform that gets launched between two launchers which spins at a really fast rate (but always lands Sonic-side up) and adds angular velocity to Sonic's jump if he tries to disembark mid-trip.

- A steady stream of debris floating along a current made visible by said debris that requires a constant shuffle between pieces of the debris in order to avoid obstacles.

- Something similar to the spindash lifts in Lava Reef Zone, only they build up momentum, only get a set number of spins before the gears break, and are capable of going higher if you rev the spindash at exceptionally high speeds before the mechanism breaks.

- A tiny boat with a partially submerged section where you can rev spindash in order to make it faster or slower.

- A ramp where lava, actually, no, fuck the lava... molten gold! is poured down in varying amounts and the ramp must be boarded and speed maintained with the pouring gold in order to avoid damage (amazing that thats never really been done in a Sonic game before).

purely graphical gimmicks
- X-ray scanner foreground window - pretty self-explanatory
- Pipes that emit some kind of coloring dye into surrounding fluids.
- Badnik mounted directional lights
- Other non-stationary lights (background)

I might add some more later. A lot of this stuff is from things Brad and I want to do in Nexus.

 

I just posted this in IRC, but this strikes me as an interesting alternative to the dithering paradigm used in a lot of Genesis titles, largely because it only uses 3 colors -- http://blog.ted.com/2009/06/amazing_illusio.php

Since it probably only works in certain instances like that spiral it'd probably most at home in a special stage, where the extra colors in a pal. line can be used for particularly trippy effects. Or you could make the spiral rotate by shifting the palette a little bit, possibly, like what some Sonic CD special stages did, for example.