Giovanni's Level Pack 2 is a brand new entry in a series that has not seen an entry since its first attempt all the way back in 2018! And, for the first time in the series, this can actually be called a level pack! :D I've created this ROM hack to maintain myself occupied and hone my level creation skills. In this entry, you will find two levels. I understand this is not an exciting amount of levels for a level pack, but I haven't yet told you what is in these levels! Multiple Exits! That's right! There's three of them in each level. And if you find all of them in all levels, you get... the satisfaction of having done so! Exits can be found in the form of Giant Rings, meaning that just going to the right end of the playfield will not necessarily be beneficial to finding every single exit in the game! The addition of multiple exits is only one of the major changes I've brought to the table to encourage exploration, the other being... Red Star Rings! Pulled straight from Sonic's later adventures, Red Star Rings are one of the many secrets to be found in Giovanni's Level Pack 2! There's five of them in each level. Some will be more obscure to find. Others will require quite a bit of skill. Can you find them all? Explore the levels! Look through every nook and cranny! Find unexpected ways to get to places! One route can get you in many places, and many routes can get you all in one place, in these... Large Levels! That's right! You may recall the fact that I've created the Large Levels Tech Demo for Sonic 1 back in January 2023. In that demo, I had built a base engine capable of packing levels 8 times the size of the biggest Sonic 1 level, and twice the height of the biggest Sonic 3 & Knuckles level! I've decided to utilize my skillset, as well as the utilities and knowledge brought onto the community by others, to bring what I'd learned then in Project Sonic 128! Most chunks used had to be created or redesigned accordingly, so you can expect a more unique level structure! Here's a number of other things you can find in this ROM hack: The moveset is comprised of Spin Dash, Super Peel-Out, and Drop Dash! No more need to worry about the classic Ground and Air Speed Caps, they're gone! In a rush? Try lowering your best time as much as possible! These levels may be daunting at the start, but you'll be surprised at how fast you can blaze through them once you get a good grip of them! Or, if you want to take things slower, you can try and hunt for as many rings as possible! These two features and more come with SRAM to boot! It's not necessary for play: it'll just store your records, and keep track of exits and Red Star Rings! If you do take things slower, then you've nothing to worry about: Time Overs are no longer a thing in here, so take as much time as you need! If you are going for speed, however, you might want to pay attention and try not to die: checkpoints will no longer reset the timer! Spoiler: Credits Project Lead: giovanni.gen Level layouts: giovanni.gen Programming: giovanni.gen fuzzybit Additional artwork: Cinossu ("GIOVANNI'S LEVEL PACK 2" Logo) giovanni.gen MDTravis (S2 ASCII punctuation, some MZ tiles, palette assistance) rosie_eclairs (S1 Expanded) (Note: Permission was obtained for the portion of the sprite sheet that was used) Speems.md (Edited Dune 2 Text Sheet) TomatoWave_0 (Spin Dash dust, Red Star Rings graphics assistance) Additional code: Cinossu (Guides) Clownacy (Sonic 2 Clone Driver, the disassemblies as we know them today) DeltaW (Guides) devon (Guides) djohe (Select code from Sonic 1 - Score Rush) FraGag (Guides) Hixatas (Guides) Lightning (Guides) Kilo (Guides) kram1024 (Guides) MarkeyJester (Deform_Scroll, Guides, original Project Sonic 128, and possibly more) Mercury (Guides, probably some assets from ReadySonic) ProjectFM (S3K Object and Ring Managers recreation) Puto (Guides) Raendom (Guides) redhotsonic (Guides) shobiz (Guides) Tweaker (Guides) Playtesters: fuzzybit HazelSpooder MDTravis Scrap Sorra Additional feedback: D.A. Garden djohe You can watch a playthrough of the hack here: You can also obtain level maps as an additional download from my website!
So, I just took a look at the level maps (Haven't had a chance to play anything as of late... and DAMN. These are gigantic. I also really love the Red Star Rings. I did RSRs a while back, but they were the same size as regular rings... I actually prefer your style as they stand out a LOT more. Looking forward to giving this a playthrough.
Version 1.0.1 - Fixes an error that lets some objects delete stuff they shouldn't; - Fixes a selection of visual errors in Scrap Brain Zone As far as the development of this hack goes, that's it. Thanks for playing!
