Original Project Discussion Thread

Century Gothic, it looks like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic

 

Century Gothic <3 My favourite

The rolljump behaviour is the loss of control when jumping from the roll state. Try it.

 

Oh, that. I'm so used to the lack of control from doing that so I very rarely use it. Didn't know Sonic CD didn't have it.

Also, thinking about it, that font, or its sister ITC Avant Garde does make a pretty decent title card font.


"[T]his distinctive font could be described as a post-modern interpretation of art deco, and its influence can be seen in logos created in the 1990s and 2000s."

Wikipedia approves.

 

Oddly enough, I consider the use of Century Gothic (And it's mini-discussion, but let's not go too into it) relevent. It's my favourite font for a reason: Sonic the Hedgehog is reknowned for it's usage of art deco styling in the presentation screens, and you can bet that a proper sequel would adhere to this, also.

Now, when I started college, I wanted to make my work somehow look "Sonic-esque" (The mark of a true foaming-at-the-mouth fanboy) without being too obvious, and Century Gothic had a similar art deco appearance, but is also very useable as a font (Which you cannot say about the S2 or S3 title card font, for example).

Anybody got any real knowledge of art deco poster design? That would be very useful.

 

I wonder how many people that have played Sonic actually have any knowledge of these kinds of design influences and choices. I'm continually learning new things about these games without having to wade through a disassembly.

 

Sonic 3's title cards had always struck me as very obviously Art Deco, but now you mention it, Sonic 2's "Gaslight" font is also rather art deco in it's appearance. Sonic 1 just seems to use a bog standard Serif font though.

I love art deco, it's a great aesthetic.

 

Im sure a lot of people here probably desgined their own sequal when they were kids, would be interesting to look back and see what you came up with due to the fact that at the time you only had the origonal 2D games for inspiration. Would probably give a more accurate feel to how you expected the games to progress, although obviously skewed to a more childlike perspective.
I think a trip to my attic is in order to see what I can dig up.

 

I'd love to have a part in this project if it gets off the ground properly. The only problem is I have no idea how I could possibly help. I'd be good in conception sketches and whatnot, but I have no knowledge or skill in sprite-making or hacking. Really, the only thing I could come up with are names and designs.... but I'd love to help a project somehow.

 

This is really most of what I know on the matter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOl2a9IshpE

 

If this project starts up, I would love to help out with level layouts artwork anything to contribute.

 

One thing I wanted to add was that at around the same time as this game we also had Super Mario World, which I also played. Since part of the goal in creating this topic is to get a base to create a new, good, standalone Sonic game, I felt it was significant and worth including.

I had first played Duck Hunt in an arcade, and then tried to play it on an NES but it didn't seem to work. Instead I got to play Sonic 2.

Super Mario World (which I played at a friend's house), however, felt larger and in some ways -- dare I say it -- more fun. I think that it is quite honestly the Sonic CD of the Mario series. Despite the fact that all of the Sonic games are fun and fast, and SMW shares a lot of the upbeat, colorful, and CG-inspired presentation, that game manages to stick with me a tad more than anything else. When I hear or see someone playing SMW, I get a lot more excited than with Sonic 2. Perhaps it's because not having an SNES of my own led me to play it less often, but Sonic 2 by comparison these days has got a bit old to me, whereas that game hasn't.

SMW does a few things that I really like in this case:
1. It doesn't try to be technically impressive but instead throws in a bunch of simple (though often challenging) platforming elements
2. It is very simple gameplay. It uses only 3 buttons and has only two real super powers compared to SMB3's ton of power-ups and such
3. Lots of thematic unity within most of the game music
4. The levels are united by an overworld that is easy to navigate; I prefer this to the
5. Hidden exits and multiple paths through the game allow for great replay value and some exploration
6. Gameplay allows for both a challenging path and a more simple one depending on the players' abilities, hence it isn't too hard for new players or too easy for experienced ones

 

(I moved muteKi's post for relevance)

Basically, as a fourth game in a much-loved platform series, parallels can be drawn to SMW and what a fourth Sonic game should be, I think.

The game did everything that was established to be right with the Mario series at that point, stripped down some of the redundancy from SMB3 (Two powerups which essentially did the same thing? The racoon suit wasn't too necessary, I think) and completely reworked the way the overworld map worked into a much better, non-linear system allowing for greater freedom in which the game was played through; which is something akin to the Sonic standard of multiple routes through levels to the same end on a smaller scale.

Plus, graphics-wise it wasn't a huge leap above what had been done before, but was consistent and fresh, with a strong aesthetic that has hardly aged at all. The game proved that you can re-invent the wheel whilst keeping it equally as round.

In design, competitors are often researched in order to see what has made them so successful in order to apply these principals. SMW is the perfect example of this, and I argue it probably deserves as much research and deconstruction (Design-wise, not technical) as the first few Sonic games.

 

Really, I think this should support as many platforms as possible, if only because it can. However, I think it should be more for modern systems.
Also, SMW uses more than three buttons. Not that you need the other one, unless you want to turn around while flying or shoot fireballs while running.

 

Right, we have XM3SMPS. We have nineko and other masters with it. We could use XM3SMPS and record VGMs, if the ProSonic engine can't support smps binary files.

Then again, we could use XMs and use Mega Drive-ish instuments.

 

Well I am on board with a project like this, and it would be really interesting to see a project like this to fruition. HOWEVER, I do agree that you guys need to tread carefully with this one, consider your options, and don't title it Sonic 4. This could be a project with A LOT of potential, and I do see it here. And I'll willingly offer music services if needed, as in the end this project very much interests me.

Good Luck and Godspeed to all of you.

 

1) Remaking a sequal to Sonic is like living in denial.
When J.K. Rowling killed off Dumbledore - kids were actually rewriting the book as they deemed fit.
Why don't you change "Eggman" to "Robotnik" whilst you're at it, even though Sonic's world is riddle with egg-shaped references
As well as remove Shadow/Cream/etc. even though the "Sonic way" is to add >=1 new character(s) per game

2) Don't waste sweat and tears over a trademarked character.
For all you know, SEGA can trash your precious work with just one letter.
Sonic is a company's money whore, and don't you forget it.

3) Invent a better character and make a game out of it.
Put into it all the attributes that you respect;

Using a trademarked character is like painting with numbers
Sorry but it's just not going to be featured in a museum any time soon.

[EOF]

 

Fuck it. Just fuck it. Let's just do what Capcom did, hack Sonic 2, and call it Sonic 4.

 

<!--quoteo(post=209040:date=Jul 21 2008, 10:23 AM:name=SANiK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SANiK @ Jul 21 2008, 10:23 AM)

 

Ok, so this topic of "running themes" in the Sonic games, such as the fonts, got me thinking, "are there any running themes with the music?", since I'd love to have a shot at writing music for this thing.

So I compared Green Hill Zone, Emerald Hill and Angel Island, and I noticed something interesting...

They all start with the same chord! Check it out!

edit: Seems the chord is C Major, but GHZs is a bit different, I think it's just an inversion though, G C E, instead of C E G.