Welcome to my fan game. As the title says, it's a 2D Shadow the Hedgehog game. This is the first time I've ever shared anything about it, so I'm going to answer some questions you may be having. Is there a demo? No, the game, if you can even call it that, is currently brutally unfinished. I have practically created the bare minimum required to make a little preview. The physics are unfinished, Shadow can't even turn to the left, but the basics are there and making it playable wouldn't take too long if I continue development. This is the main reason why I'm posting this to begin with. I'm not sure whether this is something people want right now, but I will gladly continue making this game if I see some people actually wanting to see the finished product. Also, the name is probably only temporary. I just didn't want to include "Shadow" in the title because I don't feel like it is worthy of having his name yet. It's a joke title, but it's not supposed to be a joke game. If I ever reached the point of working on anything story-related, I would want to respect Shadow as a character. Here's the preview: How do you play the game? Controls: I have made the game with mouse and keyboard controls in mind. You currently use A&D to walk, mouse to aim/shoot and Shift to enter "walk mode" (because adding a run button would be ridiculous, as you would be running/skating most of the game anyway). Eventually I would also need a button for special attacks, like Chaos Blast, and I might add a spindash, but whether the game actually needs that or not is up for debate. Controller support would be added later, but I feel like the input layout would be pretty self-explanatory. Gameplay: As far as the gameplay goes, you would basically run around like you do in the classic games except now you have the added mechanics of the chaos abilities as well as the many different types of guns you can use to damage enemies/bosses or activate things. Some areas might temporarily lock you until you kill all the enemies or have an elevator type gimmick where the "walk" button would come in handy because you wouldn't be sliding all over the place with the acceleration of skating. (Originally, I wanted to make an isometric Sonic game, but the year of Shadow inspired me to make an isometric Shadow game. I quickly realized that I had very few Shadow games to actually get ideas from, so I stepped back and decided to give Shadow a 2D game. This doesn't mean that the game can't also have isometric parts, but I don't want to spoil too much, in case I actually do continue development.) Would the finished game look like the preview? Kinda. As far as the graphics go, most of what you see are placeholders. Westopolis, which is what this is supposed to be, looks nothing like the actual Westopolis, it's not even remotely destroyed. I also didn't go all out while making the background and foreground, so you can expect them to look much nicer (and more accurate) when the time comes to actually make them. On the other hand, Shadow looks almost exactly as I had him in mind. Obviously, a lot of animations are missing and the ones I have made could use some tweaking, but The pixel art style of the original genesis games is way above my level and I could never hope to achieve that level of shading. But who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind in the future and add some shading to the sprites. What about the audio? I'm not really a sound designer, so I'm probably going to borrow a lot of sound effects. As for the music, I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's going to be remakes of the original soundtrack made to fit the 2D gameplay, if that makes any sense. The preview has a very bare-bones (and unfinished) version of what I mean. The original Westopolis soundtrack simply wouldn't fit. However, I'm not limiting myself to genesis instruments. Will the story be different? This is the part I'm least sure about. I'm definitely ditching the whole choose-your-own-adventure thing the original game had going on. It just doesn't make sense for the story to be so wildly inconsistent. This means the game will either have every stage of the original, played one after another in a certain order, or I can try to put together an "optimal" path with a story that makes sense that features the most beloved levels of the original. What this means for the gameplay is that every stage would have you either fighting the aliens, the soldiers, or you would have a neutral level (I'm not sure what this would be like, you could either fight both sides at once or both the soldiers and the aliens could be treated as obstacles that you need to move around). I also haven't decided on whether you would still have other characters fighting alongside you like in the original. That's all I have to say for now. If you have any questions/suggestions/ideas, then please don't hesitate to share them!
SMALL UPDATE I sadly haven't had a lot of time to work on the game, but I've managed to put together a tiny prototype for anyone who wants to try it out. prototype: https://arvigames.itch.io/owtheedge (There's also a Windows download because the web build tends to be very laggy) controls: WASD + Spacebar + Mouse CHANGES I've decided to replace the whole gun thing with Shadow's Chaos Snap ability. To use it you simply aim at a close enough object/enemy and then attack. I personally find this to be more fun, but I also haven't completely ditched the shooting mechanic yet. The prototype doesn't include any curved surfaces because I haven't finished the physics yet. Expect the next update in about a month. FUTURE PLANS - adding slope physics - spindash - Westopolis (either the full level or part of it) - some polish