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Discussion in 'Project: Sonic Retro (Archive)' started by Tweaker, May 6, 2009.

  1. Andlabs

    Andlabs

    「いっきまーす」 Wiki Sysop
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    Writing my own MD/Genesis sound driver :D
    In re limits:

    Don't limit by target platform. Sonic 3D Blast Saturn was just Sonic 3D Blast Genesis with a few touch-ups (fog and rain in Rusty Ruin, for example) and fully 3D special stages.

    Here is my stance on limitations:

    DON'T LIMIT ANYTHING YET!!!

    Sonic 2 had many innovations that Sonic 1 didn't have: corkscrew loops, most of Metropolis Zone, etc. Sonic 3 (alone) RAN with the new ideas: the hand-launchers, horizontally-crushing walls, and fans in in Hydrocity, the spinning tops in Marble Garden, most of Carnival Night, the lifts in IceCap, etc. The Death Egg Zone in Sonic & Knuckles should be enough to make you get the point, but there are also little things in every level (like the unique loops in Mushroom Hill, the sand falling from a tube in Sandopolis Act 2, etc.). There wasn't a lot of limitations to the ideas initially; if there was, I doubt any of that was possible.

    Let all the ideas come through. At one point, LATE in the game's development but BEFORE level maps are finalized, stop accepting ideas and reject the ones that may not work.
     
  2. Tweaker

    Tweaker

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    This is sad.

    Okay, here's a goal to shoot for—everyone agree on something before Friday comes around or the project is officially getting scrapped. It's been a whole week now and absolutely nothing has happened. You've shown again and again that this community is incapable of handling a project of this caliber, so I'd suggest going out and starting your own individual projects after the fact or something like that. Absolutely ridiculous.

    Tick. Tock. Work it Out.
     
  3. Spanner

    Spanner

    The Tool Member
    If people are just being so gay with limitations here's something for you:
    [​IMG]
    The main palette is Sonic and Tails' from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the secondary palette is Emerald Hill Zone's.
    There's been some very good contributions, it's a shame that it's going nowhere. :(
     
  4. But this is Project: Sonic Retro? :psyduck:
     
  5. Andlabs

    Andlabs

    「いっきまーす」 Wiki Sysop
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    Writing my own MD/Genesis sound driver :D
    Okay that's it.

    Form: 2D platforming.

    Colors: 64, like in the original Genesis games.

    Story: Sonic must beat Robotnik before he gets the 7 Chaos Emeralds.

    Target Platform: Let's not worry about that right now.

    Levels: At least six, at most fifteen. We must do: tropics, underwater (and make it a good one), ruins, playtime (casinos or carnivals), and Robotnik's lair, at least.

    Enemies: Let's start with a bee-like and a monkey-like and work our way up.

    Music: Wait for levels.

    Characters: Sonic and Robotnik for now.

    Let's get started, shall we?
     
  6. Mr. Mash

    Mr. Mash

    All fanbases are awful Member
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    Good idea.
    People are talking about saturn limitations? It sounds like a cool idea, but can anyone here even program for Sega Saturn? My vote is for to just keep going with what we were doing before, E02, or something was it? Sorry, I don't know a whole lot about fangames and such. But this way we can put nearly anything we want into the game, and we can use our own limitations.
     
  7. I think a slightly larger pallette could end up quite nice, if you don't mind limiting the target format. or rather, give rise to more objects with varied colours instead of more colours on the same thing.
     
  8. Ritz

    Ritz

    Subhedgehog Member
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    Here's an idea: Of all the people in this thread discussing the palette, how many of you actually plan on doing artwork for the game? This harks back to my original suggestion, which very wisely went ignored: Gather the talent you need to get shit done before you start making decisions for those people. Find an artist who's guaranteed to stick with the project until it collapses under its own weight again, and let them decide how many colors they want to use.

    Or, hey, to make things even simpler, try this! Find an artist and tell them to make a Sonic level. That's all it should take. If the palette is really of any concern- which it shouldn't be, unless you really do intend to turn this into some sort of hack (Read: Retarded)- then you'll find that scaling back a palette is an exceptionally simple task with pixel art. Color replacement tools are a dime a dozen, you know. On the contrary, if an artist needs to be told up front how many colors to use before they can set to work, they probably weren't much of an artist to begin with, and they won't get you very far.

    The palette isn't important right now. The Sonic sprite is particularly inconsequential; in fact, it's probably the single least important element of the entire project, and I'd question the capability of anyone vouching for a leadership position when they can't comprehend this one simple truth. There's a wealth of exceptional placeholder material at your fingertips, not to mention the sprite sheet Chimpo had already completed 1/3 of, which was fantastic and isn't about to be topped by anyone here anytime soon. Find a programmer and a level artist. Create a single act with one original and completely functional enemy. You can bitch about either later on, but these are the most elementary components of a Sonic game, and if you can't accomplish this simple task within a month's time, you'll have concrete, irrefutable proof that this project is a complete pipe dream which shouldn't ever be attempted again.
     
  9. Shadow Hog

    Shadow Hog

    "I'm a superdog!" Member
    Agreed with everything except the color limitations. Basically, what Ritz said. Screw limitations. Just get art done and we'll bicker about this later.

    Now, who knows how to use E02? We need an arbitrary test stage, preferably one that can work toward a normal stage.
     
  10. test-object

    test-object

    By Torm, no! This is terrible! I... I had no idea Member
    Obviously.
    I can live with that.
    Not agreed, we agreed on Super Sonic being playable and perhaps an extra Final Boss fight... At least I thought so.
    Myeah, let's start on level one.
    We got most badnik ideas from the first level ready, for your information. There's 5-6 of them.
    ...Why?
    Correct.
    For the love of God, PLEASE yes.
     
  11. Andlabs

    Andlabs

    「いっきまーす」 Wiki Sysop
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    Writing my own MD/Genesis sound driver :D
    That's not story. Super Sonic is a nice extra and an extra final boss is... an extra final boss. Those has nothing to do with stopping Robotnik.

    So we don't run around making random music.
     
  12. Shadow Hog

    Shadow Hog

    "I'm a superdog!" Member
    Yeah, just use placeholder music right now. Music's typically the LAST thing to get finished...
     
  13. test-object

    test-object

    By Torm, no! This is terrible! I... I had no idea Member
    Oh, wait, misread it. My fault.

    Well, we start music on level 1, but I don\'t see why we should wait with let\'s say, Casino music once it\'s done. If we reach level 2, that level will be the main focus.
     
  14. jman2050

    jman2050

    Teh Sonik Haker Tech Member
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    Does no one even listen to me anymore?

    You know what, screw it, I'll just make a video of me tinkering around with Chimpo's work months ago before this all blew up.
     
  15. Sailu Baru

    Sailu Baru

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    I'm totally agree.
    We talk again and again, everybody shows his opinion, but what are we able to do exactly?

    We must fix our skills before fixing the objectives rather than the opposite.
    So, each of us must tell what he can do.
    We don't need only one leader. We'd rather need one music leader, one concept art leader, one progammer leader ... And one (or two) "big boss" to coordinate and to fix the priorities, ok.
    And we need some guys working under their decisions:
    level designer(s), badniks designer(s), music composer(s), music programmer(s) ...

    I think that just telling what you want to do is insufficient. Tell what you CAN do and then we must etablish a complet list of the staff.
    Then, each of us will know his own task, concentrating on it and letting the others to do their jobs.

    Personnaly, I can compose some music partitions in a sonic tone (in a guitar pro format) and give its to a music programmer.
     
  16. jman2050

    jman2050

    Teh Sonik Haker Tech Member
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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17As6o_RaJg&fmt=22

    No one has seen this yet, including Chimpo. Note that it is basically Stealth's PSR Proof-of-Concept that he posted ages ago that most everyone ignored for some reason with some of my additions. The title card is a (poorly drawn) custom object of my doing and, as can be seen, Chimpo's running sprites have been input into the scripts, with some changes in the animation routines to compensate for the difference in frames. There's a small bug I haven't fixed yet, but it's minor.

    We can do placeholders for whatever we like and I could put it into the engine easy. Since the game mechanics are already done for us, it would be a relatively simple matter provided I and anyone else working on this had material to work with. And I don't have to worry about the hassle of conforming to the Genesis's limitations.

    This is my case for E02, and I'd certainly be willing to do more work on it.
     
  17. Ritz

    Ritz

    Subhedgehog Member
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    Great. Now just show us that you can do something more sophisticated along the lines of an original badnik or level gimmick, and P:SR will be halfway towards meeting my bare bones stipulations. All that's really needed now is an artist, as whoever did the artwork shown there is almost certainly no longer lending a hand.

    And then it'll only be a matter of finding more programmers and artists. Have fun with that!
     
  18. Matwek

    Matwek

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    You can keep the tree as I did that, although the one you have in the video is the old shitty version, plus it was designed for an entirely different level theme.
    I'm pretty sure the original artists of everything else have requested their stuff not to be used.
     
  19. jman2050

    jman2050

    Teh Sonik Haker Tech Member
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    If you need an actual demonstration I can do that, but I was hoping my work on my other endeavors would speak for itself. Changing the system I work on isn't going to change my programming ability :P
     
  20. Namagem

    Namagem

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    I agree with everything Andlabs said. That's a reasonable ground I'm willing to stand on.