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Retro Sonic Engine: Help!!!

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by Sonic CD X, Apr 23, 2012.

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  1. Stealth

    Stealth

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    Sonic Mania, HCGE, Sonic Megamix, SonED2, [...]
    Short answer is no, I wouldn't have :P

    Longer response- E02 was already in progress even when I started Sonic for MegaCD. It wasn't very far along, though; I may not even have had the original hardcoded Sonic gameplay lifted from its predecessor implemented at the time. It hadn't even occurred to me to try and use it, really.. The original CD project had two specific purposes, neither of which an E02 port was particularly appropriate for. It had to be the original game

    Megamix was an extension of that to some degree- I had already done the conversion and decided to do the same thing to Megamix, even though it meant tearing down and reconstructing the game all over again. The issues with E02 come in here- Megamix was already heavily underway, and there was even less to the basic Sonic engine for E02 than it is now. Even if I were to successfully recreate important aspects of E02 for the SegaCD, it would have meant having to re-code all of the rest of the basic Sonic 1 plus everything uniquely Megamix

    To be honest, I don't think I see any real benefit to using E02 as a means to create a Sonic game for SegaCD. You're still dealing with exactly the same graphic, sound, storage, and processing limitations, and to top it off, you'd be throwing on additional RAM and processing overhead for asset management and script interpretation. That's a lot of stress to throw on 64k+256k+512k of RAM and 7mhz+12mhz of processing power. As it is, the system is under strain at times running the native code version. Once you concede to the hardware limitations, the remaining aspects of E02 (aside from multiplatform support, of course) are really similar enough in nature to the original Sonic engine and assembly language programming that it's not worth the cost, even if Megamix were multiplatform

    Yet you didn't figure that those could be replaced? :/

    The 2007 Retro Sonic demo you're attached to comes packed in a data.bin file, but Project Mettrix has been distributed as separate files for the longest time. Recently I switched to my own packed format for the game proper, but very shortly afterward, I released the public "template" as separate files so they could be used to build a game. I had already upgraded the sound effects by that time, anyway. You may notice that I've already pointed that out. The music can be just as easily replaced. There is no evidence of any of this being the case as of the last publicized state of Retro Sonic

    There is no evidence that there was or would have been a system in place by which one custom level can proceed to the next. If such a thing weren't already implemented, it would have been impossible to perform using Retro Sonic such as it was- the only thing you can infer from the 2007 demo would be that you could drop new level layouts into the "Custom Levels" selection list. There was no clear indication that new art could be used, or new sounds or music, and certainly not new enemies and other objects, or stringing an entire game together rather than playing individual zones.

    On the other hand, with the Sonic template for E02, and even pre-E02 Project Mettrix having their files laid out entirely in the open, you can see that any asset can be replaced, and with the exposed scripts, you can see how you can make other changes and additions, including establishing a level order by which the game progresses from zone to zone. The original engine for Project Mettrix, which I get the impression that you were basing some of this on did this in a more novice-accessible way, by means of a simple, modifiable list of zone IDs

    You may have benefited from waiting until summer to get into this at all. You need more time to take a good hard look at what's available, and even how you would actually have to go about doing whatever it is you want to do. Even if you do know what that is, it's clear that you currently have even less of the necessary knowledge than you seem to think you do. Some people may be willing to help you get that knowledge, though, and you can improve the odds of that by humbling yourself a little more and otherwise projecting a more appealing personality

    I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this fact made it better for you to behave in a patronizing manner and remain unapologetic instead of worse. I'll have to remember that. :|

    I'm glad you think so. :|
     
  2. Billy

    Billy

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    I don't really see what kind of niche E02 is trying to fill. It certainly doesn't fit the Game Maker/MMF crowd, since it requires actual scripting. It almost seems like someone who could make use of E02 would also just as easily be able to make their own 2D engine anyway. I'm sure this is not the case, but this is what it seems like on the surface. This is unfortunate, because a lot of talented content creators for games like this aren't always technically minded. Just trying to skim the documentation is a daunting task, given Stealth's affinity for using as many words as possible (see the above post). I'd have to see something made in E02 by someone other than stealth before I'd ever consider using it. Then again, I'm not really what anyone would consider a "content creator", so what do I know?

    This is no way an attack on you Stealth, by the way; you're an all-around awesome guy s'far as I can tell. E02 looks interesting, it just scares people away, I think.
     
  3. Aerosol

    Aerosol

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    Sonic (?): Coming summer of 2055...?
    I've always seen it as a way to develop games in such a way that much of what makes the game works is within the confines of the Mega Drive's capabilities.
     
  4. Guess Who

    Guess Who

    It's a miracle! Oldbie
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    Okay, so, uh. The original thread's question has been answered - quite thoroughly - and now it's just kind of dissolving into Stealth having to explain basic concepts of game development. Lock? Lock.

    Sonic CD X, please try to do a bit more research next time.
     
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