Thirded. The layouts are great, and theres tons of paths to take. The thing I love about the layouts is they use momentum to get you to some of the paths, so if you don't start to roll before some slopes you end up taking a whole new path.
I stopped at Chemical Plant Zone, but so far, I'm very impressed with the layout. The first zone was extremely fun, and I found myself playing it multiple times (hence why I didn't get past CPZ yet, but I shall eventually). There are quite a lot of paths to take, and despite its speed, I didn't get any vibes that it was playing itself whatsoever. It was just plain fun. My computer currently has no sound card, so I can't comment on the music choice. But I really like how this turned out. It was a big surprise too, since I hadn't heard of this hack until yesterday.
Found a glitch at Chemical Plant Zone. Sonic got stuck behind the loop. You can kind of see where he is; you can see some of the blue pixels from the shield. Hopefully, this wasn't just a speed glitch (I was going really fast), and can be fixed in the next release. Just wanted to let you know. This game is a lot of fun, BTW.
Looks like a plane changer missing. I disagree though, this hack doesn't play itself. You CAN run and beat the level, but there's lots to explore.
This is really nice. some complaints on music department though, some tunes have off notes in them and qometimes annoying instruments.
Er, no, he's actually gone too fast and is stuck inside the loop, not behind it. It is a speed-related glitch... I meant to reverse the loop right before it so that you have to smack springs for speed control, but forgot. (And yes, I used the "I forgot" line regarding that Hill Top glitch as well.) Um, this *is* the Sonic Crackers track, just with a different voice set because it choked during conversion. I tried porting Electoria from 32X and failed, hence why the Sound Test has two remixes of Electoria from Crackers instead of one of each. From what you said, though, I can't make out if you're saying that there's something wrong with it, or if this is a case of They Changed It Now It Sucks. Details, please... I'm willing to adapt. I'm confused as to the angst about the Intro level and Cascade Valley being similar. Aren't all you favorite hacks three-acts-per-zone Sonic 1 hacks? I've got an idea for the music here that I'll see if I can implement soon. For the many people jumping to my defense on the levels not playing themselves, I much appreciate the support. I stated in my release post that some early levels play themselves, but I was referring to Chemical Plant specifically, though, and that was intentional. No other levels should play like that. In any situation where even a single route plays itself, I tried to design it so that taking control during those sections and jumping to another route is usually quicker. You're all acting like you beat the game, so I'm sure you all got to see the level maps (with emerald monitors marked) that the credits point you to; you can all tell from looking at those. The one thing I really wanted was feedback on Track 14. No matter how many times I listen to it in the Sound Test, it sounds horribly voiced and the volume sounds out of control. But when it plays in-game (for the one or two people that've heard it), it seems like it fits. But I've been known to have a god-awful taste in SMPS music, so I could use a better opinion. ===================================================== So, regarding where the hack's going... I figured out how to add S3K DAC samples the day after release, go figure. I'm going to do level layouts for Casino Night 1 and Hill Top 2, and I have some crazy ideas for how to spice up the second and third acts of Metropolis, but who knows if I'll make them work. It's hard to go much farther without new art, though... I'm itching to try making new music tracks, but I don't know what the level's themes will be. :P I'm debating how to handle the hubs... one thought I had was that the player had to at least play Act 2 and beat Eggman to proceed to the next hub, but to hide Emeralds in Act 1. The other thought that came to mind was to use a mission-based system, where finishing the level, finishing in a certain time, and finishing with a certain score (did ya notice the SA2-esque scoring system?) all count as level missions, and perhaps there's a few act-specific missions, and after beating a set amount of missions, new hubs open up. I'm just not sure how hard this would be to design, how many people would be interested in time/score attacks, and how many people would find it boring after a few levels. tl;dr It's not perfect, progress will happen, I just don't know what the finished product will be.
The music is fine. It's just that the Crackers track sounds different, but as you said, apparently the instruments/voices were changed during conversion. The way it sounds in the actual Crackers rom is better to me. Otherwise, this is a really entertaining hack that I hope you will continue. The layouts are fantastic.
Okay, I played this hack and I think its amazing! Keep it up! Ning jah, ma saan su signaturest aru küll TmEE.
I like where this is going. Another good "all-around" hack with asm, art, layouts, music. Speaking about music, I'm glad to see more people are understanding the process of the XM to SMPS conversion. Thumbs up.
^ Iono if you're talking about this hack, but I didn't use any XMs at all. Tweaker did the Sonic World, Leaf Forest, and Hot Crater tracks (although I modified his Hot Crater in hex), but I did everything else alt-tabbing between looking at a MIDI I found/made in Anvil Studio and transcribing it into a hex editor. Go ahead, lecture me on how many hours of my life I'm wasting. :P I'd love to get set up with XM4SMPS or the like, but I fail at getting the initial XM to sound right.
Speaking of music, Thorn, remember that I'm still willing to help you out if you need it. It's not like I have anything else to do, anyway. =P
Ironically, you just mentioned three XM files :3 Nice work about doing the other songs in hex though. This goes also for me.
I didn't know you thought Tweaker was incapable of using an XM file. :3 I was actually going to bug you about Track 14 before I made a release, but I figured that maybe two people would reach where it plays in-game anyway.
On real HW, unless I press start, the game will hang on the level name text stuff... music continues to play, all text will be gone, leaving you 3 colored blocks. I'll take a pic later if needed. I suspect some uninitialized flag
sorry for double post, anyway I played through the game, and it just manually injects replay value into it "hey go to my website and see the pics you can potentially exploit :3" :P also : "but did you get all the emeralds ?" "if you did, find them all" <- I guess the "if you did" and "find them all" part should be swapped for making sense out of it a bit better :P "blabla new zone comes" And the thing crashes when Sonic2 logo pops up, complete with music stop and YM2612 notes ringing...
^ I'm not sure how else to get replay value out of a layout hack without character-specific abilities to force new routes on a second playthrough, really. On KEGA and Gens, the end of the credits does stop dead, but the music continues to play... and it did this even before I edited the credits. This is the first time I'm hearing of the title cards crashing, and I don't know the cause. Also, on my end, it says "when you do find them all...", which makes sense to me. :s For those who haven't found out, the "exploitable pictures" TmEE's referring to are level maps, with emerald monitors marked, and routes to complicated ones marked as well. Things are slowly breaking as I expand the ROM, and I've rearranged all that I know how to in an attempt to keep things working. I don't anticipate the finished game even having a credits sequence, but I'm sure other things will cave in along the way. Tails has already started acting up, causing Tails Alone games to sometimes freeze on the title card (of course, without character-specific abilities, his presence would be kind of counter-intuitive anyway). I have no way of testing things on real hardware, so I'm sure that by the completion of this game, it's probably going to be a nightmare on real hardware, unless there's some list out there that states every difference between KEGA and actual hardware.
My shitty memory... well, now reading this, it does make sense :P For those who haven't found out, the "exploitable pictures" TmEE's referring to are level maps, with emerald monitors marked, and routes to complicated ones marked as well. Address Error is the only real HW breaker, no emulators besides Regen emulate it... I wonder does Regen break or not... FYI, this hack is some of the best I've played :v:
I sat and got all the Emerald monitors.. but got no new zone.. instead the credits began to load then a few seconds later they load a second time. how depressing, I worked for like 8 hours trying to get them all :/
I hadn't forgotten, just expected it to be in there, which then makes the replay value worth it when you find the extra level. Oh well.
