Sonic 2 Retro Remix

Seeing as this is the first I'm seeing of this as well... I like it. The point where the tiles just under grass on the slope meets the vertical rectangles used everywhere is finally cleaned up, and it looks like Sonic won't appear to be standing on the tips of the blades of grass in many places anymore.

A few concerns, though. With the old art style, we were able to get away with having grass right against the edge of a path without any special "edge" grass, and the level design already takes full advantage of this. This art doesn't look like we'll be allowed to "cheat" like that, so I'm hoping not to have to do a total revamp of the levels. Also, I see you're using the Intro Zone from the last beta for design... you do know that it's using different art data than the Cascade Valley acts, right? I couldn't find room for enough 16x16s to accommodate the S-tubes, the beach tiles, and the invisible solids used for a possible Super Sonic fly-in in one set, so it's split into two. I hope you don't have to make the art a second time for Cascade Valley. :s

Other than that, though, I think the sexiest thing we could do for the art here would be to leech off somebody who understands how background layer deformation works and get the background to move relative to the portrayed distance behind the playfield.

Also I'm not just telling you this over MSN because it's 1:30am and I don't feel like waiting for MSN to load and slow my computer down when I could just post this and then go to sleep quicker.

 

So I've had a video of progress since the last beta on YouTube for a while now, but it had been set to private because I hadn't got in touch with DNXDelta over whether or not he wanted the art shown. However, since the art is a combination of the last two pictures in this topic, I don't think anything "secret" is being revealed. I also want to get opinions underway for the sake of getting to polish it as much as possible before the hacking contest deadline.

Here's what's been done to the first level since the last beta -- other levels are staying under wraps due to them being half-finished works. Since the last beta didn't actually make it outside Retro, there's a fair bit of old material shown and explained in the annotations.

Usual comments/criticism expected and appreciated.

 

...huh? You mean, a watch like a wristwatch? Am I missing something?

I'm not quite sure what you expected with the music, really. With the exception of Seascape, all of those songs are custom-made -- Tweaker did the songs for Act 1 and the hidden level in their entirety, and I wrote out the song for Act 2 in hex and Tweaker voiced it.

The Wall Kick sprite is from Crackers, just with an extra arm placed on (taken from Mighty's identical sprite, of course). If you compare the sprites from Sonic 2 to the sprites in the picture there, you'll see that most of them are perfectly in proportion, just with a different palette. Therefore, I assumed that placing the Sonic 2 palette on the Crackers wall kick sprite would be the best way to go about it, but if you have any better ideas, do tell... I'd asked DNXDelta about the possibility of a custom sprite before I remembered that there was an official one, but that doesn't mean a custom sprite can't still be done if people think the official one is ugly.

As said in the annotation for the first mission list, emeralds unlock new hubs. As with Super Mario 64 and its sequels, just a few emeralds will unlock many levels early on, but the ratio of collected emeralds to available ones will get stricter as the game progresses. A lot of people have commented that they don't care for the scavenger hunts -- if that's the case, do time and score attack missions instead, and you're likely to just stumble onto emeralds and monitors as you do the latter.

For your second question: Yes.

It might come back, but there's no guarantee. That level is just the first level of my last hack with DNXDelta's artwork on top of it -- you could always get said hack and play the same level, just with broken physics and horrible music. Chemical Plant Zone in Retro Remix is from my last hack, too, but that's because I was able to rearrange how all of the routes connect to each other and cross to make the level seem fresh.

 

I'm working on an easter egg or two, actually -- we'll see if I can get them into the final game. Maybe DNXDelta has some ideas for easter eggs or random sillyness as well; I've never thought to ask, actually.

No SRAM at the moment, partly because I'm unfamiliar with implementing and accessing it, and partly because if the mission or level order changes in the final product, old SRAM would be useless anyway. Savestates ftw!

 

By the way, DNXDelta got in touch with me last night and mentioned that his PC is possibly fubar'd, so until he's got everything under control, I'll be forging ahead with level designs.

For all of you who're pointing at the sprite directly under the wall kick sprite on the Mighty/Sonic comparison sprite sheet (the skidding sprite) as a possible replacement for the wall kick sprite: you all apparently have better art skills than I do. While the angle Sonic's facing definitely makes sense, there's way too much there to edit for me to have any shot at drawing it correctly. Sonic's raised leg and foot has to be moved to the "wall", everything behind the foot's current position has to be custom-drawn, the other foot has to be rotated somehwere between 30 and 45 degrees to look like it's flat against a wall, the fist against the wall needs to open into a palm on the wall, and the arm holding the ring has to be moved to a more natural position (there's no reason to hold it out like that for a wall kick). That's way too much for me to do without drawing something out of proportion or with improper shading.

Somebody teach me to be an artist, dammit, because I sure as hell can see what I need to do... I just can't do it. >_>