While I think it's a nice tutorial and a cool effect, I'll probably keep the level select as it is for now, for convenience and parity with the original. If I were to change it, I'd probably build something a bit more like the competition menu - I have a few ideas in my head that may or may not happen some day. In theory, though, trying to dump a whole screen of art into VRAM in one frame might be a bit of an adventure (just check out how well the S3 SEGA intro performs with Kosinski art). Preloading all the art and just swapping mappings is more realistic - obviously this is what happens already for the text mappings in S1, this mod (presumably) and indeed my own options submenus.
So for the first time today in honor of Sonic 3's 20th anniversary I'm gonna try this hack. Is the version on the wiki the most recent?
I've also been playing it today and, if I may suggest a small thing... Perhaps the "Sonic 3" mode in the "Tails assist" option could be simplified even further by activating it with "Up+Jump", rather than "Up+Jump, then Jump again"? It's something that has been bothering me in the remakes. When the player does the "Up+Jump" combination, it should be already obvious that the player wants to activate Tails' aid (just like the special abilities were activated in Sonic Chaos), so the need for pressing Jump again always seemed pretty unnecessary to me, like the activation requires two steps instead of one. Now regarding the "Super Controls" option in the main menu, I think it should be renamed to something more descriptive to avoid confusion, like "Super & Hyper Transformation" or even something like "Emerald Power" to avoid spoilers. The current denomination, next to the "Multi-button" selection, left me scratching my head wondering if it was something about Super Sonic having a special attack set to a separate button... until I went to the Internet and read about it. I imagine this could be a common case among those who don't follow the topic regularly. But anyway, perhaps a simpler "By button" or "Button assigned" option could be added next to "Multi-Button"? Can't talk for other people, but I'd personally find it much less confusing if I could just jump+transform/detransform by pressing the B button whenever Sonic has 50 rings. Still loving this project, by the way. =P
Regarding the first one, how would you control when Tails begins flying? What if you want him to enter his flying state at a certain point where it won't negate his falling (Read: Too late)?
He'd just start flying on the top point of his jump (as soon as "Y speed <= 0"). As always, his jump would be the same height as Sonic's, so the flying height could still be adjusted if needed.
This is a pretty good idea, but implementing it needs quite a bit more work than the current system takes. The mobile-style activation control is just a really cheeky tweak on the AI and control mapping - AI Tails isn't allowed to mimic your pressing jump if he's already in the air, and the tweak is that pressing up overrides that. So the only reason it's double-jump now is to get him into the air first. If you can get the AI to start jumping about like a loon of its own accord (e.g. by standing on a higher surface) and you press up+jump while Tails is already jumping, he will start flying. I guessed that was how it worked when I was first playing about with S1 mobile, so that's how I was able to implement it so quickly before the last release. I'll certainly consider it in the future, as it would be a bit more natural, and make it a bit easier to control Sonic while grabbing on, since you wouldn't be forced to do double jumps. I think what's there is the most natural control solution, but I can never find a way to word it that actually explains it clearly and doesn't make it sound awkward! An option to nominate a button would be a nice addition, so I'll certainly consider that too, and I'll try to remember to go over the menu wording again. I'm starting to think my options screens need help screens, which is really not something that sounds like fun to do. Or maybe a nice printed MD-style manual to go with the boxart (who wants to translate it into a billion European languages?) Cheers! Always good to hear.
So, something interesting is going on. I dunno what exactly what I did, but for some reason, even when I take damage with a shield, it stays on. I think it happened when I did a Peel Out and accidentally jumped into a set of spikes w/ an Aqua Shield. Though maybe Super Sonic has something to do with it? I canceled the form before doing the Peel-Out. Sonic still does do the hurt animation, but that's about it. EDIT - Even if I die and obtain the new shield, the effect remains. EDIT - Okay. Now if it seems like Sonic can't be hurt, period. Only insta-kills seem to do the trick. Weird.
That normally means Casual Mode is turned on - you should see a different thing in place of the lives counter too, and 1up boxes are pre-popped. You can turn that off in the options. If it's become enabled by mistake or you're getting this effect some other way, it's a bug. The only other case where I've seen this behaviour before is in Marble Garden, where it can happen in S3&K too - somehow the "on a spinning top" flag doesn't get cleared so you always get damage protection from that. I only ever saw this once and never figured out why it happened.
Oh, so that's what it does. Didn't know that. It was turned on by default. I figured something was a bit odd with the icons, but I usually have the FPS turned on over it, so I figured it wasn't anything major. Don't I feel dumb. Thanks.
So just as being underwater gives the guys different color/shading, would it appropriate to suggest that they get the same treatment in Sandopolis Act 2 as it gets darker and darker? They look odd considering everything is getting a dozen shades darker while they're just glowing their way through. I think the Hyudoro are perfect as is, though. What do you think?
I think they must have not done it for gameplay reasons. I mean, that would be the obvious thing to do, yet they didn't.
I'm in agreement with this... in that it would look awesome. THAT SAID, 2 problems with this: Ghosts won't stand out due to palette reasons AND SOZ Act 2 is enough of a cruel bitch without EVERYTHING being darker.
Hmm, well OK then, how about... ...let the white stay bright, and let the other colours of the characters go dark. And if anyone asks, just blame it on Ultra-violet!
Hmm, this is actually kind of a nice idea. I can't see any particular technical or gameplay reason it wouldn't work in some form or other, but they would've had to write a bunch of extra code or do some pretty roundabout hijacking to make it happen - I mean, nothing massively complicated, it's just that S3&K rarely steps out of its comfort zone with the player palette line, considering all the considerations of Knuckles having his own variant, and all the Super variations, and the fact that they already failed to get the underwater stuff working especially well in those cases (and to give Knuckles a remotely sensible water palette). As usual, I won't make any promises as to if or when, but I certainly consider it a nice-to-have in some form or other.
This is tempting me to attempt a hack of SOZ Act 2, where everything goes PITCH BLACK except for the whites (leaving the ghosts, and Sonic's eyes.)
...and bits of shoes, and shiny things that shouldn't by any rights be shiny in this situation, and probably large chunks of Tails; contrarily, the ghosts' grey bits would get all black and jaggly. I had the same thought at first, but doing it well might be more interesting than I thought at first. The safest thing would probably be to have an underwater-level of darkness for everything, so that you can still see OK and the players still stand out, but things blend a bit better; that's probably what I'd try first, and it'd probably be a non-default option sort of thing. Still, I would be interested in seeing what it does end up looking like if you attempt it.
The problem with this idea is the HUD. The HUD uses colors from the object palette, namely the yellows and the grays, which are also used by rings, springs, spikes, etc. So if you want to keep the HUD fullbright, then you'll have to deal with having those objects be fullbright as well... which then turns into a problem as arbitrary objects get darkened while others don't, in particular red springs (which use the player palette) would get darkened but yellow ones wouldn't, which is all kinds of gross. So a nice convention, which actually works well for gameplay purposes, is to just lower the brightness on the stage colors and call it a day -- leaving all the objects bright is consistent and doesn't really look wronger than a cartoon where you can see the characters' eyes glowing in the dark. The alternative would be to darken everything, including the HUD, but man, by that point you're really just turning down the brightness on the whole screen and wasting that precious color range. And that's like, dude, what the hell. As an aside note, hi Tiddles
Might you be able to get further with Carnival Night Zone Act 2 when the lights go out? Springs and the like don't stand out as much there, but they don't really "fit in" either.
