Sonic and the Secret Extended Edition

Still, I wouldn't need to rely on cheap things. The problem is that I haven't bothered to find out how the game stores which chaos emeralds have been collected yet.

No, not really. It's more of a rip-off Knuckles' Chaotix. Although, NSMB is where I got the idea. :P

The Big Sonic sprites will just be like any other uncompressed art.

As for VRAM space, I looked into that just now. I can easily create enough space. All I need to do is move the art for the points, checkpoints and rings out the way. And I have an idea on how to do that.

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I've managed to fix the bugs with Pause+A, and the MZ3/4 transition.

I've been working on the GHZ Boss Chase. It's almost finished, I just have two problems:
1. Robotnik faces left while moving right, and I can't seem to cause what makes him face the other way. If I simply set the h-flip flag, it messes up his mappings.
2. Robotnik and Sonic pass through each other, so you can't hit him and you can't get hurt.

 

I'm surprised it doesn't use a bitmask.

I like challenges. Hence why I want to make the Giant Enemy Crab. :P

I'll try that, thanks. EDIT: It works.

 

<!--quoteo(post=157873:date=Jan 3 2007, 12:48 AM:name=Cinossu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cinossu @ Jan 3 2007, 12:48 AM)
.. c.c (Yes, I am going to be attempting to add it)
[/quote]

... Code Lyoko style giant enemy crab. And much bigger. :P

Edit: I fixed the problem with collisions. The GHZ boss now works perfectly. On the other hand, all the other bosses are now gone and you can only complete GHZ and MZ.

 

Okay, I'm returning from a several month long break, and have uploaded a three-part 23-minute-long demonstration video of what will be the third beta of S1:TOEE (which still needs a better name) to YouTube. Here you go:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76xtw7VSx-c
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj1aloIKpko
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=refY3ezn0oI

Points of interest:

Part 1
1:09 - HUD in Special Stage, time limit 2 minutes, background only birds/clouds, score is set to zero for some reason (bug).
1:56 - Massly updated results screen, emeralds fly in/out, time bonus = 100 points per second remaining, text flies out at end.
2:47 - Notice that the giant ring still appears. This ring will let you replay the GHZ special stage whether you already have the emerald or not. Special Stages are a good way to gain more lives because of the number of rings in them.
3:00 - Level transition. Old results screen text flies out, and title card appears, then the next zone loads.
3:40 - Notice numbers are behind the tree (bug).
3:50 - GHZ boss act.
6:33 - Notice malformed level transition (bug).

Part 2
1:00 - Brand new section of the level. Following this path rewards you with a 1-up. If you don't take the lava gush and just spindash over the lava, you get an easier path without a 1-up.
2:43 - Feel free to go 2 minutes ahead if you don't want to watch my being crap at special stages.
4:43 - Spend 2 minutes in the special stage and you lose. What used to be goal spheres are now glitch blocks (bug) which are going to be replaced with ordinary walls. They don't make you lose if you hit one, in favor of the time limit. Notice you still get the ring bonus.
4:57 - MZ boss act.
5:15 - Screen starts autoscrolling at this point. Robotnik does not currently appear to fight you because this boss hasn't been made.
5:45 - When the game timer gets to 1:15, the boss is assumed to be completed. Obviously, this will be removed once the boss has been made. Notice also that the capsule has the wrong tiles because the boss isn't there to load them.
6:14 - Spring Yard Zone has been edited enormously. Notice new art for blocks and platforms.

Part 3
2:00 - Notice that the emerald for SYZ appears in the 5th slot.
2:36 - From here onwards, there are parts of SYZ3 which are rather messy and unfinished (bug).
3:43 - Lightning shield is just the same as the rest of them. They'll eventually have the proper functions from S3&K.
4:14 - SYZ boss act doesn't exist, so the background appears on both planes. Pause and press A to exit back to the overworld.
4:57 - Pause and press Up, Down, Left, Right to get the sound test in-game. Enter the code 06, 20, 18, 09, 15, 14 (FUSION in numbers) for debug object placement (press B to toggle), debug HUD (press A to toggle) and level select (hold A and press Start at the title screen).
5:48 - Camera goes way out of control once the act is completed (bug).
5:59 - Brand new level select.
6:11 - Act 3 is rather blank, so Sonic would die immediately had the level not been exited.
6:23 - Signpost displays your collected emeralds. Later on it will also display zone completion status.
6:28 - Go past the signpost to enter Chaos Zone. You can't enter here until you have completed the other six zones (but this restriction was bypassed because debug mode was enabled). Notice that the title card does not display "ZONE" (bug) and Sonic falls a large distance to the ground as in MZ/SYZ level transitions (bug). This level is extremely unfinished.

General
Monitor contents mappings are broken (bug).

I'll try and fix anything marked (bug) in the list above before releasing the third beta.

C&C please!

 

Everyone already spent ages talking about that. They'll be fixed when I can be bothered to fix them.

I left it to do the whole 23 minutes, but it kept only the last two and a half minutes for some stupid reason.

 

Ooh, thanks, you have the animations in there too. I'll do that, then.

EDIT: I put it in and it worked great. The spindash needed a little fixing (it actually goes 0102030405, not 012345), and my clear animation needed a bit more fixing, as I finally realized that the dynamic pattern loading subroutine would only work for tiles indexed 0 to $7FF, so I fixed it to work for 0 to $FFF as my clear animation tiles now start at $85A. Also, I fixed the palette so that Sonic doesn't become really dark.

No. The screen locks to the vertical column where you climb up, but once you get to the 4th or so platform, it unlocks so you can go left. If you miss the platforms, you go back to the scrolling area at the start. You'll most likely fall onto some spikes and get trapped and die (which is the idea), but there's a chance you can survive. Making it so you died from a "bottomless pit" in that area would be plain stupid, because there is perfectly good ground below.

What exactly do you mean by "riding over"? The GHZ level transitions are all as they should be, but no other level transitions are fixed yet (all I actually need to do is change Sonic's starting positions, and then they will appear properly).

I'm not really sure. I may add overworld-themed teleporters to the start and end of each zone (bar Chaos Zone obviously) and replace the overworld pits with those same teleporters.

I'll try and get the third beta out soon.

Also, I'm intending to remove all the starposts. I don't think they're necessary when you already have the start of each act as a restore point anyway, and if you hit a starpost and die you can cheat for time bonus or, as the downside, not be able to collect so many rings. Any thoughts on that? Removing starposts will also give me more valuable VRAM space, of course.

 

Yeah, I'm changing the level layouts as I see fit, so the good levels stay pretty much as they are and the originally bad ones get totally revamped *cough* Spring Yard *cough*.

If someone will port the sound for me, then I'll change it. Porting sound/music is something I currently cannot do.

No. Other than that the Data Select screen will have the S3&K Data Select screen music when it's made, all other music that is going to be used is already in the game. Use the in-game sound test to hear them (they're also in Beta 2, so you don't need to get Beta 3 to do that). The Sonic 2 Beta boss music will be used for the final boss which will be a port of the WFZ boss, and the Sonic 3D boss music will be used for the giant enemy crab of Sonypwnageness (see below).

Also, that reminds me. I can't get SRAM to work like this (yes, for now, I only need 16 bytes of SRAM, I will need more later though):

Code (Text):

1. SRAMSupport:    dc.l $5241E020; change to $5241E020 to create SRAM
2.         dc.l $FFFFFF80; SRAM start
3.         dc.l $FFFFFF8F; SRAM end

This gives me a 64 kilobyte SRM file, but after doing something to change the data stored there (for example getting an emerald) and resetting, the data is lost. Do I need a special call to something to actually save the data?

Super characters will be playable once you collect all 7 emeralds (one per zone - including Chaos Zone). "Characters" because I'm planning to let you play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or Blaze, with an optional partner character (SAdv3 fails for requiring it). Triple jump to go super after collecting all 7 emeralds and 50 rings, because double jump is for the character and shield actions and it sucks in S3&K that you can't instashield after getting 50 rings and all chaos emeralds with Sonic.

The other reward for collecting all the emeralds is that you get to fight the Giant Enemy Crab. If you complete the first 2 bosses in CZ and you don't have all emeralds or you don't have 50 rings (I seriously wonder where Sonic gets his starting 50 rings in Doomsday/Moon/TA53/Nonagression/Exception), the crab will shoot an unavoidable hit at you till you have no rings, then your character will automatically run off and the crab fires a laser at the wall, and because final zones are so dangerously flammable and such, you get your bog standard pyrotechnic Sonic ending. If you do have all the emeralds and at least 50 rings, your character will automatically turn super to withstand the hit if you haven't already done so, and you get to fight it (of course, while you're fighting it, the final zone is 100% fireproof). If you win, you get a different ending, which I'm sure you'll all love when you see it. Yes, I'm keeping that ending a secret for now.

Oh, and if anyone knows how Streets of Rage 2 manages to do free rotation on the ship background in stage 3, tell me. That technique may be useful for the GEC.

Actually, that boss is meant to be the ball and chain. MZ and SBZ will have brand new bosses, and LZ will have the chase scene from the original plus a remake of Sonic CD's water zone boss.

 

I'm going to have it load the zone name on a 32px high banner at the bottom of the screen when you stand over one, and then you press down to actually go in, but not for this beta. The banner will be on plane B high, dynamically loaded over the background.

That's unnecessary. Instead, I'll just have it not unload the objects, which is what S3&K does. However, there are a few problems with that which I will need to fix, but again, not for this beta.

 

No problem, I'll implement that for Beta 3 easily.

Thanks, I'll see to that as well tomorrow when I next work on it.

Ah, okay. Thanks, and again I'll implement that tomorrow. I didn't know there was specific space allocated for SRAM, so I guess I won't have to worry about running out of RAM any more :P

Sorry, I checked my gmail but it wasn't there, so I kinda forgot about it. Oh well, Pu7o gave me the sound now anyway.