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Sonic Boom

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by iojnekns, Oct 29, 2009.

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  1. Travelsonic

    Travelsonic

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    This.


    iojnekns,

    There is a difference you seem to be missing between amping up the difficulty and creating broken enemies.

    Having an enemy that is hard to hit unless you use certain moves, shoots out enemies for you to fight, is fast/evasive, and/or has protection that needs to be broken first - those are great ideas, and combined into one uber boss can be quite fun. That's why I like the first boss in this hack, because you balanced that out quite well.

    Having an enemy who can push you off screen and make it so you can't move at all [as in boxing you in] despite your trying to escape through all means possible resulting in your players death, or enemies who home in and pommel you to death with no means to escape / defend yourself are - simply put - broken.

    I've always enjoyed good challenge. I have yet to find a Sonic game, or a Sonic hack that faced the boss issues that are seen in the 2nd boss of this hack. I've never enjoyed broken mechanics, whether it be in first person shooters, sidescrollers, puzzle games, or my speciality, Live Action RPGs... LARPs being especially prone to REALLY broken enemies as I have experienced over the last 3 years. It is not that I don't appreciate the work that goes into something like this, its that you put up this hack for public critique - and I'm giving you some... a lot of us are. We are the people you target with these hacks, so in a way yes, we do have a say. A limited say mind you, but still it is a bad idea to step on the toes of those who are trying to give you thoughts on how you can improve these hacks to make it more likely that they not only play, but continue to replay your hack. Feedback - and taking feedback into consideration - is important.

    All I'm saying is unbreak the boss and you got yourself another hooked player.
     
  2. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    This thread turned hostile quite quickly from both ends.

    How about we cool it there super friends.
     
  3. iojnekns

    iojnekns

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    I haven't called anyone any names. Dicks? Where have I said that? All I've done is responded to unfair judgements, in this case - the implication that we the developers deliberately hyped up the game, when in fact we didn't mention it publically until the day we released it. We entered it into a contest as a private entry. The only reason we released it at all is because, as I have said one hundred million and five times, because it won "the contest where critiquing is exactly what's used to determine a hacks place" yet remained a private entry!

    I should start responding to individual points? I don't think you've read this thread.

    We're entitled to rub snot all over our baby's goddamn face if we want to, its our baby!

    Now enough of this cockfighting.
     
  4. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    I have not seen anyone accuse you directly of hyping your product up, or anyone else in the development staff aside from Tweaker.
     
  5. Tweaker

    Tweaker

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    And I'm not "hyping it up"; I'm merely expressing how much I enjoyed the hack. I think it's ridiculous that I can't thoroughly express what I like about a hack in great detail without it being some sort of conspiracy. It's not like this is the first hack I've written a wall of text review of praise on, anyway.
     
  6. Metal Knuckles

    Metal Knuckles

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    Shadow Alpha, an awesome hack of Sonic 1
    I apologiza for making it seem like I was pointing that at you. I was talking about glisp calling us dicks for talking about the hack, who upon further research appears to not be a part of Team SÆGA. What was up with that?
     
  7. Epsilonsama

    Epsilonsama

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    I don't implied that YOU specifically hype this game, but still you gotta admit that this game was hyped. Also the analogy with the baby is kinda wrong, after all there things you cant do to a baby. Also nobody has done any unfair judgment we are just giving you feedback, some were negative some were positives but nobody is bashing your hack.
     
  8. iojnekns

    iojnekns

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    Look, I don't care if you bash it. You can bash it all you want. Just don't expect us to do what you want us to do and don't expect to take into account what you say. We might, but thats our perogative. I'm reacting because if the reason why you are being so outspoken and, saying stuff like "I finally got to play the best hack ever" in a sarcastic fashion is because the game was hyped up, yet we had nothing to do with the hype! How am I supposed to react? We're being treated in a certain way for something we had no control over whatsoever! I never once denied that it was hyped, but shag the vicar! We're really sorry if you let hype control your expectations but unlike 1's and 0's or pixels, thats one of the things we can't control. I'm not reacting becaue you're "bashing." That would be absurd. I asked for your opinions, I was fully expecting some less than impressed ones. For the record, I don't think any of you are dicks (or any other colourful word) simply for stating your views.

    As for Glisp? I don't know. Its nice that he came to our aid but 0_o He said - "The infinite lives thing is only temporary. It was primarily for the purpose of the demo. It will most likely be removed on the final release." Completely untrue. I don't know where he's getting his information from. I've never even spoken to him in my life (nor have any of us to my knowledge), he certainly isn't part of our crew. The penny just dropped if you thought he was speaking for us, I'm not surprised now, that you interpreted things this way. No idea what was up with that.

    Anyway, me and snkenjoi have spent some of today hanging over at sonic-world.ru, a russian sonic forum who share an interest in hacking and have recently picked up on Sonic Boom. Google translate isn't super accurate, and some of the resulting phrasings are predictably hilarious, but it seems that even in an environment isolated from Retro and all this "omg hype" business, its notable that the same points come up - a clear division between those that like it and those who don't, those that dislike it having similar complaints, those that like it having similar compliments. Given that I doubt the members of these posts expected their words to be read by us, the developers, I think some level of honesty can be expected, so that they tend to be echoing what you guys at Retro are saying seems to be a good sign that the "hype" hasn't overly affected the reception of this hack.
     
  9. Yuski

    Yuski

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    I'll define this hack with only one word: Adrenaline.

    HOLY SHIT! It's frenetic, fun and really challanging!! If Sonic was like that when I was a kid, probably I would be traumatized with it. XD The speed sensation is incredible, Sonic sprites are well done (not the best I've seen, but good) and the map of levels are pure win!

    The bosses, I'm impressed with them, specially with Act 2 one! You gave him a Pseudo3D effect on him showing how much effort was put on this hack! But I found them too hard. It's almost impossible to kill them without take damege 2 or 3 times, act 1 was ok, but act 2 one was more frustrating then fun.

    But the epic part is Act 3! Was a hard challenge! After some tries you can go beat it easily, but it's so incredible done, I played it more than 10 times! It's pure fun! This hack got me!
     
  10. Epsilonsama

    Epsilonsama

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    First of, yes the first line was a bit sarcastic but this was the fastest way I could sum up my reaction to this game, for me I didn't believe the hype but still was irritated by the hype it had, and I had said that I'm not blaming you for the hype, but still this game was hyped and still even if the game wasn't hyped everything good or bad I say wasn't influence by the hype because I had no expectation, I played the hack with an open mind.
     
  11. Jayextee

    Jayextee

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    I DONE MAKED GAMES.
    I think I can sum up my dislike for this in short: it wouldn't be possible to beat without the fallback of rings. The other 2D Sonics are.

    Old-school metagaming is king, guys.
     
  12. Travelsonic

    Travelsonic

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    iojnekns,

    I still wish you'd address this point I made:


     
  13. Malevolence

    Malevolence

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    If the hype had not affected your expectations, game play or feelings for the game then why have such hate for the hype, it did no wrong to your experience?
     
  14. Epsilonsama

    Epsilonsama

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    I'm irritated by the fact that this game was praise as the ultimate hack but that didn't truly affect the experience of the game because I didn't believe the hype.

    Like I said I had an open mind about this hack and I played it from start to finish and never did they hype it had affect my perception of this hack.
     
  15. Malevolence

    Malevolence

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    You say this but it seems as though the hype brought upon this hack has affected your view in a negative way. I could understand if you didn't listen to the hype but just played the hack for pure enjoyment of sonic hacks but it seems you went into playing this to disprove the hype in a sense. "I'm irritated by the fact that this game was praise as the ultimate hack but that didn't truly affect the experience of the game because I didn't believe the hype." By saying this it seems as though if you had believed the hype you would have enjoyed the game more but because you didn't believe it you perceived the hack in a more negative way rather then enjoying because of the hype, although hype for anything means nothing, as well as others' opinions for everyone has a different opinion. Overall it just seems as though you're saying you would have enjoyed the hack more had there been no hype at all because you wouldn't be expecting something amazing and/or not expecting something great and that others' beliefs on the subject were false.
     
  16. Jayextee

    Jayextee

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    I DONE MAKED GAMES.
    Oh, welcome to everything that's ever been 'sold' to me. Learn to ignore it, approach everything with an open mind. Your life would be richer.
     
  17. NHY

    NHY

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    When I saw the praise that the contest judges lavished on this hack, I thought ' Well, I'll definitely be checking this one out when its released ' to be honest, I thought it was released a bit soon after the contest winners announcement but that's just me.

    I'll admit that while a bit egoistical, the fact your team are making this hack for yourselves speaks volumes. My guess is that if you caved into EVERYONES request here, we'd end up with a severally diluted experience which would probably please no one. But at the same time, you've got to be willing to admit that were some mistakes made here and there and sort those out.

    I enjoyed playing this hack but I'll agree the act 2 boss could do with a small bit of tweaking. I know its meant to be hard but crushing the player with little to no means of escape is just cheap, IMO. Also, I mentioned in an earlier post in this topic about putting in difficulty levels, I'd appreciate your opinion on that idea as I think it would be one of the best ways to solve some of the complaints about this hack without compromising the game experience for hardcore players.
     
  18. Epsilonsama

    Epsilonsama

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    Nope, Let say there wasn't any hype what so ever, if that were the case would I enjoyed the hack more, I don't know but the problems I have with this hack would be the same because the problems this hack is not determined by the hype the hack had.
     
  19. iojnekns

    iojnekns

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    Look, I'm getting sick of this. I want too see more posts of the ilk we were getting earlier - reviews, reactions responses - rather than getting hung up on this petty point scoring. In the interests of moving on, and leaving this lot behind, I'll humour you.

    You think we INTENTIONALLY put that behaviour in? This hack was released due to pressure from the hacking contest. It is not *finished.*
    Let me say this again, this time in bold. This hack was released due to pressure from the hacking contest. It is not *finished*. Gorbichev insta-kills you sometimes. Traps you in a corner or drives you out of the screen lock. We didn't have time to fix it, because some people, YOU AMONG THEM, were commenting on the fact that the contest was creating a fervour regarding the hack, but no-one could play it. Is this what you've spent the last page of the thread going on about? Because I've said it in nearly every single post. Other people have grasped it easily! Why on earth would we deliberately do that? Do you think that despite achieving what we have technically, we need you to point out to us that there are broken and buggy bits? That we thought "lets have some insta-killing, thats really good design and will be lots of fun to play? YOU wanted to play in the condition that won the contest. This is the condition it was in.

    We put this hack up for you to play, because it was in demand not because we need or want your input. You are NOT the people we target with "these" hacks. The hack is for OUR enjoyment. We're happy to let you play it, since you asked, but its not FOR YOU. For this reason you do NOT have a say, limited or otherwise. I don't see how we're "stepping on your toes" in any way shape or form, by spending time doing what we want to do and not what you, the person who up until a week ago, had no idea this even existed, want us to do. Even if we were, I don't see why stepping on your toes would affect me either negatively or positively either way. You aren't going to be hooked? This will make no difference at all!

    That might seem aggressive. Its not intended to be an offensive tone, but quite simply I want to be absolutely crystal clear, since I've said all of these things over and over and over in every replied to you I've made so far and yet you're still asking me to address it, so I want to leave absolutely no doubt whatsoever - as a result, it does seem a little aggressive. This is not intentional. I hope we can be friends.

    Anyway, can we return to how things were please? The last thing I want anyone to think is that we don't want to hear criticism. Bring it on!

    EDIT: @NHY
    Difficulty levels is not something I'd considered before - I know my reaction personally, is that if we were to consider implementing something like that, I'd want to do it properly. By properly I mean, down to level layout, badnik behaviour, ring tax, boss routines - the works. Simply changing the variables to sway the balance would seem a rather cheap, lazy solution to me - you know the sort of thing I mean, making 100 ring boxes into 200, making the moves free, only losing 1 ring at a time and having the lightning shield protect againts orbi's. I would say that whilst difficulty has definitely been brought to the forefront of our minds as a result of this release, and we'll have a damn hard time not considering it when we continue to work on it, after three years of staring the same damn zone (I can't tell you how old that gets), for the time being we are going to work on other things. In time, no doubt, we will review Power Plant Zone and with fresh heads and more wisdom. At the moment, working on easy, medium and hard versions of the zone just to please any possible player skill, doesn't appeal so much.
     
  20. Malevolence

    Malevolence

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    Then why care about the hype?
     
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