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Sonic Boom

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

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  1. Chimpo

    Chimpo

    Virtua Poster Member
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    Banana
    You can't recognize simple patterns and easy to spot weakness?
     
  2. Icewarrior

    Icewarrior

    I'm a member of S.T.A.R.S !!11!!!1!! Member
    For Metal Knuckles, no, there's absolutely no clue as to when you can hit him, most of the time it looks vulnerable like his back when he's gliding and yet you can't hit him, you're getting hurt instead which doesn't even make sense.
    As opposed to Metal Knuckles, the A.N.N boss (S factor's MetalSonic-like boss) makes it very clear when it's vulnerable.

    Sonic Boom's boss is even easier since his whole body is vulnerable and that you can immediately understand that you can hit him when the other blue balls aren't protecting him.
     
  3. Mr. Mash

    Mr. Mash

    All fanbases are awful Member
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    yeah, also the homing projectiles are tricky to avoid, especially when it's raining missiles. I end up losing and re-catching a single ring, while using the brief invinsibility to take a jab.
     
  4. Harmony Friends

    Harmony Friends

    it's the whole gang Oldbie
    Well now, that was interesting!

    I liked it. I haven't paid attention to any of this hype or whatever. The level design was kinda Sonic Advance 2-ish at times though - there were a few springs that lead directly into spikes when you're coming towards it at 360m/s, if you know what I mean. But it was still very fun - loved the boss battles, and act 3 was a nice surprise (though I wanted to throw my controller at a wall at one point). Extremely technically impressive, of course.
     
  5. Malevolence

    Malevolence

    Tech Member
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    Just attack him after he's launched projectiles from his hands, it's not that difficult.
     
  6. Icewarrior

    Icewarrior

    I'm a member of S.T.A.R.S !!11!!!1!! Member
    That wasn't exactly my point but nevermind...
     
  7. qiuu

    qiuu

    Tech Member
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    Yes, for the first boss it is not that hard; for the second it's humanly possible, albeit very hard. The main difficulty are stage 3 and the freely moving orbs which are hard to predict. I still intend to do some fixes.

    This is my recording of a playthrough beating Gorbi without taking damage, starting with 0 rings and using none of the moves except for the double jump: http://geoo.digibase.ca/Genesis/sboom_gorbi-nodamage.gmv (use right-click -> save file as)
    I took a savestate directly before Gorbi, and then retried till I managed it. The rest is casual gameplay.
    The amount of rerecordings is the number of tries I had, last time it took quite a bit fewer tries...


    My sincere respect for having figured the patterns that originate from the Sonic random number generator, and apparently with ease, even! Despite knowing the underlying mathematical formula, I still haven't managed to develop an intuition for it, the bullets still seem random to me. I'll have to try harder.
    I'm surprised though that you didn't manage to recognize a circular pattern. Must be my advantage of knowing the internals of Gorbis patterns that allow me to do so...
     
  8. I think the execution and concept are both top tier, the music is fitting, and the idea of act 3 is pretty enjoyable.

    But I have a huge issue with the art in the game. The Sonic sprite I could take or leave, it's fine, it doesn't warrant too much concern, but the badniks, the level art, and the parallax backgrounds look terribly bland and uninspired. Too many large solid shapes, not enough intricacies.

    Overall, great hack. Just visually unappealing.
     
  9. D.A. Garden

    D.A. Garden

    Sonic CD's Sound Test Member
    I know a fair few people are doing TASes of this hack, so I decided to see if I could help them optomise their efforts in some way. I did find something that might be of use.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGorOObITY

    If it's not obvious what is going on, I'm using the downward kick repeatedly at slopes/walls quickly and repeatedly (Via TAS). This forces Sonic either into the floor where zipping can occur or through the floor to the area underneath if the floor is thin enough.
     
  10. Mercury

    Mercury

    His Name Is Sonic Tech Member
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    As usual, I'm late to the party. I decided to write up my thoughts as a full Game Review for my blog.

    It boils down to this:

     
  11. iojnekns

    iojnekns

    trouble keeps you runnin' faster Member
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    Wow, interesting read there Mercury, thanks for that. Reading these pseudo reviews is fun as fuck, and its very gratifying that you describe it as a significant release so :thumbsup: cheers!
    As for the art complaints - I've said it a bunch of times already, so I know you already know by now. First attempt, done because its fun rather than because I'm any good, artspace for level full to absolute capacity, yadda, yadda yadda, etc, etc, etc.

    D.A. - The zipping thing is either annoying or funny I just can't decide. Fragag has been doing what you illustrate in the video for ages and ages ( I think he used autofire on a gamepad rather than slowdown tools but, it was ages ago, I can't really remember), I guess you are both subversive players, but you are probably aware that it was present in S2 but is just far more accessible in Boom because of the moves and speed and shit. It'd be nice to fix it, or patch it or something eventually. snk joked about instakilling the player instead of zipping, but I thought that'd be a little unfair on those occasions where it occurs accidentally.

    Just as an aside, I know you already know, but that no hitter run is AWESOME qiuu. I still can't do that, but since the I've started using the rolling spindash exploit on the vortex that signals his attack routine transition - the one that everyone has been using on youtube that I had never used - its becoming hilariously easy. Bugs balancing other bugs! Who'd have thunk it?

    EDIT: Forgot to mention, I think its great that the game is getting TAS attention but I've not seen anyone come close to snkenjoi's time sans tools yet. Just sayin'
     
  12. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

    Original, No substitute Resident Jester
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    I would give it ago, but I've never done a TAS before so I probably wont surpass snkenjoi's time limit, I'll do a regular vid to see if I can play it getting hurt less times as possible though, that's if I wont forget
     
  13. Stink Terios

    Stink Terios

    Member
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    Heh. Now that I played this more I think the level design got a 1-up. The cheap hits are still there and are annoying as ever, but I found this way more explorable than I originally thought.

    The hack for some reason gets more fun to play as you learn the design of the levels.

    Conclusion: this game aims for IWBTG-like trial-and-error gameplay, but is obviously forgiving.

    Also, I was playing right now and just before the last hit King Orbi went invisible for some reason. Don't know if I can reproduce it.
     
  14. Ayla

    Ayla

    I shat on your desk ^^ Oldbie
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    Hacking Contest, StH Overlooked, Personal Indie game
    Precisely. When you learn the gameplay, the game starts being fun instead of difficult. I'm glad at least one other person sees it the same way I do >.>
     
  15. DDRKhat

    DDRKhat

    Keep on runnin' to the finish! Member
    Don't suppose you bumped into my video at all?
     
  16. Destructiox

    Destructiox

    Masochistic Maniac, Raving Lunatic Member
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    Sonic 1 Lunacy.
    Bolded a part you may have overlooked.

    EDIT: Seems bold wasn't all that standing-out.
     
  17. The KKM

    The KKM

    Welcome to the nExt level Member
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    IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic books
    Just wondering, are these t0ms0nic's Sonic sprites?
     
  18. Sparks

    Sparks

    Member
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    Sondro Gomez / Kyle & Lucy
    Well considering he's in the credits.. :v:
     
  19. mdawgmike

    mdawgmike

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    I have to agree with the majority of the "love" statements for this! This is an absolutely brilliant "hack." I didn't think I'd ever see anything that matched the greatness of Sonic Megamix as a Sonic game, but I think this is it. It's feels like, and practically is, a completely new Sonic game. I had to read this thread to figure out what Sonic game it was originally derived from (Sonic 2) as I honestly couldn't tell by playing. I've never seen anything come together as well as this. The levels, the music, the bosses (holy shit the bosses). Absolutely epic!

    I'm surprised at the absence of almost any bugs on the first public release of something. There are a couple things that I think could benefit from a little tweaking though. I've played this solely on the actual hardware (via a Megacart), which is where half (of my few) critiques come from. I'm only posting because I'm assuming a good majority of the testing was done on emulators.

    A) The bottom half of the main menu (Sound Test) gets cut off by NTSC over-scan. I know as a general rule of thumb it's good practice to never put anything other than extraneous information in the top and bottom 8 scan lines.
    B) The floor in the boss battles is also cut off when you play on the actual hardware for the same reason

    C) Not a bug per-se, but I think maybe the collision could be reduced some on the Orbinaut (the electric things that come at you during the second boss battle)? I think that's the right name. It seems you will always get hit unless you attempt to destroy them when the electric ball is exactly opposite of where you jump at. Like maybe a small box inside of the electric ball instead of what's probably a large box outside of it? It might make the second boss a little less frustratingly difficult for some. Like maybe it would've only taken me 3-4 tries to beat him instead of the 7 that it did. Just throwing that out there...
    D) The last stage seems to be a little bit of a breeze...which isn't what I expected but maybe it's fine as-is. It only took me two attempts of holding right while tapping B at appropriate moments to clear it.

    Also the was only the FIRST level? Holy shit again. Thanks again for giving us this amazing game for free!
     
  20. Agent of Chaos

    Agent of Chaos

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    I can't wait to see more of this hack! The challenge of it was most definately a challenge but in a good way. It definately took me a few times to get through each of the acts but once I finished I was wanting to go on to the next level but couldn't. The new moves and controls took a little bit getting used too but once I got the hang of them they are a very nice addon. There's so much I could say about the hack that has already been said but thanks for the hard work on it.
     
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