Oh I see. I thought you meant it would rely on AI (like Tails in Sonic 2 special stages) rather than the other characters not being there until a button is pressed. I completely misunderstood that one, but now I see how it works and that must completely change the entire dynamic of the special stage, it sounds awesome.
Are you going to modify the number of required rings or layout in special stages to compensate for the third player?
You are partially right: I used the data from S2 for Tails and S2K for Knuckles, so they were with the wrong colors in the original games. But the art for the arms are separate for each character (and were in the original), so Sega had no reason not to have them with the right colors. Tails will be an easy fix, but Knuckles will require some amount of mappings editing -- due to palette constraints, his arms and gloves are separate pieces which use Tails' palette line. The AI will still work if the character is activated but left without input for long enough, but I am intending it to be a compromise between having multiple characters in special stage in co-op play versus having AI getting in your way with its stupidity and losing rings. I will probably modify the ring requirements, yes.
I didn't mean that all three characters were using the same art for their arms, I meant that they're all just identical for seemingly no reason. And to avoid any confusion, I was talking about the original (Knuckles in) Sonic 2. But whatever, it's not like Knuckles is a recolor of Sonic with the weird S&K special stage "square" head pasted on top. :v:
According to the wiki this is planned for future revisions: "Sonic having faster speed and/or acceleration and being able to carry Tails and/or Knuckles while running." Are you seriously gonna add that? It sounds kinda dumb to have Sonic carrying them while running, even though it might be hilarious to watch. Also, Sonic running faster than the other characters is gonna result in him leaving the other characters behind all the time.
If I were to put such an ability in a hack, I'd make a button call the other characters to sonic. That way faster run speed or not, it'd still work out. I am sure flamewing has a good method for doing such also.
Maybe Knuckles should have the carrying trait. I recall he did something similar to that in Heroes, where he armed himself with Sonic and Tails in their spinning forms and used them to destroy obstacles.
I think by "carrying", he's thinking of Sonic running at full speed with his arms pushed back, holding on to Tails and Knuckles who are also running, and pulling them at the same speed as he's running. At least, that wh- oh wait, you're not allowed to know about that yet.
For the idea of Knuckles carrying Sonic/Tails, I'd LOVE to see one of them actually sit on top of him (and the other could hold his legs) - as Sonic did once during the Death Egg saga on Sonic the Comic
Ah, I assumed he was gonna use the animation of them holding on while being blown back, like on that wing fortress level. That woulda been hilarious but dumb.
This might make Sonic a tad overpowered... But how about adding the 3 shields abilities to the regular shield? Sonic's UP+jump = Lightning shield's double jump Sonic's DOWN+jump = Bubble shield's bounce. Sonic's SIDE+jump = Flame shield's air dash Insta shield would only be available without shield powerup. (Or add INsta-shield to neutral+jump on midair). This game is amazing. I can safely say it already rivals Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I hope the scrolling from Wing Fortress is fixed soon. ... my only nitpick is the Amy Rose cameo which was used... I know it's kinda trivial, but it would be nice to have old Amy from Sonic CD in there. :P
Love this hack. Two things I really want to request are: 1. Can we get the insta-shield sound effect working? That move is a big deal to me. It does function perfectly however, so that's cool. 2. I totally agree with the idea of Knuckles carrying another character, but not with the piggy-back idea. Because imo the perfect animation is that they simply hold on to his fists with the same animation as hanging on to Tails' hands. When Knuckles glides into a wall, you could even use the hanging+feet up animation from the swings in Sandopolis, so the carried character has put his feet on the wall and the 2 of them slowly drift down it. Either way, I think hands to hands is much better animation (and Sonic 3D does it). If Sonic had the peel-out, it would make for a good entry to letting Sonic grab Tails & Knuckles as he runs off.
0.0 THATS PERFECT! Why didn't I think of that before?! Also I concur with Deef's statement regarding the climbing, just make it their hanging animation hanging to each other's shoes while Knuckles climbs. I DON'T concur with his other statement regarding the gliding. I think it will look sweet when he glides with everyone holding on by their feet.
Or even modified Chaotix "cool, sweet and catchy" sprites, if Sonic CD Amy would clash too much with the more detailed Sonic 3 sprites.
... I didn't even mention climbing... I meant that if Knuckles is carrying someone, when he hits a wall you have to choose between dropping that character, or not grabbing the wall. My suggestion was that he not grab the wall but instead drift slowly downwards, still gliding, just like with those fake walls in S2&K. With the other character using the Sandopolis rope swing "feet up" animation, it would make visual sense to the player and if it's a possibility you could use the skidding smoke sprites as his feet slide down to complete the picture. One thing I really like is that Knuckles jumps full height. Balance or not, I didn't like that it gave him a more boggy feel in S3&K. It was nice to finally get a chance to see just how much that does affect the balance between the characters, however the lack of shields for Sonic kind of mucks that up. Suddenly Sonic really needs his shields back to compete with Knuckles, and that peel out idea would be a good catch-up to the co-op abilities of the others. No suggestions for Tails... honestly these things I'm talking about have been on my mind for years, and for years I have been unable to come up with any decent ideas for Tails' moveset. Some nice ideas for shield moves in this thread, but it would be nicest if we could just see the real shields. I imagine this is a technical problem though, since I gather that with the 3 characters already it's a very tight squeeze fitting things in. On that note, the Sonic 3 shields only reflected solid projectiles, not fireballs and such. In this hack they reflect everything. I'm guessing that's a technical thing too since Sonic 2 wouldn't have known the difference. I don't really care about it, just pointing it out. I'm pretty sure this is my favourite hack out there, partly because the threeway play is actually quite fun. I wasn't even interested in it for that reason; it's the Sonic 3 physics and moves I wanted in Sonic 2, and having them here for all 3 characters is great. I love that Knuckles not only jumps better, but lands after a gliding drop the way S3&K, not S2&K, does it.
I already have shields coded up and working; I just have to convert a few monitors into them. Theoretically, Sonic can have a different shield than Tails and Knuckles (due to the shield abilities and insta-shield), but to keep to the spirit of shared power-ups, all of them have the same shield. Re: peelout: I have thought about it; for both Sonic and Tails. For Sonic, I just need good graphics (as I hate the SCD peel-out graphics); for Tails, I have a very nice and cool idea which I am keeping to myself for now (and for which I already have graphics). The peel-out will probably use the same mechanics as the spindash so that it is not useless (but holding up instead of down). As for the regular shield: I was thinking of a few things: It could give Super Sonic the Hyper Launch ability, like Hyper Sonic; it could give Sonic a homing attack; it could give Sonic an extended-range insta-shield. I am open to other ideas. I can easily fine-tune what gets reflected by each shield. If you (or anyone else, for that matter) see something that should (not) be reflected by a shield, let me knoe and I will fix it. Edit: I simply can't figure out why it (and the Knuckles slide sound) isn't working; all the other sounds I ported worked perfectly. At this point, I am thinking of porting the S3&K sound driver and then port the S2 songs and SFX to it.
Sweet. Check out Sonic 2: Sonic 3 Edition for a good figure 8 mashup. It fits the Sonic 3 sprites and is very satisfying to see when you pick up speed. Consider a few implementations imo. If it powers up as easily as the spin dash, it will make the spin dash redundant. It's funny how no-one likes the one official implementation of the peel-out. The takes-a-delay-but-at-least-does-something-if-you-release-early style seen in the Sonic Nexus demo is pretty ok. The old Sonic XG demo had an interesting implementation too... locked into the peel-out until it's ready so you only ever get it at full power, and then you can decide to release or keep holding. Honestly, why not simply remove it completely? The plain shield was always an ugly sprite, even before comparing it to the new ones. If you have the other shields ready to go you can simply replace its monitors with one of the others; that will give you more room for adding them also. An extended insta-shield... doesn't really make more fun for the player. More importantly, it's just a thing you'd be tacking on to try and fill a leftover hole. If there must be a 4th shield, it should aim to look like a deliberate and important thing in its own right. I'd go for a complete sprite change to start with, which brings us back to why not remove the plain shield completely. Homing attack....... oh man am I tired of that move in 2D Sonic. If you do add it, do you think you could make it more dynamic than Sonic 4/other hacks? Ie, allow it to miss, to curve and to accidentally orbit? Keep its activation radius real low unless you're moving and then increase it pro rata with your speed? Etc. Although I still vote just remove the plain shield and keep the game looking polished/un-hacky with simply the Sonic 3 shields functioning well. Edit - Just a little disclaimer here; I don't mean to be as demanding as I sound. These are just my personal tastes. Buzz Bomber's fireballs shouldn't be reflected. Ah well, at least you're trying. Cool to hear you're still working on it all! Very cool hack you've made.
This would be neat, I'd love to see (rather, hear) it. The S2 driver is a mess by its own (compressed songs? byteswapped voices?), and the S1 driver is bad because it runs on the 68000. The S&K driver is probably the state of the art for SMPS drivers.
