SV was the bomb. I remember downloading it the day it came out! I also remember being sad that SV2 never was finished... and your releasing of its engine was both a blessing and a curse to the community. I swear, for a few years we had nothing but games based on it. Mine included. :P Also, that screenshot looks amazingly familiar, but for a weird reason. About 8 years ago when I was immature and obsessed with fangames, I was poking around what must have been your webspace and found this exe: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11388083/SW2.exe (Yes, this made me dig it out of my backups) It looks an awful lot like that screenshot you posted. I had no idea what this was, but I liked the music so I kept it. I think it's yours judging on the similarities between the two... do you remember anything about it? EDIT: General question: Does anyone remember an early 3D fangame called Sonic Fusion? It was being done in Darkbasic, I think. I have a couple screenshots I took back then, but don't have the beta any more because it got infected with a virus.
Yeah man there's a rather epic 3000-word post I just wrote about it here: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=24524
Oho! I did not see the topic. Sorry about that. Might be worth leaving these posts here just so other people don't miss it.
Dear lord I remember that! wow and there's that sprite ShowOffBoy made for me too which I had to really dig for when trying to remake SV a few years back, aka ripping it from an old fan game which lacked animations. Since you had this in backup by any chance do you have any of the old SV 2 titles? anything made by me? I would love you long time if so. *edit* I am also amazed how much my old sv engine was used.
I do have stuff! A lucky benefit of the fact that I never delete anything. (Only exception being some stuff that was hit by a virus in 2003, but most of the files cleaned up well) I have everything I downloaded from the very first day I went online. Here's the Sonic SV 2 Demo. I just played it while it was uploading, and y'know, Dawn Hill is nice and doesn't look too bad even now. No denying the engine is buggy though. I managed to trigger one where I hit spikes and got stuck in a loop where it infinitely made the dead Sonic object. :P That's the only thing I have by you other than that randomly-discovered demo I posted earlier, and SV1 which is on SFGHQ. However, I have a ton of games that were made on the SV2 engine if that's what you're meaning by SV2 titles. I'll start uploading a few. Update: Here's one of those SV2 titles that I was fond of back in the day. Mobius the Next Revolution: Shadow Returns. Funny that this one actually came to mind a few weeks ago, because it turns out the title screen music is from Jaguar XJ220 on the Sega CD. I burned a copy of that game to try it and ran into the music and thought "Holy crap, that's from Shadow Returns!" I find this funny. I played lots of fangames as a kid, and they often used music ripped from other games. Now that I go back to expand my gaming horizons, I run into this stuff all the time where I recognize music from a fangame and not the other way around. I remember the first time I played Power Drift in MAME, and I recognized the music from a fangame but wasn't sure what... I went searching for HOURS until I figured out it was from Zoneracer (a pretty neat game in itself!) Update 2: Here's some stuff that I did in the SV2 engine that I found. Sonic Zoom. Made around February or March of 2002. I was nine years old at the time and had only started working with TGF/MMF three months earlier. This was actually discontinued because my MMF1.5 trial had run out (after I'd worn through a TGF trial as well). When both ran out, I got desperate and actually, as a result, downloaded my first warez copy of a program. I managed to find a copy of Click and Create and a copy of MMF 1.0 (which wouldn't open the 1.5 files I'd made, so they were inaccessible until I bought a legit copy in 2004) on some shady site. Hell to the yeah! Sonic KSOFT. Made around May 2002-- I think. The file timestamps say November 2003, but I believe that coincides with when I moved some stuff to a (MASSIVE compared to the 12gb drive I was using on my computer, a P2/450, at the time) 40gb hard drive I bought. I personally remember working on this during my first year fangaming, and that's backed up by a document I wrote a year after fangaming which highlighted this game. More SV2 engine goodness, but I think it's actually more glitchy this time around. I dunno why. This one took a more Adventure 2 sort of vibe and had both Sonic and Shadow. Interesting to note that the first level is populated with fancharacter sprites that I ripped without permission from every sprite pack I could get my hands on. Thus it has a lot of familiar faces from back in the day!
I think overall I made SV2 about 8 times before finally stopping, lol, that version was one of the earlier ones and wow did I really make the engine that floaty back then? I was nearly 19 around that time so I can only blame myself :P Thanks for all that, some good memories in all this, a shame that fangames became too serious with pixel perfect engines shortly after.
Absolutely... as soon as the first 360 degree engine came out fangaming stopped being fun. I tried to keep up for a few years but it just wasn't worth the effort any more, because I realized that if I had to make a game that perfectly clones a professional video game, maybe I should actually use my resources to make my own 100% original titles.
The imperfections in early Sonic fangames were because people were less critical and less discerning. They were just games people did for their own personal amusement. For fangaming not being fun today, maybe it's less that the standard is higher and more that people today try to please everyone with their game. If others don't like it, they either keep working for ages (and it never gets finished), or they just give up. Perhaps more people should instead make a game they would want to play. Everyone else's feedback is important, but it shouldn't be the primary driving force behind a fangame. If someone truly enjoys their own fangame, then that's better than no one.
I agree with this to an extent. When I start making games, be they fan-games or not, my primary focus is me - what do I enjoy, what kind of game do I want to play, etc. I figure if I like my own game, hopefully that means someone else will. I mean, there are some people who enjoy the smell of their own stool but I wouldn't call them sane. All the same, though, I still take criticism into account. If something is clearly bad, I'll do my best to make it better as long as it fits my vision. I still enjoy really old fangames to this day for those reasons. They may not control the best, but it's fun seeing someone else's vision. I remember playing an old Fan Game about Sonic, Manic, Sonia, Knuckles and so on a space station that played an instrumental of "The Kids Aren't Allright" by Offspring for the opening intro. Anyone remember that one?
Yes, I do! I don't recall the name, but there was some sort of cyborg echidna fan character you could play as.
Another thing that just hit me; I noticed quite a link between Sonic and The Offspring. A lot of fan made music videos I saw WAY back when on Shadow of a Hedgehog, a lot of MIDI's of songs like All I Want, and "I Choose" were in various fan-games. Back then, I only knew like, 3 Offspring songs, and they were all from "Americana", so I had no idea that those MIDI's I heard were actually Offspring songs, haha. . .
Man, this thread makes me so nostalgic. I'm just glad there's people who still care for these old games. :>
Well, well, what have we here? A desire for older fan games of yore? I figure I'll post this up here since it seems there's an interest. Here's a collection of old fan games that my fellow SFGHQers have put together. Consider it a "SFGHQ Oldies: Greatest Hits Volume 1". I hope you all enjoy them. The collection: http://pc0.sepwich.com/SFG/Games.rar Included in the rar is the following games: Bladerunners SX Chaomega Chaos Control Chaos Control - VR Missions Radical Sonic Retro Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic 2K4 Sonic 360 and Sonic Video Mix Sonic - Back to the City Sonic - The Fated Hour Sonic Adventure 2 - Revival Sonic and Ice Sonic Avalanche Sonic DIY Sonic Forever Sonic Frenzy Adventure Sonic Gamma Sonic Groove Sonic Ki Sonic Move Sonic Overdrive Sonic Psychotix 3 Sonic Psychotix 3 - City Escape Sonic Psychotix 3 - Hydrocity Zone (improved) Sonic Psychotix Advance Sonic Reactor Sonic Revitalized 3D Sonic SV2 Sonic Switch Demo 3 Sonic Switch Demo 4 Sonic the Fighters 2 Sonic the Hedgehog Project Mettrix Sonic Unity Sonic XG Tails to the Rescue Eggman Tug Knuckles Millenium Knuckles Millenium 2 ShenSonic Showdown - The Beginning of the End Sonic Battle 2 Sonic Battle 2 Chao Garden Sonic Battle - Hedgehog Style Sonic Chudoku Sonic Dead Zone Sonic Fight Sonic MADventure Sonic Maze Mania Sonic Time Attacked Thirdscape Xmas Special Zoneracer Special Thanks to SFGHQ member, SonicYoda, for doing the legwork in getting this collection together.
Awww shit, Sonic MADventure. I remember that one. Nonsensical RPG about going to SAGE, end up fighting notoriously-earless Sonikku at the end. I hope the other fan-game I was talking about is in that massive RAR. Thanks for the link! I remember spending a lot of time inbetween bursts of SRB2's Mystic Realm playing a Chao Garden game with Sonic Xtreme's sprites. I wonder if that's in there too. EDIT: No, it won't be - I didn't get that one off of SFGHQ, I got that one off of a fan-site made by one person.
Does anyone have the Sonic 2: Robotnik's Revenge "Demo Tubes Zone" demo? Very first fangame I played back in 2000 and would love to play it again for old times sake!
I've got a dvd that has all pre 2005 SFGHQ content somewhere. If I can find that I'll upload some of the stuff off there, it'd probably blow that list right out of the water.
This is so excellent, I'm horribly psyched I started this thread, but I really want that Sonic Chaos Racer game. (maybe it's Sonic Chaos Racing?). .
