Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (Spin-off Concept of Mario fangame)

So, this project in a nutshell is a regular Genesis-styled Sonic game, but all the levels and bosses are from other franchise, in a really unusual crossover. And it takes elements from less used games like Sonic 4: Episode I and II.

Spoiler: development info backstory

Let me first start off with some background info.

On August 8th 2018, I posted a thread basically saying that I have started some work on a Sonic fangame with an.. admittedly looking back now.. lame and kinda lazy premise involving a sorta Sonic Mania concept, but with fan levels. Long story short, I scrapped that project soon after due to both lack of motivation and the well deserved criticism of the concept. I later tried to revive it by instead making it a more original fangame with my own custom zones, but even that didn't last until I canned it again. Eventually I tried a different fangame concept all together, basically making a almost 1-1 remake of Somari as a genesis Sonic game. That, as you can probably guess by now, also got canned, though for more technical reasons this time.

Come 2022, where I had recently released a Mario 3 styled fangame called Mario's slightly Unusual Boss Rush, which has the premise of Mario going through levels to battle various characters from the most random series I could think of (it's basically a Boss Rush'ish game). Later on I stated that I would release an updated version of the game fixing bugs and adding some other features. I also announced a sequel (Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes, based off Mario vs. Donkey Kong on the Gameboy Advance) and a threequel (Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier, based off the Mario Odyessy type gameplay but in 2D) as well (note: the threequel post isn't finished), which are currently all in development all at once.

After a little while I stumbled across a community of Sonic fangamers who make Sonic engines in the Construct 2/3 game engines, and since I've been really wanting to make a Sonic fangame ever since I'd stopped those other two projects, I thought to make a small test. I then thought, "hey, what if I were to take that 'Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy' concept and use on a Sonic project?" Thus, the concept of this was created.

Spoiler: outdated images (please see 2nd post to see currently latest images)

Now here is some current footage and W.I.P spritework:

The Sonic sprite seen in the .GIF isn't the final one, by the way. The current version I'm doing is a previously Sonic Pocket Adventure custom from hansungkee & JX444444 which I highly edited into resembling Hortinus' Modern Sonic from his Sonic 3 A.I.R mod, seen here:

UPDATE: THE SPRITES IN THE SPOILER ARE TOTALLY OUTDATED

I also do have a rough plot outlined taking place after the events of Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier (which I also have a rough plot outlined), which involves Dr. Eggman making a gem to control various universes and, of course, Sonic has to stop him from doing anything harmful. By the way, the name of the possible project isn't final.

Now that I got that out of the way, I'm gonna be a bit blunt and say that I may not be actively working on this project, as I have the previously mentioned Mario fangames in development, along with an Angry Birds fangame as well (which by the way is currently in the process of having an engine overhaul).

 

So here is some slight update on this; my game making software license had expired sometime before I released the v2.0 version of Mario's slightly Unusual Boss Rush*, preventing me from adding the features and code to this that I wanted to implement.

With that said, what I was able to do before it expired was just add some placeholder level design for two zones; A prologue zone that is supposed to be a base for Dr. Eggman, and a level from the Bubsy series (I probably won’t make it a grass level):



And I also did some sprite modifying on Sonic, with the help of fellow Sonic spriter "Spiritmaster"**:

I slightly based it on the one seen in Sonic 4 EP I and II’s, cause it had some uniqueness to it. Speaking of which, I plan to base the game's mechanics on Sonic 4 cause I haven't seen many fan-projects use it as a base for something else (no, remakes/reimaginings of Sonic 4 don't count).

Here is the current list of possible zones (with the respective bosses) I made a little list of (compared to the Mario trilogy project it's very small atm and quite vague):

• Zone 0 (Egg R&D Zone): Single Act, No Boss
• Zone 1 (Bubsy Stage): 2 Acts, Woolies
• Zone 2 (Garfield Stage): 2 Acts, ???
• Zone 3 (Chalk-Zone): 2 Acts, Skrawl
• Zone 4 (Sodor Island Zone): 2 Acts, Diesel 10
• Zone 5 (Pac-opolis Zone): 2 Acts, Toc-Man
  Zone 6 (Fair City Zone): 2 Acts, Dr. Two Brains
• Zone 7 (Monkey Ball Stage): 2 Acts, Dr. Baboon
• Zone 8 (Prankster Planet): 2 Acts, Manny and/or Francine
• Zone 9 (Sky Fortress Zone or something akin to that): Act 1 Boss is Metal Sonic, Act 2 Boss is Eggman (the zone will be like a airship like the 8-bit version of Sonic 1)
  
• Zone 10 (Super Mario Bros Zone): Single Act, No Boss (also ending zone)

*The Super Mario Bros. 3 fangame I brought up in the thread previously.
**Who is currently working on Sonic Essence, which by the way has a booth at the 2023 Sonic Hacking Contest
Note: I attempted to link the images from the Sonic Retro discord, but my Discord was glitching up possibly due to hardware issues so I'm using imgur instead.

 

For those wondering the coding/programming status of this project, please look at this post on the MFGG forums cause I don't want to repeat myself here.

So a majority of this post is mostly dealing with sprites and animations of Sonic, Eggman, and some other stuff (some of the colors got broken but they look better in-game and in my scratchpads):

First off, here is Sonic's most recent spritework:

Walking W.I.P (based on Sonic 3)


Running (based on Sonic 3)

The same run in motion (the colors are correct in the .GIF)


And some scratch tests for the Dashing animation (based on Sonic 4 Episode I)


Next, whoever this fella is:

Ossie idle test; long after I made this I came up with the idea to have him fold his arms/wings in a annoyed tone, but I haven't done it yet (also the colors are correct here too)

(no he is not a self-insert, he is supposed to be carry over from Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier)

Next, the Eggman:


And lastly, two enemies:

A Motobug, meant for the prologue level which is to be a Eggman base near the seaside (used an unused SPA Motobug sprite as a base with the other two as color and design references)


W.I.P of a Hardhat Bot (from an old PBS flashgame)


And lastly, here is (in a separate file so I can program it) the attempt at recreating the Homing Attack mechanic

 

I'm now planning on posting updates here and on the MFGG forums, as I've now made a thread over there as well.

Yeah that's literally it.

 

I haven't updated the thread with more info in a while. Better late than never I guess.

First and foremost, I have currently taken a small hiatus from hobbyist work to focus on my professional work. There is a full thread on MFGG that explains this in more detail.

Second, to not make this post totally negative, here are some of the latest spritework I had done on the project:

Update on Sonic's walking animation (Thursday, May 30th):


Another W.I.P of the max speed animation for Sonic (Tuesday, June 4th):


W.I.Ps of some of the planned other media bosses, the outlined one is supposed to be made of chalk, no idea how to properly achieve that effect though (Tuesday, June 4th):


W.I.P of Metal Sonic, I mentioned before that he's a boss (Sunday, June 2th):


And finally some work has been done on the UI, it's based on Sonic 4, who could've guessed.. (Saturday, June 22nd)



That's pretty much it.

Thirdly, I will now respond to the latest few posts made in this thread;

I'm interested to know how your project would've turned out had it been made; Did you have any concepts or notes about it that you'd be willing to share? Also, thanks for the encouragement!

I'm not that familiar with the game this is from (Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus), but it does look quite intriguing..

..I think you mighr've responded to the wrong thread; Even if you haven't this message is kinda funny not gonna lie.