Sonic Time Twisted Free to Use Sprite Development (02/21/2011)

[Overbound]

The engine looks amazing - pretty close to the originals! A few questions, though: Which game exactly is the engine based off exactly? Sonic 1, 2, 3 or CD? I think that it's unlikely that it's based upon Sonic CD because it doesn't feature the CD-style camera, in which the camera pans a bit ahead of Sonic whenever he's running so that you could see what is ahead of you - which is a really great feature that you should consider. Some people on Retro complain of that feature though, because the camera pans too suddenly - so it might be better to keep it as an optional feature, or make it pan more smoothly than CD did, the way the Advance titles did.

The engine is custom it takes what we believe are the best engine aspects of all 4 games. Mercury has stated that he does not like the Sonic CD camera. I tend to agree with him so the camera will probably come from Sonic 2 with improvements.

The engine we're using is Mercury's custom AeStHete engine its similar to the engine he used for Sonic Fan Remix but made in Game Maker rather than Unity. Mercury has made several improvements over the original genesis engines though. The engine can detect angles less than 16 pixels and improved the way Sonic handles platforms that you can jump through and land on. No more popping up to the top as used to happen in the Genesis games.

I feel the zones are too similar in graphics. They are really close to the style of Sonic CD, which I like, but you gotta keep in mind that every zone should be a different experience, should have a different feel to it. Some zones are faster, like Palmtree Panic and Stardust Speedway. Collision Chaos is full of bumpers. Tidal Tempest is slow-paced and its terrain is blocky. Wacky Workbench is very vertical, etc. And alongside with that, every zone had different graphics, some had more of that surreal Sonic feel, some had a bit less, some were more technological, etc. So it's a pretty important thing to make each zone feel very different from the other, and Attraction Attack and Frigid Fortress seem pretty similar to me.

If you played the 2009 and 2010 demos that you can get on the retro wiki you know that I can design zones in different styles. Perplex Puzzle from the 2010 demo is very blocky and slow. Disport Drive (Viridian Vally now) in the 2009 demo is meant to be faster and play a lot like Palmtree Panic. Each level has a future and a Past and 6-12 level and time specific gimmicks per zone. This will help keep the levels from becoming bland predictable. Of course level design helps too and I've gotten better than I was last year.





Tiles only no objects or gimmicks in these stages yet.

I'm trying to mix the best aspects of Sonic CD and Sonic 3 level design.

Actually its safe to say we're doing that with the whole game.

As far as the levels being too similar. I flat out don't think so. First I'm not working strictly on a 128x128 basis Mercury's level editor allows me to switch the selected tile size to anything. This allows me to make complex levels with fewer tiles. Second while each level uses a pattern like Sonic CD's decorations (which right now every level needs more of) will help the levels free a lot more different just as a did in Sonic CD. Getting the basic tiles and angles down is harder though so I'm focusing on that first.

I'd love to help with the project, since I'm such a huge classic Sonic fan, but I really don't know whether I'll be up for it during the long run. Contact me either way though, I'd love to know more about it! My MSN account is rokkan.x@gmail.com

Will do thanks for the offer!