Serephim Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 As far as Lilac goes, I think the best I could do at this point is to focus her abilities more heavily on her two long strands of hair. Her melee attacks already use them, and I'll bet that if I made them feel more prehensile or even had them change shape and length depending on what she's doing, then it might take the focus off the abilities she has in common with Sonic. Maybe I could change the rolling animation so that she stretches out her hair to cover her entire body like a ball of yarn, or into a wheel that she can grab onto and cartwheel with. This is exactly what i was talking about. Those are wonderful ideas. Like i said, you don't have to remove rolling, but something so simple as an animation change can make it feel like a completely different action than it was before. Disagree. Maybe not a drastic change, but you need to remove her spikes at least if you want her to not look so much like Sonic. As much as you've been moving toward having this be an original game, the main characters still just looks like someone's Sonic fan character (which is apparently is). It hurts it. There's a few other things that need changing, but I DO feel that people saying it's THAT much like a Sonic game are being unfair. Lilac and her moveset are the main thing that really makes it feel like a Sonic game, because Carol doesn't really (except her ability to roll into a ball). Well as long as Strife has no issue redesigning her and her sprites, i don't see how redoing her could be a negative in any ways other than time consumption. She could do to look less like a Sonic character, but my reasoning behind not really caring about her design is that...well, sonic isn't really the only character that looks like Sonic. Sparkster could be a sonic character if he wanted to. But in terms of distancing her from Sonic? Yeah, changing her head design would do wonders. I couldn't disagree more with everything in a post, for a number of reasons, but especially the "you shouldn't listen to anyone else's opinions but your own" part. That reads just like someone who puts drawings up somewhere like DA or something to show them off, but gets mad when someone gives it a critique. If you want the game to not live up to the potential that it can live up to, then sure don't listen to other's opinions or critiques, but I know it can be better and you've listened to a lot of the problems and fixed many of them so far. I dont think he meant to tell him not to listen to criticism. I think what he was saying was, dont mold yourself only to the criticism. Which I agree with to a degree, in this case. This game gets compared to Sonic alot, so trying to avoid it will pretty much set him in an endless loop of alterations, which is downright toxic to getting anything done (if he were to listen to all of them). The point at which to begin ignoring criticism lies within the person I think. I think it's something that needs to be done at some point to continue growing as an artist or designer or whatever. Criticism opens your eyes to your faults, but at a certain skill level, you have to discern between what's a fault of yours and an opinion of someone else. Takes a bit of self confidence, and may result in mistakes, but hey i think those are all parts of the process. I think those kids on DeviantArt are an example of what happens when you get too much positive reinforcement for nothing. Everyone has that artist moment when you think you're the shit and nobody can tell you otherwise, but i think it takes something in your OWN head to want to improve beyond your current skill. When that doesn't happen they just migrate to DeviantArt where drawing anime characters gets them autopraise, which is probably all they want. Telling them otherwise just makes em go "lol your opinion" and then go show it to their group of like-minded friends. But anyway, i think Strife not showing Lilac's new design until he alone is finished with it is a wonderful idea. I'd personally do it the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gri Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Lilac is water dragon, so what do you think about turning into water? It will also have sense in S-tubes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven M Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Turning into water or taking greater advantage of the element could be interesting. Sliding across the ground like a puddle/wave, bouncing off walls with bubbles following you. The spin-attack could turn into a whirlpool. Tubes that separate and lead to different areas, with a tiny Lilac emerging into a new route to find the rest of herself (a bit like Sonic CD's Metal Madness zone). Allows you greater maneuverability in water itself, to swim like a dolphin. Maybe allow the player to absorb the occasional puddle and gain Mega Mushroom-esque grow-and-stomp abilities? Influence the environment and restore flora to its natural (and helpful, platform-wise) state. Turn from soluble into solid ice and back. Water can sweep enemies off their feet and knock them around, or a solid Lilac of ice can act as a more traditional butt-stomp attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 So the Dev Relations Coordinator at SEGA got back to me and forwarded my e-mail to their legal department. Kinda wished that he could've asked me first... Ah well. Guess I'll have to continue with the original plan. ^^;; If they deem any aspects of the game as infringements, I'll see if I can refer them to some examples of games that have striking similarities to Sonic either in style or presentation (such as the Rayman game Damizean posted on Retro) and maybe try to haggle down their opinion. I really hope they give me the benefit of the doubt since I was considerate enough to approach them before the game was finished. I hope this wasn't a huge mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falk Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Eh, that's a surprise! I want to say SEGA is one of the companies who actually -like- their fans but *coughSORcough*. Fingers crossed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 I'm willing to cut them some slack on the Streets of Rage remake, though, because while it contained a lot of new content and gameplay features, the original game was also in there in its entirety, so they were essentially distributing a commercial game for free. That's not the case with Freedom Planet, of course; I don't have the original Sonic the Hedgehog encoded into the game or anything like that. xD; I'll try and look on the positive side of things while I wait for a response. At least this is being dealt with while I still have little to lose. Had I waited until the game was finished and released, it might have had more negative consequences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TailsSena Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Best advice I can give at this point is this... "Just remove references to the fact that this was made with Sonic Worlds... I don't mean rebuild the game, just don't go out saying it was made with a Sonic engine." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicWind Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 As I said many times before, this is a great game you're working on. I hope your ideas to separate it from the Sonic games work out, and I also can't wait to see Lilac's new design. I've actually been working on fanart of her old design. Might have it finished sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serephim Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Best advice I can give at this point is this..."Just remove references to the fact that this was made with Sonic Worlds... I don't mean rebuild the game, just don't go out saying it was made with a Sonic engine." It doesn't matter what this game was built on, it wasn't built on any of Sega's property. Sonic Worlds uses none of Sega's programming and Freedom Planet steals nothing from Sonic the Hedgehog that Sonic the Hedgehog didn't steal from Mario, or Mario from one of its predecessors. If they have an issue with it, they're abusing legal semantics to stifle innovation. The only thing i think they could even think towards annoying Strife with is Lilac's face. In which case they should still sit down because i can point them in the direction of plenty of people they should sue first. He obviously shouldn't credit "Sonic Worlds" as the engine framework, but he doesn't have to. He can just credit all the people who worked on worlds. ....speaking of which, we should probably come up with something else to name the Worlds engine. Freedom Planet probably isn't the only game that uses it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 I'd say I'm starting to feel a little more optimistic about it. Reaching out to them was the right thing to do, and it's going to give me a clean conscience no matter how things turn out. I don't want to begin my professional game development career with 1 out of every 5 journalists comparing me to Zynga in the plagiarism department (even though it's not plagiarism and they're probably only saying that because it annoys them so much xD; ). As for a new name for Sonic Worlds... How about The Ultimate 360 Degree Platform Engine? :3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayling Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Maybe just the Worlds Platform Engine? Btw this game is stellar, as I never post anymore I felt obligated to say so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSF Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 MMF Worlds Engine, or just Worlds Engine, even. Anyway, Strife: I seriously doubt Sega would have any kind of issue with FP - you're using no code from them, didn't reverse engineer anything when making it, and assets are all original, even if people just love to complain that X looks like a Sonic character. Keep going, man. Nothing can stop you. And remember: Don't allow opinions to steer you away from your original vision - one thing is to have feedback and act upon it, and another is to just plainly "please the crowd". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Thank you Ayling! It means a lot to me when folks come back from a hiatus or register on the forums specifically to compliment the game. :'D gsoft - I totally agree. I think after the demo's been out for a couple of months and discussion about the game dies down, I'll have more room to quietly do my own thing without being showered by outside opinions (Not that I don't appreciate them, of course!). I'll post updates, but they'll be a little less frequent since I plan on keeping a lot of things hidden until the full version is ready... ...unless you're a tester, of course. Which reminds me - at some point I'll need my current test group to sign a formal Non-Disclosure Agreement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serephim Posted August 22, 2012 Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Yeah I agree. I can understand why you contacted Sega, but tbh it's probably just you being over conscious about it. The game has similarties with Sonic...but nothing i would ever fathom someone suing you over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goshi68 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 I have to agree with Serephim here. While Freedom Planet bars a rather uncanny resemblance to the blue hedgehog's games, there's more than enough to warrant it's own recognition aside from Sonic. But, anyway, in traditional Goshi fashion, I shall post my latest time... Uh, yeah... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 o__o That's an insane time. Congrats! I've only got a few animations left to do for the new Lilac, and they're the longest ones, so I'll wait until tomorrow to plow through 'em. After that I should be able to record a new video of her in action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TailsSena Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 I hope for your sanity that you're not drawing all of these animations by hand, Strife! I'd be dead if I did that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanGameRevolver Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 But, anyway, in traditional Goshi fashion, I shall post my latest time...[qimg]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41172558/Photos/newfp_record.PNG[/qimg] Uh, yeah... THE FUCKING FUCK TRUCK? WHAT AM I MISSING?! HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBRU? In all seriousness I would like some explanation on this, because I seriously don't believe I could beat that time evenif I nailed my route perfectly like a machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TailsSena Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Photoshop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strife Posted August 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 I hope for your sanity that you're not drawing all of these animations by hand, Strife!I'd be dead if I did that... I am. xD; It kinda helps though that she's wearing the same outfit as before; The biggest changes are in the head and the color palette. Also, I too would be interested in knowing how Goshi beat the stage so quickly. :3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goshi68 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Photoshop? Why would I cheat? I am very honest, and I play things by the book. I believe in the right to call things as I see them, and to always play fair, no matter what. It's impossible to do on my computer (It's a 2002 with a shitty graphics card) since it renders things by stretch. I ALWAYS save my images in PNG, and, while all the other ones beforehand were clear, that was because I was a state over for vacation. With my mom. Who has a waaaaay better laptop. Hold on for a bit, guys. I'm in the process of recording myself in sub-4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TailsSena Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Goshi, I was kidding. I know you'd never do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goshi68 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Sorry for sounding a bit venomous there, Sena. Been a bit of a rough day for me. Anyway! You requested Veedeeo Proof, and I'll give you Veedeeo Proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanGameRevolver Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 dude...this run is insane. Good job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goshi68 Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 dude...this run is insane. Good job. Thank you. It was very fun to record this. It was quite difficult to time a lot of the things you see there(Like ricocheting up a tight corridor or through the bridge, where you can bounce back if you're not back far enough). Most times I'll end up pinballing around for a few more seconds or some other unexpected results. Which screws up your timeattack attempt. Gah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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