Freedom Planet (v. 1.4)

[Strife]

Look Ma, we're on Steam!

Main Website

Download Demo (27 MB)

Freedom Planet aims to capture the spirit and raw energy of 2D gaming through a mix of engaging level design and straight-up action. I also hope that it can dispel the theory that games with fan characters have to suck; In fact, I think it can offer a breath of fresh air to the traditional Sonic formula, especially when you combine it with new gameplay elements. In this case, players have an Energy meter that is charged by building up speed/momentum and can be used to boost through the air (much like Sparkster in Rocket Knight Adventures).

:: Story ::

The alien Lord Brevon has crash landed on the faraway world of Avalice, and he will not rest until he has drained the planet's lifestream to rebuild his starship. A strange man that may be the key to stopping him ends up at the doorstep of a young girl named Lilac, who is naturally gifted with the ability to run at breakneck speeds. After volunteering to help him on his mission, Lilac and her small band of followers may be the only one who can stop Brevon before it's too late.

The story is moreless like the Sonic Adventure series in terms of complexity (although I am debating the option of having a "Classic Mode" that strips it down and makes all of the characters silent, in case people want it to feel more like a Genesis game).

:: Screenshots ::

Dragon Valley

Relic Maze (early build)

:: Character Art ::

Lilac - Carol - Milla - Torque - Spade - Neera - Serpentine - Lord Brevon

:: Videos ::

Relic Maze (NEW)

Dragon Valley

:: Audio ::

Soundtrack Demo Reel

Voice Acting Demo Reel

:: Contributors ::

While I've done most of the work myself, I've recruited various people to help me with certain parts of the game's development:

Blue Warrior - Music (base)

Damizean, MCKaosu, and LarkSS - Base engine (Sonic Worlds for MMF2)

Woofle - Music (tweaking and mastering)

Ziyo Ling - Character Design (specifically the three female protagonists)

Arnaud Tegny - Artwork

:: Follow Us! ::

[Strife]

Here's an idea I had for a gimmick in Dragon Valley:

What's it called again? A half-corkscrew, maybe? In any case, I would imagine it'd be a little easier to code into Worlds than a full corkscrew, since you wouldn't have to keep the player in a spiraling motion. Plus, if the horizontal segment is long enough, I could put a wall on top of it and enable the player to race underneath said wall to the other side.

Perhaps I could get away with putting an invisible collision mask underneath where the player is supposed to be, which would only keep the player up if their speed is above a certain point. Then I'd just change their animation, and the current layer they're on, depending on where they're positioned.

[Serephim]

Oh Strife. You give me hope for this place.

[Strife]

Welcome to the bandwagon, then.

HOMG it works. *w* My first real Sonic Worlds gimmick. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the player to move underneath walls that I place over the flat piece of track

[Sparks]

I spy some Sonic Advance 1 gimmicks

Projects pretty cool. I have more thoughts but.. eh.

[BlazefireLP]

Welcome to the bandwagon, then.

[qimg]http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/1413/sltest.png[/qimg]

HOMG it works. *w* My first real Sonic Worlds gimmick. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the player to move underneath walls that I place over the flat piece of track

Looks like you 1up'ed a Corkscrew, Nice. Would be cool if you could make it so the characters scale decreases as he goes further away into the gimmick.

[OverbounD]

Those rock platforms are awesome!

[snow toilet]

Wow, your art looks so cool in the background.

I also like your character.

I'm excited to see a video soon, brotha.

[DimensionWarped]

Looks like you 1up'ed a Corkscrew, Nice. Would be cool if you could make it so the characters scale decreases as he goes further away into the gimmick.

Ehhhhhh, the Sonic Advance series had this same gimmick. It didn't cut off the bottom of the half-pipe, but the concept was basically exactly the same.

[Strife]

Now that you guys mention it, it is almost exactly like the SA1 gimmick. xD I never thought about it while I was making it, but hey, it works.

On the subject of the Worlds engine, the current build I'm using has a glitch where if the player hits a ceiling that isn't perfectly straight, they'll flip upside down and ride along it. I know that DW had the same issue in Madcap Grotto, and I'm wondering if there's a workaround aside from making sure all of the ceilings are straight (i.e. "Collision with box").

Also, Ziyo Ling got back to me this morning, and she has officially given me permission to use her character, so no more worries with that. :3

[DimensionWarped]

There is actually an overlay you can place from one of the earlier versions of Worlds that forces the angle of the player to 0 at all times. Might help.

It'd be a bad way to do it though. Really, your only proper option is to use your regular tile as an overlay to a less slopey collision tile. I did this a couple times in madcap grotto where the effect was really just completely and utterly undesirable.

It does exist for a reason though. It's so that you can spring upwards into an embankment and continue movement rather than just bounce off. Not sure I agree with it, but there's not a whole lot that can be done about it while producing an accurate engine.

[Serephim]

I did this same gimmick a long while ago. All i did was set a starter object that guided you up the ramp, and then negated gravity while running along the wall.

Doesn't work perfect, but it works well enough that i never changed it afterwards

[DimensionWarped]

You can actually do it with the built-in layers (like for loops). You'd basically have a contoured piece of floor that takes you along the lay of the ramp and is invisible on one layer and if the player is on it you just play the animation *and set the frame based on position of course* and drop their ass to the other layer if their speed falls below the desired level.

[Serephim]

Yeah i saw one of you guys (think it was blazehedgehog or someone) suggest doing the corkscrew gimmick as just an invisible platform that guides you along it while you handle the animations and layer changes.

Very simple, smart idea. I used to be good at that kind of thing, lol.

[Sparks]

Isn't it just activated and deactivated by an invisible object in Sonic 2? I know it's like that in Worlds, but for some reason you have to have the corkscrew itself act as the paths guide. In Sonic 2 the corkscrews were nothing more than level tiles (so basically if you didn't put the corkscrew there, but still put the object that activates Sonic doing the corkscrew animation, run, and junk, he'd do it all in mid air). Is there difficulty in making the object as it is in Sonic 2?

Also makes me want to bring up a point about the S tubes in Worlds, but that's not for this thread :V

[Strife]

In this particular case, I'm using invisible detectors on either side of the half-corkscrew that put the player in a new state. The new state disables Y movement and snaps the player to a specific Y coordinate based on where they are.

As for the rest of the level, it's coming along pretty steadily.

I'm still in a limbo about keeping rings in the game, since the player can already take a decent beating without them. Maybe I could make rings into the actual form of health (like in Tails Adventure), though that would mean I'd need to remove the crystals' ability to heal when the Energy meter is maxed out (else every crystal collected would also give you a ring).

I also need to give the Energy meter a purpose. The only thing I can come up with so far that would be remotely useful would be some sort of aerial boost, similar to Sparkster's jetpack or Ristar when he flies off a handlebar. It would certainly avoid the player getting stuck in deep pits/half-pipes due to lack of a Spin Dash. xD;

[VirtAnderson]

I like it all in all, but the simplicity of the objects kind of clashes with the more realistic backgrounds. Was that intended? Also, the half-corkscrew's midsection where the player is sideways looks somewhat blank. Not trying to hate, just throwing my opinion out there.

[sonicyoda]

Personally, I think the sprites fit the stage quite well. He's clearly stylised the graphics to make them look more "gamey" and not as realistic as they could be.

Also, I just wanna say that I'm massively impressed with this project so far. It looks stunning and I hope it plays just as well.

[Strife]

Virt - Sortof. It's my hope that there's enough of a difference between the foreground and background that it'll be easier to tell the two apart. I don't think it'll be a problem in darker-colored stages, though. xD; As for the half-corkscrew, it's just a placeholder for now until I can think of a suitable rock texture. Thanks for the heads-up though!

Sonicyoda - Thanks! I'm doing everything I can to make the gameplay as solid as the look.

When the player's energy is full, they can press Jump in the air to enter a Boost mode where they curl into a ball for a split second (as though they were about to spindash in midair) and then zoom forward at maximum speed. I tried modeling it after Ristar, but the way it's charged and used reminds me more of Sparkster. Definitely makes up for Lilac's overall lack of speed compared to Sonic.

Though, I'm having trouble getting her to face the right angle based on what direction she's travelling in. I've tried SubAnimationAngle, which is what is normally used for Tails' tails, but it doesn't always produce accurate angles.

[Strife]

Dear Journal,

Freedom Planet is now the codename for this project, just so that people know what to call it other than "that untitled thing Strife is making." xD Sounds kinda corny, but it's surprisingly not taken by anything yet.

Anyway, I fixed the angle problem by using ATan2 and plugging in the Y and X velocities accordingly. The player will also properly rebound off walls based on their direction, except when they hit floors and slopes, at which point they'll slide along the ground.

The whole boosting system is really starting to grow on me. Earlier today, I was screwing around in the half-made level I created, running along slopes and hills and whipping any foes I ran into along the way. At some point, my energy meter maxed out, and when I boosted forward, I landed perfectly on a downwards slope at maximum speed, allowing me to race across a series of hills without losing any significant momentum. By the time I reached the end, my energy had maxed out again, so I spun around real quick and boosted in the other direction, and in the process I obliterated a small group of flying enemies.

One of my beefs with modern Sonic games is that the high-speed sections of zones feel so linear and forced. While it looks cool, the fact that you're being spoonfed with boosters and other gimmicks that keep you moving fast removes some of the satisfaction of travelling so quickly in the first place - and it can also give off something of a "keep moving or die" vibe because of how suddenly the flow of the level is disrupted when you mess up or hit a hazard. Conversely, in a classic-styled Sonic game, you don't need to travel at maximum speed to complete a zone, but it's still a possibility, and if you do, it feels like an honest-to-goodness reward for being a skilled player.

So, with this insight in mind, I hope to design my levels such that high speed is a reward and not a requirement. Even then, it'll just be a perk since I'm focusing more on the platforming aspects.

[Strife]

- Added a ladder gimmick. If you attempt to climb a ladder while travelling at a high speed, Lilac will twirl around the edge of it before grabbing hold. Ladders will be one of the most common gimmicks in the game. As you can see from the screenshot, I also want to add Flying Battery-style hanging bars that can be swung across horizontally, though I'm not exactly sure how I can animate it yet.

- Modified ring and crystal monitors so that the contents spill out onto the ground, rather than the player being given the items immediately.

- Changed the death sequence.

- Added codecs, which are card-like items scattered around each zone. Each codec contains a piece of info about the original verse the game takes place in, and they'll be viewable in a separate gallery. Collecting them could also yield unlockables.

I'm also thinking that robotic enemies could drop special items after exploding, but there's a bit of a snag with this idea: the Sonic Worlds engine does not support handling collisions outside the game window, or else the player's movement gets screwed up. This has the unfortunate side-effect of badniks not blowing up when they hit the ground outside the view window (which is quite possible since they get knocked away when struck). This would mean that if they drop items, the player would have to make sure the badnik explodes on-screen in order to receive said items.

Does anyone know of a way I could circumvent this issue? In other words, I'd need badniks to be able to detect when they're overlapping an obstacle even if they're outside the window.

[JetHawk95]

Maybe make the badniks drop the item with a hurt sprite. Almost as if they dropped it from the shock when you hit them?

I like the ladder idea a lot. Very clever indeed.

And its a bit late now but I was thinking maybe have some swinging vines? Or is that too jungle like?

[Strife]

Maybe make the badniks drop the item with a hurt sprite. Almost as if they dropped it from the shock when you hit them?

I like the ladder idea a lot. Very clever indeed.

And its a bit late now but I was thinking maybe have some swinging vines? Or is that too jungle like?

Not for Act 2. You mean something like Angel Island Zone from Sonic 3?

As for item drops, yeah, that's probably what I'll have to do - make the badnik drop the item right as it gets knocked away rather than when it explodes. Doesn't have as much of a "punch" to it, but hey, what can you do. xD;

[JetHawk95]

Yeah something like that

And I geuss exploding and dropping them would be nicer but it'd be a lot harder to do xD

[Strife]

In case y'all are wondering what she's supposed to look like up close.