Blue Emerald

Bad news, bears. Sonic 4 will not be appearing in this year's SAGE. Two reasons as to why this is: 1) The tiles I was originally using to complete the level were getting cluttered and weren't looking too good. I'd decided to try creating better tiles so not only will the level layout look cleaner, but it should end up saving space, as well. 2) College just started for me yesterday. Expect it to eat up much of my time. I get one class per day over the span of four days a week. Each class will assign a decently-sized project that will be due in a week. But the bright side is that each class is 3-5 hours long, and I get Fridays off. But in the meantime, wish me luck: apparently, game design is a very stressful profession. I'm sorry that I've let a lot of you down, but hopefully, I can keep the game moving and get a demo out at some time.

Happy birthday, Techokami! Hope your birthday is awesome today!

Never played the Treasure games -- when I looked at these screens, I was reminded of this DS game called Scurge: Hive. That game was a platform-shooter, too, but it was isometric. Anyway, I like that three-dimensional effect you gave the platforms. That effect makes this game look fresh and appealing. I'll have to try this game out when I'm at SAGE.

Cstyler: You're right. I just noticed that. His hands are backwards! XD I'll be sure to fix that.

I was trying to draw up a new gimmick for Sonic 4 last night, when I realized, while I was drawing, how much my skills had improved; I'd never been this good at drawing Sonic before. I was so impressed by my own work that I felt like I had to share it with you all. I might share more sketches over time, too. This sketch shows Sonic hanging on to what I call a "flowercopter." It's kind of like the dandelion seed gimmick from Ristar, and it might even behave the same way. I felt like Sonic needed a cool way to move upward in a stage, and while bouncy mushrooms and log springs didn't seem to do it, this felt like a less restrictive form of vertical travel.

Can't believe I didn't think of taking an obstacle and pasting it in a higher layer. Thanks, MCKaosu; you saved me a lot of trouble. +Rep Now I just want to know how people handle the Green Hill-styled paths.

But Ashura: Dark Reign isn't dead, right?

I have a few questions I'd like to get cleared up as I'm building my level: 1) Sometimes in Sonic games, a spring will be hidden under the ground or embedded in a wall. When I try to do this in MMF, the spring stays in front. How do I hide the spring behind an obstacle? 2) There are some areas, like in Green Hill Zone, where platform paths overlap. For example, at the beginning of Act 1 there is a platform that appears to be behind another path. I've already done something like this, but I want to know how other people have approached this. What I did was take some obstacles and move them back one layer, then I made the platform path an active object so Sonic could jump up to it from underneath. Is there a better way to do this that doesn't involve active objects?

Not that it's extremely important, but you should also add that 5:00 and over would be 0 points. I think the first Sonic the Hedgehog had a different way of handling the time bonus, too. I don't know if it was the only game to have that scoring system, but the one Password posted seems to be used in the most Sonic games. Here it is. Got it from Sonic Retro. * Game clock reads 0:29 or less = 50000 * Game clock reads 0:30 to 0:44 = 10000 * Game clock reads 0:45 to 0:59 = 5000 * Game clock reads 1:00 to 1:29 = 4000 * Game clock reads 1:30 to 1:59 = 3000 * Game clock reads 2:00 to 2:59 = 2000 * Game clock reads 3:00 to 3:59 = 1000 * Game clock reads 4:00 to 4:59 = 500 * Game clock reads 5:00 or more = 0 [EDIT] Never mind, it was Sonic 3 that had the different scoring system. * Game clock reads 0:59 or less = 50,000 * Game clock reads 1:00 to 1:29 = 10,000 * Game clock reads 1:30 to 1:59 = 5000 * Game clock reads 2:00 to 2:29 = 4000 * Game clock reads 2:30 to 2:59 = 3000 * Game clock reads 3:00 to 3:29 = 1000 * Game clock reads 3:30 to 9:58 = 100 * Game clock reads 9:59 exactly = 100,000

My two cents: Twitter = blogging for the unmotivated

LOL, you too? Man, I thought for sure I was going to be the first. And yes Rael, it's true, there's too much bad rap out there [passing for modern pop music]. There's a distinct lack of originality in both tunes and lyrics. Eventually, you get annoyed by the stuff because 1) a great deal of the song is nonsense slang and 2) the vocals have their annoying moments -- for example, my favorite is the part where the rapper ends his sentence with an elongated question mark. I swear it's almost like this stuff promotes stupidity. I haven't seen rap improve any ever since the '90s. It's only ever become worse. It went from a rapid succession of wild and cleverly-chosen words to "Ayy, I'm a gangster, dawg! I'm chillin' on my dubs! Splibbity sploobity skee-bop-a-dizzle WHAAT??" ...Well, at least the pop of this era is looking to finally be replaced by a new genre; I've noticed that it's showing up more on pop stations. Can't exactly pinpoint what it is, but it's like metal meets pop, only the vocals sound a touch more distressed. At least it's not using any slang. To summarize, rap music nowadays has allowed me to adapt to disliking it.

Progress Report! I can't believe it's already been a month since my last post here. Anyway, I figure it's time I give you both the good news and the bad news as to the progress of Sonic 4. Bad news is I've been on vacation for the past few weeks, and I've been stuck using a bad dial-up connection, which means I can't access information as fast as I'd like, which has indeed been a hindrance in the game's progress. In other words, a SAGE appearance is still up in the air. The better news, however, is that I've still been hard at work on the game and making tweaks here and there to the Worlds engine. Here's what I've been able to accomplish on my own: For starters, I'll show a minor tweak I've made to the Worlds engine. When traveling through loops in the original engine, the player never went behind the front half of the loop. As you can see, I've changed that. When it comes to most MMF-based Sonic fangames, Badniks have had a limited assortment of movements. Your standard Badnik can be seen moving back and forth in a straight line. Other standard MMF Badniks can be found floating or dashing around in midair. Aside from Sonic brawler Mecha Madness, with its solid physics programming, rarely has there been an MMF Sonic game where the Badniks have had complex movement patterns. Fortunately, with the help of LarkSS, I've been able to successfully implement gravity and slope detection in a ground-based Badnik. Of course, when dealing with platforms, the events I used for ground-based movement don't apply, as they only detect obstacles. Such is the shortcoming of MMF in comparison to more advanced engines such as RSDK, but I play with the hand I'm dealt, and MMF isn't really that horrible of a program. In the case of getting my Badnik to walk on an actve object, I was able to produce this: It isn't perfect, mind you, but I feel it serves its purpose well enough. Finally, I'd like to introduce the new gimmick I've created for Summer Forest Zone -- the vine cable. Simply jump on this cable and you'll be cruisin' along until it reaches its destination. Jump off the cable, and it'll glide back to its original position. Note the new animation I created specifically for this gimmick. As soon as Sonic jumps on, he grips the vine and steadies himself on the platform as it slides along. As you can see, the game has made fair progress. In fact, I'm beginning to learn more about the Worlds engine as I continue to work with it. Hopefully, I can get a demo going as soon as possible, so bear with me as I continue working on this game. Peace, broskis!

Happy birthday, MFZB! I would've said it earlier, but this current dial-up state I'm in is really bringing me down. Nevertheless, I'm glad your birthday was awesome.

Yep, that's what happened. I missed a few events when I was changing the values around. By the way, are the alterable values in the enemies directly connected to the values in their qualifier, or are they separate values? Also, I'll be sure to add you on AIM. I may need further help with this sometime. In the meantime, I'll rep you for getting me this far. Thank you.

Really? Because when I converted Values A through L to Values M through X respectively, the enemies all fell through the floor. I'll try it again; I could have possibly missed something. On the plus side, when checking bottom-left and bottom-right collisions, I extended the X Left and X Right sensors to +16 and -16 respectively, and now the enemies can move down slopes. I created invisible collision boxes in the frame to make sure the enemies didn't fall off ledges.

I already have the AI Example; in fact, I was using it as a guide to see how I could get Badnik gravity to work. Two issues came up: 1) when an enemy travels up a slope it gets stuck midway up the slope, and 2) the alterable values being used in this example contradict with the values being used on enemies in Sonic Worlds. Does it matter which alterable value letters are used? [EDIT] Okay, I just found out that the alterable value letters do matter. Also, the enemies in the example know how to go up a slope, but they don't know how to go down a slope.

Two words: Swat Bots. And after playing Chronicles, I never wanna play a Sonic RPG where I fight aliens and rabid animals ever again. Of course, maybe if I was playing as Sonic and the Freedom Fighters instead of as the main video game characters, I might have been okay with that. Fighting Swat Bots with Amy and Big didn't seem right to me.

I sort of see what you mean, Lark. So it's kind of the way I was doing things originally -- I had hidden collision sensors in the level that told the enemies when to change direction. That much I can do. As for a fastloop, I haven't done anything with those yet. In fact, I wouldn't exactly know how to begin, and it leaves me with a lot of questions. If I were to use sensors on the ground, could I make the fastloop recognize it? On top of that, how would this fastloop deal with bouncing Badniks? How many Alterable Values would need to be used in each Badnik in order for it to work, if any? As for embedding sensors into the enemy, I wouldn't know how to do that either, nor have I ever seen an example of this. It's something I have wanted to do, but I never knew how.

By now, you should all know from past threads that I'm still trying to get the hang of programming new physics into Worlds. This time, I'm determined to make my Badniks walk on the ground. I originally programmed them to walk back and forth in a straight line, but I'm no longer content with something that simple. I want to know how to make a Badnik crawl up and down slopes, and how it can sense when it's reached an area too steep to cross. Let's say I'm working with Crabmeat, a Badnik that's already been programmed into Sonic Worlds. What would I need to do to Crabmeat so that it could recognize a slope and it could crawl up or down any slope? What kind of events would I need so that Crabmeat, or any Badnik in particular could crawl up and down a slope? Much thanks to anyone who can solve my problem; this is a pretty important event to program into the game.

You could also just remove the entire Running on Water group if you're like me and don't plan on using it in your game. Ironically, I just found this thread the day after I worked with this gimmick. Another helpful tip: Under the condition "When Water of (L) = 0", find and deactivate as many of the underwater-related groups as you can (Air Bubbles should already be deactivated, but you should also deactivate Water, Drowning, and Running on Water); I'm sure that your game's performance should improve when it doesn't have as many events to juggle.

Come to think of it, was it ever called Super Mario World 2 in Japan? I think it was just called Yoshi's Island over there, and the Mario World moniker was slapped on the English title so it would sell better. @Not_cyborg_ar: Invizimals might just be enough to get me to buy a PSP. After all, I am a fan of monster-battling RPGs, especially ones that can go beyond what Pokemon had already pioneered -- for example, Spectrobes and its fossil-digging and card-registering features. Anyone remember back in the late '90s when "Skannerz" were all the rage? Y'know, that Tamagotchi-like device that revealed creatures and items whenever you scanned a bar code with it? Invizimals reminds me of that, only it's way cooler.

Happy birthday, you two! It's a birthday so nice, I'll celebrate it twice!

I'm actually quite pleased that there's going to be a new Mario Galaxy. The first installment still has a lot of playability in it, but I have positive hopes for the sequel. We're finally getting Yoshi -- a character that people were surprised wasn't in the first game, aside from having a cameo appearance as a hidden planet. I also like the new power drill; I'd like to see how the level designers further incorporate that object into the levels. Overall, it should be just as fun as the first. But the game I'm really excited for is Golden Sun DS! Golden Sun is one of my favorite RPGs, both the first one and The Lost Age. I absolutely loved the first two GBA installments, so when I heard that a third one was being released for the DS, I was ecstatic!

Happy Birthday, Amesuki! ....Really? It's already come and gone? Well, I hope it was awesome!

You know what else could work? If anyone knows the sound effect that plays when the Half or Quarter magic attack is used in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, you could play that backward and have a decent time warp sound effect.