Strife

Actually, it's not kanji - It's an attempt at the Chinese symbol for "leader", 长. But the bilingual bonus there is pretty neat as well.

All hail Zao. (Also, pigeons. They fly away when you approach them.)

I need to learn how to make my menus streamlined like that. Freedom Planet's menu system always felt so clunky to me.

When playing someone other than Carol, the fuel tanks inactive and simply act like part of the background scenery. This is mainly so that if you're playing as Lilac, you can still discover where the fuel tanks are located and keep them in mind for a Carol playthrough. Also, Carol always summons her bike out of thin air after she collects a fuel tank. Thanks! ^^

I hope, judging by the lack of a timer, that this is some kind of Metroidvania-styled environment. Cause that would be awesome.

Carol's motorcycle has been fully implemented. She can ride it by collecting fuel tanks like these which are scattered around certain stages. I had to make the bike stage-specific because I found there were a lot of places where it felt glitchy or impractical. Also, you may notice the small counter just underneath the Energy meter. Every time you collect a crystal, this counter will go down, and when it reaches 0 you'll gain an extra life. This should make crystals far more useful to collect. Lastly, the rock textures in Dragon Valley have been given a much-needed upgrade to make them pop out more.

Its standing sprite just looks a little weird to me on that tree. The takeoff/horizontal sprites are much better.

Knuckles has his hat back! =D That's awesome! (The rest of it is quite good too. What's with the grossly mis-shapen owl though?)

Thanks, Alden! That reminds me - I forgot to mention that I solved the issue of how to activate Dragon Cyclone. Lilac can only use it with a full energy meter, and she has to press Jump while in mid-air. However, Dragon Cyclone only uses half of her energy meter, so the player can use this ability more frequently than her Boost (and it reduces the recovery time in case the player accidentally cyclones when they were trying to boost).

Milla the Hound artwork is up!

Thanks guys! And thanks Nonnie for the bug catches. ^^ Here's a couple of new and extremely useful special abilities I've been working on: Lilac's new ability is the Dragon Cyclone. It's hard to capture in screenshots, but she basically spins around like a top, dealing rapid chip damage to enemies and propelling herself slightly upwards, allowing her to glide more easily across horizontal spaces. It currently has to be charged by holding down the Attack button for a few seconds until a spark appears in the center of her sprite. I have concerns that, like Mega Man's charge shot, it would render her normal attacks moot in spite of the charging time, but we'll see how testing goes. Carol's new ability is more of a stage-specific powerup, but at certain points she'll be able to hop onto her motorcycle and drive around. It doubles Carol's top speed so that it matches that of the Speedup powerup, but it has bad deceleration and falls quickly due to its weight. The bike can drive up walls, and jumping at a vertical wall will cause it to latch on. It's still incomplete, but it should give Carol's gameplay a nice kick.

Version 1.2 of the demo is now released! http://freedomplanet.galaxytrail.com/download.htm This version has several big improvements and additions, including the following: - Lilac's sleek new design - Carol's new special ability, the Wild Kick - Elemental crystals that instantly grant you a shield - A new stage, Shang Mu Academy, that contains 18 mini-maps where you must hit all of the targets as quickly as possible We unfortunately could not include the map editor for Shang Mu Academy in this demo as it currently has too many bugs. We're not sure if it will be exclusive to the full version as of yet, but we'll see what the future holds. Enjoy the new and improved demo!

Looking forward to it! Y'know, with all of these features that you guys keep packing into the Worlds engine (with each one being better than the last), I'm starting to wonder if it's getting a little overwhelming for newcomers. I think it would be nice if, alongside the next major release, you guys make a "Sonic Worlds Lite" that contains only the bare minimum number of features for fangame developers to get started (i.e. only Sonic and Tails as selectable characters, one or two gimmicks, one monitor type, minimum special effects, no title cards or transitions, etc). When I first started making Freedom Planet, I spent my first few days just trimming down all of the extra stuff in the engine. xD; As long as the Lite version remains consistent with the full one, I'd imagine that developers would easily be able to copy and paste things from the full version that they want to use in the Lite version.

This. You have no idea how much flak I got over my main character (Lilac) before I eventually felt the need to redesign her. I still get complaints about the similarities even with her redesign, but at least they're far less common now. It seems like you've put a lot of work into his sprite set to the point where you won't want to go back and change him, but if you do, I can offer a few pointers. Regardless, it doesn't seem like you're going to distance this from the Sonic universe too much, so you're probably fine. You could even make it a running gag to where certain characters mistake him for Sonic and he always has to correct them. He could be pretty likeable if he's a good sport about his likeness to the Blue Blur.

Thanks guys! I'm afraid two-player co-op is beyond my programming expertise at the moment. It depends, though; I've been getting a lot of great advice from MCKaosu and Sparks with the Worlds engine, so I may be able to work something out in the distant future. I have other priorities, in the meantime, such as this... This is just a mockup at the moment, but a level editor is surprisingly doable as long as I keep the features simple. You'll only be able to make small "break the target"-type rooms with it. I'm not sure if it'll make it into the demo, but regardless, I should have Shang Mu Dojo and its target minigames in a playable state in the next build.

Glad you like the game, NBlast! I'm aware of the quirk with the floating platforms, but thanks for mentioning it anyway. As far as Greenlight goes, I'm going to wait until I have more content to show off and when I'm confident that I'll have little trouble getting Greenlighted. Carol now has a special Wild Kick ability. Holding the C button lets her attack with rapid-fire kicks as long as she has the Energy for it. She does not gain Energy by running fast like Lilac, but it regenerates slowly over time and by collecting crystals. On a similar note, Lilac can now perform a weak kick by attacking while crouched down. As for this particular stage, it'll be a practice dojo where the player can try out small time challenges. Upon entering the stage, they would be presented with a list of small maps to try out where the goal is to hit all of the targets as quickly as possible. Since I plan to have obstacles load dynamically in order to keep the stage small, this would also open up the possibility of a Dojo Editor where you can make your own maps/challenges.

Cyan City looks way better at night. =O

SonicWind - Yeah, you could put it that way. xD Plus it'll save me a lot of headaches since I don't have to worry about extra limbs, and I'd want them to be one of the more expressive enemy types in the game. So I changed the shield item boxes to be self-demonstrating. I think it makes them look rather unique, and what's cool about it is that instead of collecting them, you can take cover behind them and they'll reflect elemental attacks on their own without you needing to collect them yourself. xD So, for example, I could place a fireball-shooting enemy on the same platform as a fire crystal, and as long as you're standing on the opposite side of the crystal, you're protected from the fireballs. The crystal on the far right is the new Invincibility powerup. In the final game, I want to make it so that collecting one keystone of every color gives you invincibility instead of a random shield. Since it would require delicate planning/luck, maybe I could make the keystone version of the powerup last longer than the one you get from item crystals.

Thank you, Flame! Item box revamp time: One of my friends gave me the idea of changing the shield item boxes to treasure chests, which I think would be a pretty neat idea. I could give each chest a theme/design that corresponds to the element of the shield inside, such as with the two above. I could either give the shield to the player right when they open it or have the chest spit out 5 keystones of its element (though it may result in the player not getting the shield afterall if they already have a stash of keystones saved up). On a different note, Dr. Brevon's name has been changed to Lord Brevon. The doctorate didn't make sense anyway, seeing how he's a military general rather than a scientist. Also, troopers.

You better believe it. There are some Sonicy things that I refuse to change at this point (such as the art style, the presence of a timer, etc), but other things are fair game to me if it helps breathe more life in the universe I've created. Also, I think the stars look kinda stupid with the resizing... Something like this might be better:

Yeah, those are valid points. I'll play around with the colors some more. This is an idea I had to replace the speedup box. When you jump through the ring of stars, it breaks and you get the speedup powerup. Consequentially, this would make it easier for enemies to get the powerup since they don't have to attack in order to trigger it; They only need to move through it. I'm still not sure about the graphics for it, though... I'll need to come up with an effect that gives it an extra "punch" when you cross through it. In any case, I'm thinking that if I can replace all of the item boxes except for the flower petal, then that's one more Sonic element out the window. It might not even be that complicated if I can just make them look and feel differently (as they currently have the little icon that floats up like in the Genesis games).

Pink or blue? I'll probably go with the former since it makes the foreground stand out more, but I figured I'd throw this out there anyway. I may do a little more touchup work on the background, but for now it sets the stage nicely for a boss that's far more complex and intimidating than Dragon Valley's.

Well, you know how some movies are "based on a true story," right? Well, Lilac the Dragon is based on Sash Lilac, and although I could call her my own creation at this point, I'd prefer to pay my respects to my original source of inspiration, without which this project would never have begun in the first place. I'll be fine. Thanks!

I'm touched that you would make an account here just to comment on the game, so thank you! Glad you like it! I had run into this one myself but was curious to know if anyone else had issues with it. It's definitely a Sonic Worlds hiccup, and I'm wondering how to fix it... I'll have to spend a day to really look into the issue. As for the other bugs, you'll no longer be able to pause during the Stage Complete sequence in the next update, so hopefully that should alleviate issues caused by it. ^^

In the full version, you'll need to spend them in order to continue if you get a Game Over, and you'll also be able to buy powerups and upgrades with them.