Highwire4

So I figured out how to create 3D stereoscopic images that are compatible with a 3DS. I can basically make a picture have depth on a 3DS. So I went and made a few of Havok Harbor and Blackshore Meltdown. You can download both here and here YOU MUST HAVE A 3DS AND AN SD CARD TO MAKE THIS WORK -Unzip the .rar file and plug an SD card into your computer. -Open up the SD Card in explorer and copy paste the files from the .rar into F:// DCIM/101NIN03 -Make sure that the files you are putting on the SD card are not already taken. If they are, then change the name of the files in the .rar to a different value like so- HNI_0039 to HNI_0099. HNI_00 must stay in the name and each .mpo file has a corrisponding .jpeg that must have the same name. Do not get them serarated. -when the files are copied over to the SD Card, pop it in your 3DS and boot up photo viewer and enjoy. Just some sweet gifs to go with this post too.

What about anyone from sonic battle. There are a bajillion moves for every character in that game, so why not a character from that? Rouge the Bat maybe? Or maybe even Gamma or Chaos 0? You've got a lot more choices than you think man, you just have to look.

How about Eggman. He's got the build for it.

Making a character select is rather simple in MMF2. Just have Global strings or variables for each character, so have one named "Sonic_SELECT", one named "TAILS_SELECT", and etc for how ever many you have and make their default values 0 (which is not active.) In the character select screen, when you choose a character to play as, it will change what ever global value you have for that character to 1 (which means its active). In the levels themselves just have a line of code that checks what the global variables are at the start of the frame and then activate a group of code depending on which variable has a value of "1". You'll need to have the complete code for each character in every level to make it work though. Does that help at all?

I was just trying to be fair and considerate to ya man. No need for the tone. So if you aren't planning to have a demo ready by SAGE this year when are you thinking of having one ready? Do you have a deadline yet or is that still undetermined?

Fair enough. If you think thats enough for him I suppose thats your choice. I did leave another suggestion for his counter in my previous pot. You didn't mention it here so I'm going to assume you didn't notice it. But yeah those counter suggestions would help out the boss quite a bit.

Rawr nailed it on the head. Takes up way too much screen space for whats going on. I personally thought that the HUD had been fine the way it was, so if you guys can't figure out a way how to keep the style points you've got going on here and fix the screen space it takes up I think you'll do fine reverting to the old one as a quick last minute fix. I also noticed the positioning of the actual information in relation to the graphics and its not just how much space and visibility that the blue bars take up themselves (which is a lot ) but its also how close to the center of the screen the score and ring counters are. Those counters are almost in the middle of the screen which is invading into the action space a bit too far for just about any resolution. I'd recommend reducing the distance from the edge of the screen for the counters to somewhere around 10% of the screen size as opposed to the 40-45% you've got going on now. Its just not neccessary to have to have those numbers so close to the action is all. Perhaps a way to compromise the style and visibility problems with hud would be to make the blue bars semi-transparant? I don't know how it might look and you'd have to experiment a little, but I think you might be able to acheive what you want with something like that. It's nice to see you experimenting with it though. Sorry about the long post, its just HUDs are tricky and require almost as much tweaking as player metrics or controls and I'm just passing on lessons I've learned from my stuff. Good progress though.

I know its a first boss--judging from the background--but he's painfully simple and a bit too easy. He suffers from a problem that older sonic bosses have in that there is never a state where the boss cannot be hurt (unless its submerged in lava or something) so the player can always get a hit in on the boss and if good enough, can kill it pretty quickly before the boss has even gotten started, which kinda takes away from the depth of the fight a bit. Perhaps if you made it impossible for the player to hit darth while he's charging the sphere or impossible to hide under him or close to him while he's charging it would add some more depth and make it more engaging. In this fight its just a bit too slow paced and easy to hit Darth, even for a first boss. I like the addition of a dash after a hit, but its not really a good counter attack since it seems to go in the complete opposite direction that the player seems to end up after hitting him, which just ends up speed up the fight and not doing much else. I feel like you can do something more with that though, like the dash is his method of introducing the counter attack before he does it--basically he uses it to get away from the player to get to somewhere the player can't reach before unleashing a new attack that the player must dodge no matter where they are. This could be an extension of the energy ball attack--he makes a big one and throws that down in the middle making 2 waves go along the ground in opposite directions maybe?-- or an extension of the dash attack--he aims his body at the player for a moment or two before slicing the air where the player was with an instant dash move before reseting. You've got a few basic fundamentals of what a boss fight is, and with the additions you've been putting on you'r clearly going in the right direction, I just don't think its quite there yet. After all, if you can just camp under him for half of the first fight, he's not too threatening at all for a main villian is he? You want the player to hate the villian in a game, so make a good first impression, and a good way to do that is with a good boss fight. I don't know how much you'll actually have time to change since SAGE is coming up and I know how much time it takes to get even a basic boss working, so if you can't really mess with it any more I totally understand, but something to think about for the future? Anyway, nice progress man. You just keep going full steam ahead with this. Its good to see.

Hmmm I forgot about the limitations of modding, so I'll cut you some slack but not a lot. Limitation is when you as a developer get to shine, making the best out of what little you have to work with, so there is still a lot you could do to improve what you have graphically. The easiest fix is to find an art style you like and convert all of the art assets to that style. That way you're working within your current framework and you're just replacing the assets you've all ready put in. Making the UI and Menus look nice is going to require some clever thinking on your end, but it can be done. EDIT: I also realize that SAGE is getting close so I don't know if you'll have enough time to convert ALL of your assets in time, so I would advise you prioritize assets that obviously clash or look bad and polish other things like character select organization ( I know there has to be a way for you to change their order. Their has to be.), the character select full body portraits not fitting and thus getting cutoff, gameplay, etc. But I dont know how much you can do in what little time is available so.. its kinda up to what you do with that time I guess. I understand if you just can't due to time though so no worries on that, always next SAGE eh?

oh my, that is quite interesting indeed. Does the board do other things than just skate you around? Or is the level filled with things for it to interact with that you just aren't showing off yet? Either way it'll make a memorable part of the game for sure. I really like your color choice for the board though, it compliments Spark's shoes and the background at the same time, which helps make spark's hitbox clearer to compensate for his yellow body portrayed against a yellow background. Nice balance on that.

I do lets plays as a hobby so I could record non-commentary (or commentary if you like) videos of a blind playthrough, put it on unlisted and link them all to you. That is if you're still looking for someone to do that. As for the update a board power up sounds pretty rad. Loving the color schemes you have going on with the artwork as well.

Better yet put it on something sensible that works for everyone. Like Mediafire. Seriously just use mediafire. Its quick easy and not a pain to download from it. I'll play it later today if I get a chance to, I'm in a crunch time at the moment but this has interested me enough to take a gander at it.

Names are an interesting thing and there are a few different methods for how you can go about it. For sonic zones, a good naming scheme is to have half of the name describe some aspect of the zone--color, mood, adjective, verb, event, etc-- this is where you can give a lot of character to a zone and will say a lot about the kind of level it is. The other half is generally what theme it is--can be a theme, place, a thing that composes a lot of the level, main setting-- and it this half that you generally have being described by the other half of the zone name. Alliteration is a good way to go with it in terms of having a snappy name but it can limit your vocabulary significantly so you don't always have to use it for every stage. When I name stages I like to establish the kind of mood and logic behind it and then find a synonym of what ever the level's theme is that can best couple up with it. They have to tell the player everything they need to know about it without being boringly obvious. Names I had for my fan game were things like "Forgotten Forest", "Grainy Ghetto", "Havok Harbor", "Silver Skyline" and "Cryptic Crust" just to name a few. If it doesn't roll off the tongue well or feels clunky than scrap it and go for a different name. If you want help brainstorming the actual names though I'm gonna need more info on the zones.

Darth is indeed generic and I don't see the point of making him look like Bingo. Making him look like Bingo insinuates that he is some how connected to Bingo in ways the player may or may not come to know. Shadow looks like Sonic because the plot needed Sonic to loose his reputation by someone impersonating him and stealing shit, thus having a connection between Shadow and Sonic, thus having shadow look like sonic. Not only that, but Shadow has similar gameplay to sonic, connecting him even more to sonic. If Darth isn't doing anything like that then I see no reason for him to bear resemblance of any kind to Bingo unless he's like his dad or something. *cliche plot twist here* He's also not very threatening and could do with some more evil features, like making him look bigger or bulkier than Bingo, have floating hands or spikes or something going on.

Yeah wow Lange cool it for a bit. B/ATS had some rad ideas and was good, so I'm not surprised to see a new fan game take inspiration from it, which is perfectly fine by the way, but saying its a rip off is rather insulting on a few levels. Rip off insinuates trying to cash in on making something as close to something else profitable and doing it the fastest way you can and doing it in low quality. I don't see that at all, theres too much passion and dedication going on here for it to be a rip off. Granted it is pretty similar, so it would do it well to see some bigger more original ideas thrown in to give it more of its own identity, but you're being a bit way to nit picky with this man. Except with the physics, that shit needs to get perfected down to the last nit pick.

I had brought up how un appealing the game looks due to the amount of clashing going on with the visuals and the need for unity in them at some point and this just adds to that. Fantastic example for the HUD and character select. It looks like the game had actual art direction as opposed to the modded jumble of stitched together information that is the current game. We are actually trying to help you make a better game, the least you could do is consider doing something with the advice we give rather than just doing your way or the highway. Or not, but this example is some damn good advice and would be a shame to not do any thing with it.

I like it. Its simple and instantly recognizable as to its function. Perhaps if you had a banner of some sort pop out when you cross it or a flag standing there that would react to the wind created by the player passing it would make it a bit more interactive than just a thing the player runs over. Like maybe a Flagpole that Bingo swings up and how high he goes is dependent on how fast he crosses the line? Or maybe a little podium for the player to jump on that would single the true end of the level? I mean, this works, but I think it would be cool if the end of the level was initiated by the player deliberately pressing a button on their keyboard when they want to rather than just holding down a button that they use to progress anyway and then just crossing the line. I guess what I'm saying is, why not make it kind of like a little game? The Mario Flagpole and the Sonic Capsule are both great examples of how to make the end of the level more like a player initiated thing, and as a result, something they've been working towards. Just a suggestion for the future. What you've been dishing out so far is great though.

Welp. I'd say you need to finally upgrade then if thats the case. Sucks though, this was looking like it could be something cool.

So I as working on Havok Harbor's new interactive music engine. Its supposed to basically work like Falk's "Be cool Be Wild" demonstration which I'd also link to but it he made it private for what ever reason. The engine works for the most part (except the odd pre-mature looping I don't know what thats all about), you can hear the music change in different parts but clearly EVERYTHING else went wrong. This new music engine is in preparation for Havok Harbor's new original music track which will be in the next release. @Gistix: Thats impressive that you've transcribed that much of the level over to unity and maintained the overall graphical look. Those camera angles and rainbow rings are clearly still a work in progress though.

He's got the whole game planned out with people working on different zones as we speak, me included. They've got a lot of variety. The HUD looks fine the way it is now, I don't see any reason to mess with it further.

Whether or not its "too easy" hardly matters with a HUD. All that matters is that it does it's job and that it does it well. The number of rings should be immediately to the right of the "RINGS" and aligned to the left rather than aligned to center like it currently is. The rest of the HUD could be further in the game space as well, I'd say make it's distance from the center of the screen match that of the lives counter. Other than that I think this could work. Having a toggle for a different HUD isn't a bad idea either.

Done, and done. Can't wait to hear what you guys think. And of course I still love you ~<3

Boost gameplay is fun and doesn't hinder exploration, especially if you can boost in the air since it gives you another way of moving around. You just need to design your levels around encouraging exploration and using the boost to its full potential.

Well I'd love to but apparantly your inbox is full :C

Ocarina of TIme: God I better find one hell of a bunker for having this one here. I grew up with a playstation and a gameboy, so while everyone else was playing FF7 and OoT, I was playing Spyro and Pokemon. So keep that in mind with this. All my life I have not heard a stop to the hype around this game, it may as well have been god incarnate for all I knew so when I got my first TV nintendo console--a wii-- I went and bought it on the virtual console. I was pretty psyched at the time and couldn't wait to play through it. When I finally did play through it, I was rather disappointed. I just did not have fun with that game. At all. The amount of hype surrounding this is what killed it for me. It didn't even come close to what the hype prophesied and I didn't even understand many of the overused jokes surrounding it, like the water temple for example. I flew through the water temple. That was easy. The only temple to give me massive trouble was the Spirit temple and its vague as hell level design. Everything was just 'eh' about it, and its obvious that the graphics haven't aged well at all. Everything looks like a gross polygonal mess and anyone who still thinks they're good probably still has their nostalgia goggles on. I grew up with graphics from that era so I can tolerate that level of quality, but it just looks bad to me. I dunno. I just didn't have any fun at all with it and I doubt I'll have any fun with the second most hyped Zelda game of all time--Majora's Mask--which I have yet to play. Tiny Tank: Tiny Tank for the PS1 is a horrible game with absurd difficulty spikes and it sometimes focuses too much on centering levels around its weakest points. But its still one of my favorite games of all time and thats why its on here. As a kid I adored this game. It was fun, hilarious, and had a superb soundtrack and voice acting. It wasn't until I got older that I noticed how bad it actually was and I find it hard to believe I considered it to be an amazing game. For someone who is trying to get into the game industry, its a little embarrassing to peg this one up so high when its not even close to being great. Its kinda my guilty pleasure and the only mediocre game I get real pleasure from. Lost World: I got this on the 3DS and was quickly disappointed for all of the reasons listed already. I do find the first 2 levels rather fun though, but only the first two. Everything else was horrible.