Betaman

Okay, I'm getting curious about this year's Sonic Amateur Games Expo. I contemplated doing a speculation thread earlier, but decided to hold back until I saw this. Which has caused me to get super excited! Last year SAGE was August 6th though the 12th, so I'm guessing we get a little more time to complete our games. (I'm super thankful for this.) This has caused a few questions to pop up for me. Do you guys think the booth system from last year will return? I thought it was pretty interesting, and definitely convenient. What's the theme going to be? It's a Chao egg, so it might be Sonic Adventure related, or it could just be Chao in general.

Well in the first level there are way too many loops. Old Whirlwind Level design 4 has four loops in the same shot, and that's about one loop too many. I also think there needs to be more flow in the level. Place a shallower slope at the bottoms of all the hills so that it gradually slopes up instead of a stark angle, and maybe add some more half pipes to the level design so that you can ramp up with a rolling attack and get some air. Other than that, you might want to add more background things to the level to give it some life and make it pop.

Okay well I guess it's going to have a slow start. Would Friday be a good date for anyone interested in playing? Also, I'm at a loss for what Sonic levels would translate well into DOOM 2. I have a Marble Zone map based off of an odd picture that I found on Google images and I have the first 3rd of Green Grove Zone Act 2. To be fairly honest, neither are very good maps. Ah well, it's not like making the levels Sonic themed are that big a deal. I do have a rough idea for seasonal stuff though, should this get more people involved. And Duckboy, I hope you enjoy that CD.

Wow, that's actually pretty cool. Now if I only had a smidgeon of inspiration to think of something that could actually use those great palettes.

Okay so I've realized just how easy it is to update the Special Stage graphics. That's a potentially ideal interpretation of what the graphics should look like at that resolution. The way they appear originally is due to the fact that they are stored at a size as small as 64 X 112 in the rom. When the special stage data is called upon by the game, the graphics are taken, mirrored or tiled to match what part of the tube is being drawn, and then blown up to twice its size. That's why the special stages aren't full screen when you access them in Sonic 2.

It looks good from what I can see, though you should tweak the HUD in the normal levels, because it looks like it's still flashing even though you got rings... Also, I really wish someone would make an HQ version of those Special stage sprites, they're so ungodly ugly when they're resized.

Sweet! I've been doing some Sonic themed Death match maps because I thought it would be a fun little thing for the community. The wad graphics aren't really that special either, mostly just updating the Hellish textures to also look somewhat Sonic related. (Sonic in Hell, isn't that fun?)

Well I mean, can we start a thread talking about it now? After all the speculation thread for last year was started in May, almost 4 months before the event even started.

I haven't heard squat about SAGE this year. Last year, we had been talking about it since May 4th. And here we are, with the "normal" date for SAGE only a month away, and we haven't discussed it a bit! Heck, the topic for Q&A about it was started July 17th! Seriously, can we start a thread in General Discussion to talk about SAGE this year? With the lack of talk about it, I'm starting to get worried. Freak out aside, the screens look good Delta. Really looking forward to playing Edge of Darkness.

Yeah, the original demo had Giygas from EarthBound as the background, but I somehow started thinking of the Fresh Prince and it just went down hill from there.

Well to be honest, I started thinking about 3D stuff a bit more after I read this post that Serephim had made. I didn't reply in it because at the time I didn't really have anything to say that could be contributed to the thread. I actually have a lot more that I could talk about on the matter of 3D design and what makes it work, but that's for another day, another thread, and another forum section. In order to add something relating to this thread, I'll post a small test that I did with some wavy sprite code. I don't know what gave me the idea to use pictures of Alfonzo Ribeiro, but I did add a function that plays "It's Not Unusual" by Tom Jones if you press space. http://www.mediafire.com/?x2u23ipcpl33102

Perhaps I should be explain the usefulness of rolling as opposed to spindashing. In a 3D game where you are constantly moving forward, it helps to go slower than normal most of the time. This is so you can see things coming at you and better react. This is why Sonic Pocket Adventure's special stage was easier to play than Sonic 2's. In the Saturn version of 3D blast, rolling was available in the special stages so that you could slow down and better react to things coming at you, just like dashers were also available to speed you up and make everything look cooler, but also made it more difficult to react to that string of bombs. Think about the spindash for a second. In 3D Sonic games, it allows you to stop on a dime, then launch forwards super duper fast. This also usually comes at the cost of making Sonic more difficult to control. You are in a tube where you are moving forward, only now you have a variable speed rather than a constant speed. Why would you want to sacrifice control and reaction time to make something look impressive? Then again, Poe already said that it didn't work anyway, so I think I've only succeeded in wasting my breath and time here.

Well the Sega Saturn version of the special stages had rolling(For 3D Blast anyway.), so I think rolling would be a good idea.

Actually now that I'm looking at it a bit closer, I have a complaint about the loop as well, though it's different from Myriad's. The outside edges of it do something that very few Sonic loopy loos do, which is that they curve while continuing their normal geometric pattern. Take a look at this picture I snatched from the level design topic, which can be viewed on this site AND Sonic Retro: You'll notice that most of them contain pillars of some fashion on the outer sides, and most also have a defined top. (Even some of the ones that contain curved edges have a defined top!) This however is not the problem. It has some serious Sonic CD Syndrome going on with it. I think it would really pay to resize the edges horizontally as well as apply the gradient effect on the edges.

No, I agree with you on this one, Myriad. The tiles look like something that's been given an outline, but hasn't been shaded in all the way. Due to this lack of shading, it looks like they're just drawn onto a cardboard stage prop. The grass is good, but the rest of it needs an overhaul.

Yes, you just read that correctly. I'm talking about Doom 2, that old as heck FPS game from the 1990's, miraculously kept alive all these years by source ports such as ZDoom and Skulltag. I bring this up because I recently came across an old copy of Doom 2 that my cousin gave to me when I was like 10. After much annoyance, I was able to extract the WAD so I could use it for Skulltag, and pretty soon I was making PWADS for death matches. There's one problem though: I'm sick of playing against the stupid and uninteresting bots, I can't find any servers to join, and I'm just sitting on a server that I originally made for a private party, but the other members backed out. So that's where you guys come in: Would you like to join me on my server and maybe spend some quality time trying to blow each other into bloody little chunks with a BFG? Important information for those interested in playing: I don't know if you guys would be up for it. Heck, I don't know if anyone on here has even played Doom 2. (Other than Overbound, because I asked him for the O K before I posted this.) Still though, I thought it'd be a nice gesture to invite the community to come down once or twice a week and kill each other in an obsolete video game. Anyway, if you're interested, please respond and maybe I can work out what day(s) of the week would be best for a few matches.

I'm not going to spend this post to make sense of it, so just go to Sonic Retro and look it up. It's explained pretty well there.

It doesn't matter if they're unlockable or not. It also doesn't matter if they're necessary for beating the game or not. Knuckles in Sonic 3 had a storyline that took place AFTER Sonic 3 had actually happened, and he was neither unlockable or necessary for beating the game. If this is supposed to take place after S3K, then improve upon the story telling from S3K. The characters don't have to have a complicated storyline, but at least give them a reason to be there! My, that was awfully rude and unpleasant of you. See the above for my reasoning on why it doesn't matter if they're for fun or not.

Eh, even at that size, it still looks fairly nice. I really think it may look a little bit better at the small size than the larger one. (The grass looks a hell of a lot more intricate that way.)

When I posted my G-Zero demonstration, TheJeli commented on how it looked like Starfox for the VB. This inspired me to make this model with the engine: Any issues you see with this file are caused by the fact that Hypercam 2 hates me to death. This resulted in a bunch of weird jump cuts rather than the smooth rotation I wanted to show. I also didn't feel like editing the gif's frames individually this early in the morning, so what you get is what I recorded. The model itself isn't identical to the SNES model, the bottom points of the thruster engines need to be lower and I don't think the wings and fuselage are long enough. It's close enough to the original that you can recognize it though. Well that's all for tonight from me. See you guys in the morning.

I see one glaring problem with that sprite: The shading on his spikes is upside down. The light source is supposed to be above Sonic, not below him.

Really it's supposed to be an homage to a cancelled VB game called Zero Racers or G-Zero. It was meant to be a 3D sequel to F-Zero on the Snes. In fact, the ship is an attempt at a point for point remake of one of the ships in G-Zero.

Yes. You might also want to shade around the left and right edges. (For the definite edges of the platforms I mean. Your tiling looks great as it is.) Incidentally, here are some screens of a wire-frame demonstration that I turned into a little arcade like game. The images in the bottom right are a few shots of the model

Personally I think it would look better if it was layered a bit. Something like this:

Right Click the speaker icon that opens up the volume control and click "Open Volume Mixer", or you could just click "Mixer" at the bottom of the regular volume control.