GameNerd Advance

Isn't the corkscrew supposed to be a Palmtree Parkway exclusive gimmick? And the warning signs? And Isolated Island was supposed to be Palmtree Parkways alternate music too :V Why so much Palmtree Parkway stuff in Generic Garden?

Really? Thank you! To be honest I've always felt like my work could be so much better, so that means a lot :3 And Ristar, I love that song. It really reminds me of the kind of music that the Genesis had. It's sort of like a fusion of Dynamite Headdy music and Sparkster music, both of which had fantastic music ;D

I never got very far with this zone - and the palette was flitting forward and back regularly because I never settled on one I truly liked.

Wow, I know I havent been on MSN in a while but I wasn't aware Zero had been turned into a community project :V That said, it's probably for the best for the project, as real life has been getting in the way of things. I'll still try contributing as much as I can though~

City Escape is pretty much confirmed, isn't it? Or the music is at least, since the singer of it confirmed months back that he had rerecorded a version of Escape From The City for a 2011 game that was at the time unannounced, now almost definitely this. From that, I'd presume City Escape is in, or just Central City in general, as a sort of amalgamation of all the different City/Highway stages in SA2 put together. Also Ice Cap would be rockin'. They could combine Sonic 3's and Sonic Adventure's Ice Cap to make a beautiful, beautiful fusion of the two eras of Sonic (pre-SA1 and SA1 onwards).

We didn't just make the designs up, yo.

Well as said, it's purely conceptual at this point in time - we're really just brainstorming new ideas for monitors because having five shields like in the 2010 demo (Shield, Golden Shield, Elementals) seems redundant, especially when there are also other means of protective power-up like the ring preserving Blue-Ring powerup from Chaotix. And Sonic would lose it, I imagine, by losing the spikeballs to certain obstacles and/or enemies, as any enemy that collides with a spikeball would result in the destruction of both. However, there could also be a sort of time release system in which every minute or so, one of the balls releases of its own accord just like an Orbinaut, though its all up in the air. Some badniks would probably be immune to the spikeballs too - in the original Sonic Zero, there was a variety of badniks equipped with Lightning Shields, and if I recall, in Sonic 3 a Lightning Shield would simply dissolve spikeballs, though don't quote me on that. But yeah, nothing set in stone. Better than the average shield, but still with its ups and downs.

As part of our drive for making Sonic Zero: Remastered a unique and an outstanding fangame, we've been discussing the idea of not including the excess of unnecessary old monitors seen in the 2010 demo, instead replacing them with new, creative monitors. Nothing has been set in stone yet but this is one of the potential ideas: What kind of monitor is this? Why does it have an Orbinaut face on it? Hmm... Yup, this monitor would give you Orbinaut spikeballs; four of them, rotating around Sonic to protect him. But what good are they? This right here is one of the old badniks from the original Sonic Zero, revamped by MCKaosu. Sonic runs into it and... ...Bam! Badnik destroyed, and a gap is left in Sonic's Orbinaut ring. With each spikeball that gets used up, you'll have to be more careful as there will be more gaps in Sonic's shield for badniks to reach him and harm him. Good idea? Bad idea? It's only in the ideas phase at the moment so it's all up in the air~

MCKaosu is using a slightly older version of the tileset, the palette is improved ever so slightly in the newest version. Also @Criseg, yeah the shadows underneath those particular tiles are a bit shoddy, most of the other tiles are put together a bit better for curves and bumps.

Now I'm not entirely sure myself, but I believe it has something to do with Sparks losing a lot of files on a crashed hard drive or something, and other spriters simply slowly finding themselves not having enough time. Thus, the current situation is essentially MCKaosu getting the big things for Sonic Zero done like programming, original music and overall concepts, me doing a fair portion of graphics work and design work, and Sparks occasionally leaving his two cents and/or recovered old files to help with the project. And there's talks of sharing character sprites with Overbound I think but I can't be sure.

At risk of copying Stardust Speedway past... a green colour scheme? Green and browny orange colours are a proven success ;D

Yes, I definitely think it's still a sequel to S3K. Doomsday's still there (it's just oddly placed on the level select), we haven't seen enough of Final Fall to judge the plot, there's still broken parts of Angel Island in the title screen ocean, and more speculatively there's a level called Sunken Star Zone. I'm no expert on fan-game history but I'm certain that at one point the XG guys discussed the possibility of a defunct Death Egg stage that is in the ocean, and given the alliteration aspect of Retro Sonic Nexus, 'Sunken Star Zone' would be as apt a name as any for such a type of zone.

Sonic or no Sonic, I want to have sex with that background. I will throw in my two cents and say the shading on the mountains looks a bit peculiar, mostly because it's inconsistent with the rest of the style. That aside, I have no problems with this background. It looks freaking fabulous, and with some parallax scrolling I can only presume it'll look even better.

Aww yeaaaahhhhh. I've redone my idea for the first level of my fangame since I ended up cannibalising parts of the initial Green Hill totem pole one for another project I've been asked to work on. I've actually started implementing this into Sonic Worlds now that I've started to get the hang of it, so some actual gameplay screenshots could be coming soon to a screenshot thread near you~ Part of me thinks it needs toning down colourwise, but part of me thinks a sunny beach level should be as bright as can be. Areas to improve? Also, the bg is basically filler at the moment until I can think of something more interesting than an empty ocean.

Is it just me who thinks that whilst these sprites are gorgeous, they may not fit the Time Twisted level style? No offense to anyone involved of course. If someone could whip up a concept shot it'd probably change my mind, but as it is, these have more of a Chaotix shading feel to them, and the levels (that I've seen) a more Sonic CD feel. Both great styles, but not sure how well they'd mix. Without actually seeing the two together, I'd surmise that either the colours need to be softer on these, or the shading heavier and more colourful on the level artwork. But who knows, I might just be thinking things that are way off the mark. I'd have to see it in action to judge.

Part of me agrees with Overbound, but part of me massively doesn't. I will agree with the fact that the controls look pretty awful at the moment, but that's all part of the game-making learning curve I guess. And whilst I do agree that Sonic should have some rolling functions if only to fulfill one of his primary character traits, taking on something SEGA themselves have never managed is a huge task so I don't expect perfect 3D rolling physics in a fangame. The level design looks well structured and the graphics are great, that I can say. Polish it up, fix the controls/camera to be tighter and more intuitive, and add maybe a SA2 style spindash and you're on the way to the makings of a great fangame. Overall I like what I see. It just needs to be fixed up, but heck to this day I've never seen a fully polished 3D Sonic fangame. And rarely a 2D one either, considering the minute fraction of them that actually get finished.

Not gonna lie, this does have its advantages. However, whilst being stoned and/or intoxicated gives you creative ideas, it goes against traditional means of efficiency and recording. It's not very constructive to try writing a design document or start a sprite sheet when you've had a spliff or two and a pack of beers, so it's more sensible to just jot down the ideas you have when in an altered state of mind, and refine them later on, since alot of the crap comes out when you're stoned too. Not that it makes much difference to me anyway, most of my design ideas go unrealised due to me being completely absent minded when it comes to programming/implementation xD

Oh don't worry, I'm not having any specific troubles, it's just that the first day or so of taking in the sheer wealth of features and values etcetera in an engine is a bit overwhelming at first. The tiles certainly aren't going to go to waste, I'm just saying it could be some time before they show up in any sort of polished product. :3

Yeah the rotated Fire Shield was just me toying with the rotation function of GIMP more than anything else. Same goes for the knocked over totem pole, though I fixed that up afterwards to make it look less blatantly like a cheap rotation. As we speak I'm making sure I've got all of my BG pieces neatly organised because frankly my sprite documents are an absolute mess at the moment. And yeah Worlds is something I'm considering. Problem is, maybe I'm just retarded but it's hard finding some solid documentation on how it all of the numbers and events in Worlds link together, so trawling through the events editor of MMF2 and seeing how everything works by hand is a bit of a steep learning curve. Same goes with any engine without one unified form of documentation, which is why my last fangame attempt ended up being built upon attempted (and subsequently failing) custom engines~

All drama aside, I still think this looks fucking gorgeous, like what I expected to see visually from Sonic 4. I do have my own problems with the project though, mostly down to the simple concept of Sonic 2 HD. At the end of the day, the best result if it even gets finished is still going to just be a prettier Sonic 2, and more people are still going to play the old one over the new one. The HD concept is amazing but unless they provide more than simple graphical and widescreen advantages over Sonic 2, I just don't see it being worth all the effort on the dev teams part. EDIT: Also, since they're going through all the effort to HD it, I think they should take more artistic liberties to improve the game. Emerald Hill looks so much better with a brighter sky and extra clouds, the HUD looks massively improved thanks to its changes, and the "Alpha Release" Title art looks stunning, being visually reminiscent to the concept art of the time as well as including little nods like the Death Egg in the background. Little things like that really help. If each outside level had a small Death Egg in the sky, getting closer with each level, or something like smoother transitions between levels, that would really help give a feel of a more solid goal and a little extra visual consistency. Would it be staying true to the original? No. Would it be awesome? Yes. Aesthetic improvements that don't hinder the game in any way should be thrown in wherever possible as long as it mostly stays true to the original.

Primarily custom. I'm posting them in this thread because they don't really have a home yet - these are purely conceptual as of now until I decide which engine I feel most comfortable with to adequately develop and nurture the ideas that have been swirling around in my head for these tilesets.

Is it just me, or are his shoes way too small in comparison to the rest of his body? Even at that angle, I think the shoes should be bigger. Also, if I may make a suggestion, you should shade the shoes without dithering and give them some shine, to emphasise the difference in texture between Sonic's fur/skin/pines and his plastic-y shoes. Other than that, looking good.

I love this game more than I like fine asian women. Seriously. Everything I've seen looks pretty damn sweet. I will however suggest you alter the BG for the Palmtree stage. I don't mind tile mixing to create new-looking stages (something Pristine Palisade has pulled off immaculately), but the rocky structures and the bushes in the background are basically taken directly from Palmtree Panic; whenever I see the background it gives me the impression that I'm playing a Palmtree Panic wannabe and not a stage of its own.

Wacky Woods zone and Dusty Desert zone. BTW, I love it when people use my graphics, but be sure to credit me in the game.

I'm gonna assume that's my one, since the link doesn't work. Anyway: http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f135/Gamenerd/Dustydesert.png It's Not exact to the original, I wasn't trying to be.