Vexus

Someone bumped this topic? Okay I'll bite. The project is not dead, but making headway has been incredibly slow for 2 major reasons, one being university and another being a new job at a proper game studio... things have been busy and exciting. Anyway, plans for the next release are focusing on 2 major things: 4-player support with gamepad support, and sorting out more single player content. Don't expect tangible progress for a long time though, SSK is always on my mind but low on my priorities.

It's been ages since I was last here, but I wanted to say this to you Strife. I donated $50, because this is a game I really want to see move forward. The chance to alpha test this game was also too good to pass up. Also, you've nearly reached the $7000 goal too! That's amazing!

I've been sticking with Game Maker 8, but I started experimenting with UDK and Unity last year.

I'm surprised I haven't made a reply here. I thought I resolved this months ago. Despite the similarities between this and SSK, all he needed to do was change the graphics for the training stage. I'm sure he actually spoke with me personally when he started the idea. I didn't stop him then, and I'm not stopping him now. The only thing I need to say is that the game as a whole needs a lot of work. This reminds me of how I learned Game Maker by making the original Sonic Knockout (yeah SSK is a sequel).

Thanks for letting me know about that, it's always cool to get the opinions of people who actually play fighting games. Makes me want to chat to the guy. Anyway, I'll be continuing to work on SSK, if only very slowly. Here are the main features I'm gonna add to the next version: More Story Mode stages and missions; Volcan as a playable character; Native gamepad support; More bug fixes;

@Strife: Thanks for the praise, and the emblem ideas are cool too. Some of them would be difficult to program, but some others are definitely good trophies to add. @Serephim: Thanks for making note of these. I've been aware of Sonic's infamous combo for a while, but the Rouge one is new to me, so I'll check that out. I do know that if your timing is perfect, Rouge and Omega still have jab links they aren't meant to have. That's a glitch though, and I've taken care of them for the next build.

I thought I had fixed those issues. I'll look into them, so thanks for bringing that up. EDIT: I've checked the bugs out and I've fixed them both for the next build. The first error was down to stupidity. To reverse this glitch, head into Battle Mode and set the Teams Option to "None". The second error with the medal was something I overlooked.

I've released a patch for Demo 5, as a response to all the people who have played the game and found those little things that get on everyone's nerves. If anyone has already downloaded Demo 5, be sure to download it again. There are a whole load of fixes and changes to make this version a more solid experience!

Thanks for the input EarthmasterT. I feel that once more stages and missions have been added, the process of collecting rings will become less tedious. The Story Mode glitch has been noted and fixed in the current build. To prevent the box from showing up, don't select Stages 10-15. I'll most likely be releasing a patch soon to fix this and a couple of other things I've missed.

It's finally here. After 2 years, Demo 5 has now been released, and all you have to do is click this button: - = SUPER SONIC KNOCKOUT: DEMO 5 = - Click the button to get it now! I'm just gonna say now that I'll be taking a short break from SSK, because my summer holiday is now over and I've spent a lot of the past month getting the game to this point. Enjoy the game, and if you have something to say, be sure to tell me about it. Link to the blog-post

The Launch Trailer for the new demo has been released! The demo will be coming out sometime tonight.

@BlazefireLP: I can't wait either. @Hybrid35: Both the sprites and the code weren't done. If you want to, it would be great if you could PM me some sprite samples.

Okay, this is the last Sunday Special until Beta 5 comes out. First things first: Sorry guys. Too much is still left out, and I don't want Volcan's first impression to be literally half-baked. Onto some good news then. The demo is finished 100%, so all my attention is on making sure this game doesn't throw and last-minute bugs at you. I'm also going to be releasing a Launch Trailer on the 17th, just before SAGE begins. Click here for the full blog post!

The letters represent the difficulty the player got their highscore on (Easy, Normal and Hard) and have no bearing on the ranking. The numbers on the left are the rank, and the numbers on the right are the actual scores (by win-streak). Unfortunately, there isn't any online functionality for Demo 5 whatsoever. I'm still trying to get my head around all the online stuff Game Maker can do and I'm not succeeding in my efforts at current. If I do somehow get the ball rolling, I'll add something then.

@BlazefireLP: There are 11 stages in Demo 5. --- This week was all about adding the last few smaller features that I wanted in Demo 5 to make the whole thing feel more complete. One of the more visual changes included modifying the Main Menu once again. Players can now view the highscores for Nonstop mode whenever they want. Other recently finished features include manual saving after battles when autosave is off, and a small demo mode that plays if you keep the title screen on too long (it was a Sonic game and a fighting game, so it kinda needed one). Click here for the full blog-post.

I've got a lot of content to add before I consider SSK to be complete. Most of that content is new characters, stages, and the Story Mode.

@SonicFan2010: This all depends on the final state of the game by the time the game comes out. If it doesn't include every feature I wanted for Demo 5, it will be classed as a beta. If it does, it will be 'Demo 5' as I imagined it. @Hybrid35: I hope Volcan makes it in too.

Long story short, it's been a really long time since I've released a playable version of SSK (over 2 years in fact). So I'm releasing a beta of Demo 5 for SAGE 2011. It will come out within the time of the expo itself: between the 18th and 24th of September. So in the mean time, I've nearly finished 3-month long webcomic run on deviantart, so I'll be spending the rest of my free time making sure the beta is presentable with most, if not all, the features I want in it. Whether that includes Volcan or not, only time will tell. Speaking of which, the character is about half done now, which is faster than I expected. Click Here for the full blog-post!

This week and last week has mainly been a whole bunch of bug-fixing, experimenting, and behind-the-scenes work. Thankfully, our resident composer DJ EAR has recently finished some original tracks for SSK and will be working on more in the future: Click to play EVENT: Universal Tension Click to play EVENT: Beat Rush They are both pretty much final, but tell me what you think. CLICK HERE for last week's blog post (#21). CLICK HERE for this week's blog post (#22).

Thanks for the kind words Jet. The new tutorial will explain the dropping down thing a lot better.

Just a quick update this week since I've had a short break from working on this. Have some concept art! The looks of the attacks are subject to change, but Volcan's moveset is pretty much solid. Oh, and that is not a Chaos Emerald in the bottom-right image. That would be stupid. Click to see the blog post.

I prefer the horizontal menu since it looks tidier. And if you're decide to make items visible on the HUD, you should just have the active item visible.

One of the challenges I set myself was to include a character of my own design. Basically, someone who's gameplay style differed somewhat from the other characters. Good things he's a work in progress. Oh, and it's a scarf, not a cape. But I guess that isn't so clear in sprite form (I'll have to work on that).

@P3DRO: Interesting ideas still keep coming! I'll keep that in mind. @DukeZ: I'm taking it you mean do something like the Lv1, 2 & 3 Supers seen in some Street Fighter games. I don't think this will work out for the game. --- For the past 2 weeks I have been doing smaller things like bug-fixing, and also trying to get progress moving with the game's resident fan-character: Volcan. Last week I asked for another sprite artist on the blogsite, due to having to lose 2 sprite artists who had to move on. Thankfully, blog-site regular 'Green' has taken up the mantle, and has done an impressive job so far. Click here for the Sunday Special #19 post. Click here for the Sunday Special #18 post.

Happy Birthday to ya!