Sonic the hedgehog:Emerald Chaos: STARTING FROM SCRATCH

[sonic101]

This is my sonic fane game, It's still in its beta stages, and Ive completed up to the end of stage 4 (part of act 3 in stage 4 anyway) an I'm programing it with Game Maker 6.1 (registered)

Here's some features

- original musical score composed entirely for this game alone. ( most of it anyway)

-homing attacks,

-npc that hint things to you ( or flat out tell you )

- power-up upgrades, like light speed dash, the ring blaster and antigravity shoes that let you wall jump!

EDIT:

sneak preview of stage 5! Junkyard Albatross!

Here's the latest beta release here.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

32 meg gfx card

512 megs of ram

about 12 to 15 megs of HD space.

Beta 241 (released april 17th 2007 )

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S5KYIQOP

What do you think? Any suggestions? How would you rate this on a scale of 1 to 10 ?

[sonic101]

Sigh.. still no love for this game...

[Bonic]

I think you should change a few sprites and you should also use 360 movement if you want a very good Sonic fan-game. Maybe you should make some custom text (Like in zelda)

[Rael0505]

You didn't need to quote his entire freaking post, Bonic. Jesus.

And I'll test it tonight, sorry I didn't do it yesterday as I promised. :E

[LarkSS]

I think you should change a few sprites and you should also use 360 movement if you want a very good Sonic fan-game. Maybe you should make some custom text (Like in zelda)

It doesn't have to use a 360 engine just to be good. I've seen very good games that just use a modified version of the built-in platform movement.

[sonic101]

I think you should change a few sprites and you should also use 360 movement if you want a very good Sonic fan-game. Maybe you should make some custom text (Like in zelda)

I actually started work on this game long before the 360 engines were in the works for game maker, I'd made it in to programing the second stage before it even came out, with that said I'm extreamly bad with math and I dont comprehend trigonometry very well so implimenting the 360 engine would not only mean scraping my whole game and starting from the ground up, but learning math that is beyond my current grade 10 education(math wise), I never did finish highschool(something i very much regret) So I'm just trying to make the best engine i can with what i know and understand.

[Rael0505]

You could just use Dami's engine as a base if you want to use 360 movement. It's what I'm doing anyway.

I don't think it's necessary though. It's rare now that you see a decent fangame that doesn't use a 360º engine.

[sonic101]

You could just use Dami's engine as a base if you want to use 360 movement. It's what I'm doing anyway.

I don't think it's necessary though. It's rare now that you see a decent fangame that doesn't use a 360º engine.

Im not really sure where your coming from on that, are you saying it isnt nessasary to add dami's physics bucuase my game is good enough on its own merits or are we speaking in general, that most games suck with out a 360 engine?

I wanted to add it alogn time ago when it came out but upon tryign to understand it I couldnt make hide nor hair of it. I'd have to understand how ti works( mathematically) and be proficient in gm programing to make use of those commands and all that math. it's just way to much work at this point to try and add in 360 moevent to this game, especialy since all the levels are built around the current engine, it would leave the game completely un balanced to impliment it so late in production, I'll probably tinker with it in the sequal tho.

[Rael0505]

Man, I really suck with words.

I'm just saying that most recent fangames that don't use a 360 engine are n00b games, and this one isn't. It's nice to see that it's not required for it to be fun.

[sonic101]

Man, I really suck with words.

I'm just saying that most recent fangames that don't use a 360 engine are n00b games, and this one isn't. It's nice to see that it's not required for it to be fun.

Thank you. I must say that that comment not only just made me smile but really brightened my day. I've been getting disheartened lately by a lot of the flaming towards my game(on other sites(gm forums, live journal... and a few others)) and that it would seem next to no one seems to want to download it.

Not only that but playing other's fan games that are far more advanced then mine it really brings you down when you've worked so hard on something only for it to be brushed aside and ignored you know what i mean?

So again thanks very much for the comment. your are the first person in 2 years since i started this project to say its good on its own merits and that i dont need to copy someone elses engine for it to be good.

EDIT sweet i just noticed im post number 200 for the entire fan game discussion section.

[Rael0505]

Yay, acceleration! It's a bit uncomfortable though... Sonic starts too slow. And you need to add deceleration and skidding next.

You also need to still fix the ring counter and make Sonic be invincible after getting hurt for a few seconds.

The pushable block's sound effect gets really annoying. You should have them play fewer times.

Went through the floor ohno.

This is reaaaally lagging on Travis's computer. That might explain the collision problems.

I'll test this again when I get home.

[sonic101]

Okay let me know if the non-lag helps any

[Mykle]

Too much graphic clashing =/ esspecially the christmas trees

[Rael0505]

I don't think the graphics clashed at all (except for that Sonic Advance block in zone 1 and the xmas tree), but the stretched backgrounds are pretty ugly.

[Xoram]

Stretched backgrounds

[Serephim]

Bonic, you really dont have to whore damizen's engine to make a game good.

[sonic101]

Bonic, you really dont have to whore damizen's engine to make a game good.

Thank you!

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

It's good and it's fun. You've got a good gameplay formula down here, I like it. However, there are a few gripes that really need to be fixed for this game to reach it's true potential.

1) After jumping, when sonic lands, he stays in his falling sprite animation.

2) In some areas, he did the "Woah" animation, as if he was standing on a ledge, even though he obviously was not.

3) You can't stand on top of item boxes.

4) The spike bed near the center of the first level has got to go.

5) Jumping needs to raise and fall a bit faster, he just goes a bit too slow.

6) somewhat relating to my previous point, the game is a bit sluggish overall (definetly not my PC either, I got a power house), maybe you can make a few adjustments to speed some of it up?

7) Also part of point 5, because the jump is so slow, it's difficult to time and aim accurately.

8) One big thing is that the graphics are kinda cheesy. Some nicer sprites and some tuned-up text boxes and the like would go a long ways towards improving the game's overall feel.

These are the big problems with the game, in my opinion. However, you've got some great gameplay ideas, I definetly like this game. And ofcourse, it IS a beta, so ofcourse it has lots of bugs and the like. Regaurdless, the point is, you're getting there. Keep up the good work, refine your game a bit and I think you'll have something really exceptional here.

[sonic101]

1) After jumping, when sonic lands, he stays in his falling sprite animation.

Yeah That's usually cuased when you are still holding the button down when you land, I'm not entirely sure why it happenes tho, I've been tryign to fix it for a very long time

2) In some areas, he did the "Woah" animation, as if he was standing on a ledge, even though he obviously was not.

I know exactly what cuases that, chances are I'm just going to take it out in the end anyway. it's been a real pain. And yet its so simple.

3) You can't stand on top of item boxes.

The reason its like that is becuase for some reason when I make them solid you cant break them and I've even tried to turn it back to being unsolid when sonic is attempting to hit it. And no dice, It is on my priorities list of things to fix tho.

4) The spike bed near the center of the first level has got to go.

You mean the one where theres to platforms that take you over that large spike bed? or the one above where Hintera tells you to get the antigravity shoes?

5) Jumping needs to raise and fall a bit faster, he just goes a bit too slow.

This is a double edged sword, some complained he was tof ast some too slow, at this moment I only just recently added in acceleration, I'm trying to add deacceleratoion in aswell, once I get those to work harmoniously I want to tweak how fast he goes myself. The slowness In his jumping is cuased by the acceleration. If your standing still he jumps a litle slow. It's like how he jumps in sonic advanced. Again tweaking the acceleration variables will speed him up a bit.

6) somewhat relating to my previous point, the game is a bit sluggish overall (definetly not my PC either, I got a power house), maybe you can make a few adjustments to speed some of it up?

I would agree. I know for a fact stage 2 likes to laggggg. Which I'm pretty sure has to due with all the tile-set layers it has, I should reduce them. But it takes sooo long lol. And stage 3 starts to lag once the snow gets too big.

7) Also part of point 5, because the jump is so slow, it's difficult to time and aim accurately.

Again acceleration. Blame rael for that one lol. He nagged me to add it when the game had been built around my contant top speed thing ( hey I started this game 2 years ago when I was a gamming n00b) It does add a challenge to the game though.

8) One big thing is that the graphics are kinda cheesy. Some nicer sprites and some tuned-up text boxes and the like would go a long ways towards improving the game's overall feel.

I specifiacally choose the sonic cd sprites becuase I prefer them to the waaay over rated Sonic 3 and knuckles sprites. I really only liked S3&k and I loved Sonic CD so this was In part a homage to that. As for the texts boxes, Those Were my frist atempt at ever making My own sprites heh.. Also the Sonic cd sprites had more animations garnered around what I was looking to create in my game.

Thanks for you interest in my game too. I'm glad I'm finally winnign over soem people lol. It's very hard to go againt the grain and not use damzieans physics engine and not catch ridicule. lol It's not my fault I dont under stand math very well. ( Having a.d.d and being dyslexic, not to mention my grade 11 math teacher had really bad a.d.d, " MS. lafuge, how do I do this problem " " well first you ..... then... and yeah...I need a coffee" "=.="

)

[sonic101]

On the note of the games progression, I converted all the text boxes to a new one which is drawn by the compurer and not just a sprite, to cut back on file size(only cut out like 400kbs but oh well stillan improvement) and it looks nicer now, I fixed a couple of goof ball mistakes (the grey chaos emerald glowing red when it should glow grey), in stage 3 i made it so the snow only apears with in the view and not over the whoel stage that cuts back on soem of the slowdown for that stage. and im still workign on the other things int he game.

[Mygames191386395820]

Personally I think this is the best Sonic fan game without 360 looping I've ever played. I will keep you posted on problems.

[sonic101]

Personally I think this is the best Sonic fan game without 360 looping I've ever played. I will keep you posted on problems.

Why thank you very much! And also thanks for keeping me posted, I'm tweaking alot of thigns right now but I hope to have a newer version downloadable soon with some much needed things added in.

Below is a double post that has been automagically merged into the original.

Well I've been a busy beaver working on the game again, I spent the whole day tweaking many things, I've converted all the text boxes in the game from their original sprite counterparts to text boxes generated by the pc drawing rectangles and gradient fills

heres 2 pics to show the change

original that was entierely a sprite(minus text)

and here's the new text box drawn with gradient fills and such

I also fixed some bugs surrounding the stage intro boxes so now they apear and cover the screen liek they are supposed to and not showing part of the stage in various parts of the screen. Fixed a few little problems with backgrounds, and added in a new narration sound eefect for "select an option" on the options screen.

it took all day to do that lol.

[sonic101]

lol Still tweaking! I spent the last 4 and a half hours working on converting the options screen menu bars to draw functions instead of using sprites, as part of my filesize+lag+loading time reduction plan. (going to switch the stage intro boxes and the "press enter" on the title screen to draw functions aswell and delete the sprites to free up more resources)

lol heres a piccy of my desk at the moment with all the planning and concept idea's I have for the game( lists of things that need tweaking and glitches to be gfixed and the like, plus some engine coding for the options screen)

and heres the new option screen making use of draw functions instead of the old sprites for the menu bars.

just cutting out those sprites and removing some sound clips i no longer was using free'd up 300 kbs

more to come later right now im hungrey.

[Gradient]

I've only just got round to playing the demo off your site, so let's see...

It seems you can move while the level title screen is still in place. Also, there needs to be a bit more bounce to the proceedings - when you hit boxes or enemies it should bump you up into the air a little. Add in acceleration and deceleration and you're all set.

[Zal]

As far as eye candy goes, PLEASE let me forard to you that trying to resize images always ends in them looking ugly and deformed. Could we please try to cut down on this? Because I've seen you do it a fair bit.

EDIT:

Sorry. To be more constructive, try to cut back on your resolution size. Everyone thinks that 640x480 is the ____ at first, but then people sorta grow out of it. If you make the resolution smaller, there wont be any problems as far as trying to make graphics bigger to fit, considering the ones you are using were built for that size to begin with.