Personal Sonic 3d Research findings

[Blink]

A few months back I did a lot of research on the Sonic 2d to 3d transition, comparing and contrasting it with any other series I could find, but namely Mario. While Mario's transition was by no means perfect, it still ended up as an incredible game, and while the lack of levels compared to SMW and the slower gameplay angered some, the majority loved the game none the less.

Edge Magazine wrote an incredible piece on the concept, 2d to 3d, and I would highly suggest looking it up if you have an interest in this sort of thing. Many of my ideas come from that.

As for my own research, I have put it in a spoiler tag as to not make this post abnormally large. I will be discussing anything I possibly can here, but will break it up into segments where possible.

Sonic has never made the 2d to 3d transition, in my mind. Other Sonic games have been made, but the core factors behind a 2d Sonic game never went 3d, so a 3d Sonic game has never been made, just 3d games in the Sonic universe which feature Sonic. I'm still waiting for Sonic 4.

Camera:

One of the worst aspects of current 3d platformers starring Sonic is the camera, which can be easily solved if we remember what the most important aspect is in a Sonic game: not speed, but momentum. Momentum has direction and speed, but also acceleration if it ever changes. What the camera should focus on is the momentum, or if possible, the momentum's acceleration. If we have the camera always point in the direction Sonic is moving, that would be great, momentum, but if it always points where Sonic is being urged to go, whether by the environment or himself, momentum's acceleration, we will continue to be able to see what's coming, which is exactly what Sonic needs at his speeds. This means the Camera would look up when we start a jump and look down when we're ending it, point just ahead of the curve in a loop to see what's next, look to the left when we start to veer there, etc. It would follow us through half-pipes and always look where we were going if we wanted to go that way, or where we wanted to go if we started to inch in that direction.

Controls:

This comes second because it builds off the above: momentum. Your joystick literally represents acceleration, and distance from center = power of change. If you're moving, you probably won't have momentum altered by anything other than the friction of the ground, but start pushing the joystick around and you can manipulate what your momentum is, and through that, changing direction. It would be easy to change directions when stopped, no preset momentum, you just point in a dir and that's the way you start to go, but like Sonic 2d controls, it's hard to change directions once you start moving. Pressing the opposite direction skids you to a halt, but pressing left and right only changes your momentum in those directions. One would probably still need to hold the joystick slightly forwards at all times to fight friction, but other than that running should feel like a joyride, and sudden joystick changes should only veer you left or right, or start to stop you, never immediately altering your path until you're down at a reasonable speed.

Controls2:

Ahh, the other half of the controls, jumping and spin dashing. These ones don't rely on physics as much, jumping is just a single boost against gravity, which ultimately pulls you back down. What I want is a two button system, like the old games, but we can't exactly use a direction on a 2d joystick for "crouch" in a 3d world, now can we? So, let's assume A = Jump, as always, or A/B/C if we get accurate. That's all fine and dandy, but how should one spin dash? Hold B? Bah, no! That's not how we did it back in the day. Let's add a crouch button. The crouch button, usually a Joystick button or a Left trigger/bumper button, will do just what the down button did in the 2d games. Hold it when stopped to bend over, then press A rapidly to charge up a spin dash, release crouch to go-go-go. Already got... momentum? (if you can't tell by now, momentum is key, just like the 2d games) Tap the crouch button to switch to ball mode, a spikey form that can take on any enemy in your path. No stopping for jumping, no slowing down to dodge, you're going to ram through that thing, and maintain momentum.

That way, you can make it through the loop up ahead, because you have enough momentum.

Levels and Environments:

Sonic should be one with the environments. Collision boxes should let you slide against them, lose some momentum, but keep most of it, so you keep your movement. Rings should collect themselves, Sonic never meant to collect half the rings in the old games, but we have to aim for them these days in 3d Sonic Platformers. My best suggestion is to make small hills and valleys, and areas where because of gravity, Sonic would naturally flow to, and then fill them with rings at various intervals. The level designers never really wanted Sonic to die, and backtracking for rings is the worst thing that's ever happened to Sonic. As for making Sonic one with the environment: Sonic shouldn't need boost pads, he has his momentum, and as long as that goes hand in hand with the level, playing as Sonic is a beautiful experience, it becomes a Sonic game. We should never need to fight the environment, we should work together with it. There's a reason the curves of the earth are much preferred to the metal boxes of a Death Egg environment. Sonic should run free, and the levels shouldn't stop him if the player knows the way. My fondest memories of a Sonic game are when I got those moments where I felt like a skipping stone, keeping my momentum and jumping over pit after pit (or spikes after spikes). Sure, there should be obstacles that hurt us if we don't "keep up" with the level, but it should be a rewarding ride for the good players.

Gimmicks:

Here's where it gets fun: due to all this beautiful work we've put into Sonic's momentum engine and ball form, there are all kinds of things we can do with that, like the pinball zones. Of course, all kinds of new opportunities awaken with a 3d engine, and those were almost realized at one point, but we must remember to keep the camera where it's always been, even with these gimmicks, otherwise it feels like we've switched to a minigame, and that's not the right idea. A good example would be making one of the levels a skatepark, except, Sonic is still the exact same. I don't think we need grinding in a Sonic game, but the basic premise of this would be Sonic needing to navigate through the ramps and half pipes without getting hit by fast moving skaters in the process (probably robot skaters). It would take full advantage of the Sonic engine already in place, but use it for the computers as well as Sonic, making it a gimmick, but making it a fun use of something already there. We could also see a golf green where Sonic had a limited time period to get from start to the hole, or a sling shot where Sonic had to push it back as far as possible before letting go, as well as pushing it back at the perfect direction and precision. It would use Sonic's momentum to build up potential energy in the slingshot, until Sonic stopped using any momentum acceleration and allowed the slingshot to take control.

Progression:

No linearity. Of course, there has to be an easy path: North. Just go North and you'll get there eventually. Maybe you need to back track a little, but go North and you're set. Really, you CAN go anywhere you want, there has to be that exploration factor, that emerald to find, but going North gets you to the end of the level. You just need options in terms of how you want to go North, if you're going that direction at all at this time.

Oh and, no bottomless pits. Spikes? Sure, and maybe one spike pit, ONE, but nobody liked that anyways, so honestly, just give us the ability to keep living.

Bonus levels and Super Sonic:

Honestly, I think the Bonus levels should train you for how to control Super Sonic so that it feels natural. Give us another case of the Sonic Advance ones where we fall downward continually, only, just Sonic this time, no surf board. Let us fall forwards at a steady rate, and control our fall on a 2d plain using the joystick. We would push technology to its limits with beautiful atmospheric levels of clouds and stars, noticing how incredibly detailed the ground was as we fell to it, or how big it was at the start. These levels should be rewarding, but fun too. So basically, fall straight and change left/right/forwards/backwards with the joystick, momentum like on the ground, only with the constant -9.8 accel of gravity, which we can't fight, pulling us downwards, causing the camera to usually point that way (although we can veer the camera L/R/F/B by accelerating that dir w/ joystick). Going Super Sonic is the same thing, only this time, we're flying forwards, so we control up/down/left/right instead. A button might be a temporary attack boost, straight forwards, crouch might make us fall back. Super Sonic levels are always a chase, so this should fall right in very naturally, as well as giving us good flight control. Imagine Star Fox 64 with its boosting and braking system, only with no lasers and the Arwing was Super Sonic.

That's about all I was able to get. I'm sure there's more, but this is all I'm recalling and/or pulling out of my notebook. Hopefully the guys here with interests in a 3d Sonic game can take something away from this, and I hope that they do.

And a sidenote: I don't actually think the new Sonic games aren't Sonic games, I'm just trying to prove a point.

[BlazeHedgehog]

I wrote a similar article (sort of) about this a few years ago and even got published for it in an indie game magazine called The Gamer's Quarter. I can't bare to read some of it now and sometimes I feel as though I should go back and revise it.

[DimensionWarped]

I've been doing similar shit for quite some time now, but the hefty document I've written on it is contained on the harddrive that I haven't bothered to put in my new computer yet. That said, it's in depth and covers a lot of specifics regarding gimicks and more importantly, the execution of in-level paths. One of the things I put a lot of emphasis into was the creation of a worthwhile path, how each of the games succeeds at times and at others fails, and the idea of a memorable event that justifies a path.

I had stopped working on it when I started to cover the paths of at least one level from every zone in Sonic 2. That shit was time consuming, but I think I got as far as Hill Top before I began losing my train of thought. I'll have to get back to that in a while.

[Blink]

I just wrote this thing up on the spot. o_O Sounds like you guys put a lot more time into this stuff.

BlazeHedg: The article holds true even in its age for the majority of its points (as far as I can tell) and while I disagree about some things (eg. I don't think Sonic needs story, or plot, or char development) overall, you seem to touch on a few points of mine and I seem to touch on a few points of yours, so I'm glad to see these things aren't limited to my own views.

Dimension: I haven't heard about this idea before, the "worthwhile path", do you have any topics about it?