Emerald Ties: Crossing Fates Demo - DEMO UPDATED 8/18 SEE PAGE 5

[JEV3]

w00t! Back on top!

Anyways I noticed a few minor bugs and glitches while time attacking. I launched myself into the ring box at the first part of the ruins level and I noticed that sometimes (I guess depending on the angle or speed) I end up landing on the box in my standing animation and bouncing upwards anyways. Additionally in the second act when I entered the part behind the wall Sonic's spikes were visible off the edge. Also, the spikes seem to harm me if I hit them in the upper side, usually when jumping over them but also sometimes when running into them... I've found this most apparent when jumping over the spikes at the beginning of Sparkling Seaside Act 2 after building up speed.

Also the game now seems to be slightly inaccurate in remembering my previous best times, causing me at one point to trash a perfectly good score because I thought I had already topped it. I'm not sure if it has to do with my alt-F4'ing or it is because of my downloading the new version.

I think thats it for now... I may try to improve my Seaside times, judging by the other records on the site there has to be a lightning shield in there somewhere...

[Rael0505]

Use the wind shield in act 1, and the bubble shield in act 2 for Sparkling Seaside.

I'm really impressed with your time attacking skills. Having helped design and edit the level, I have a clear advantage over you, but still it took me forever to beat your time again last night. I don't know if I'll even be able to top 1:16... I'll try later. I know I can definitely do better with act 2 though.

I don't know if any of those collision bugs are easily fixable, or if they're even anything major. However, I know exactly what causes the spikes issue, and I've been meaning to fix it. As for the time attacking bug, yes, that is a problem that we don't even know how to fix. For some reason, it will submit the online time just fine, but it changes the number slightly in its logs. Hopefully we'll fix it eventually...

All bugs we find from here on are going to be addressed, but I don't think we'll be releasing another updated demo unless it has a really major change. Expect things to be better next time!

[JEV3]

I was familiarizing myself with Sparkling Seaside and came up with this:

I would blame that on the loops more than anything else of course. Landing on top of them causes sonic to rotate while falling off as well. (Finally managed to get out of there by using Super Peelout)

[Gamerdude]

Also the game now seems to be slightly inaccurate in remembering my previous best times, causing me at one point to trash a perfectly good score because I thought I had already topped it. I'm not sure if it has to do with my alt-F4'ing or it is because of my downloading the new version.

Ick, yes, that bug has begun to plague me. Right now how the storing works is as follows.

At the end of the level, all the data is stored in an array. The data from the array is then loaded into the counters for the new record on the submission screen, as well as in the submission data that's sent out. After the submission is done, there's an ini file that's updated with the values of the counter. I think I'm going to have them grab directly from the array just to be sure, but it shouldn't make a difference =/. We'll be experimenting with this bug a lot as I feel that is important to fix.

Edit: Wow, what an oversight. The counter's maximum value was set to 6 (the seconds counter that should go up to 9). So, that glitch is fixed, haha.

[ClassicSonicRules]

Not bad. The combination of the bloody Chao logo and the recolored character at the beginning almost turned me off. It gave me a feeling of, "Oh no, not another one..." After that everything seemed fairly decent.

As far as criticism goes, I think that the flame shield's dash is way too fast. It seems that if you timed your jumps just right, you could skip through an entire level using the flame shield dash. I also found the SE a little loud - a SE/music volume option in the menu would be nice.

The level designs seemed very good, and the graphical touches are nice. I appreciate the fact that you call Robotnik by his real name although I can't figure out the outfit that he is wearing.

Good start. Keep it up.

[Slingerland]

Good start. Keep it up.

Lol good start? This demo isn't the first, ya know...

ET:CF is a tradition!

[JEV3]

As far as criticism goes, I think that the flame shield's dash is way too fast. It seems that if you timed your jumps just right, you could skip through an entire level using the flame shield dash.

Actually I prefer to skip through the level using the electric shield. Even then I've found that the fastest times are achieved not by abusing the powerup but properly taking advantage of it through the level.

Gotta hold onto Relic Retreat, lol. This last run required me to do a lot of thinking outside the box, now if only I could have both the lightning shield, AND go by that path without losing too much time... but thats too much I think.

Loving the time attack, its one sure way to keep me playing. A tip for competitive playing... I find flailing your arms after making a mistake to be quite an effective technique.

[Quexinos]

I haven't tried time attac mode yet in this game but I did play though the game and so far I love it. This game is going to be my new Sonic Time Attacked which is great because I consider Time Attacked to be one of the holy grails of Fan Gaming.

Amazing job so far, I can't wait for more.

[Gamerdude]

Not bad. The combination of the bloody Chao logo and the recolored character at the beginning almost turned me off. It gave me a feeling of, "Oh no, not another one..." After that everything seemed fairly decent.

Haha, yeah...the bloody chao logo is from quite awhile ago...as is the team name. I'm talking 6+ years ago when it was just me and a friend. We were n00bs, but the name stuck. As for the recolor, we actually have a new design for the character which makes him much more original (just need to plop the sprite in, it was finished last night, haha). At any rate, he will play a role in the story.

I'm glad people are enjoying time attacking. My hopes were to create a semi-competitive environment where players could get the competitive feeling of multiplayer without having to have another player present to do so. It looks like it's working for the most part, and that makes me happy =). In the future, we are looking into a competition or two regarding time attacking with real prizes. I can't say if it'll be this week or not, but look forward to that ;P.

[Naoshi]

Not bad. The combination of the bloody Chao logo and the recolored character at the beginning almost turned me off. It gave me a feeling of, "Oh no, not another one..." After that everything seemed fairly decent.

Haha, it's good to know that people actually gave the game a chance after being turned down by the intro! I was kinda worried if the recolor would scare away a few people.

Not to worry though, we've redesigned that awful recolor. (TBH, I never liked that recolor and I always hate them. But this new design we made is really awesome and me calling a Sonic fan character awesome is saying something)

And as for that Robotnik outfit, Robotnik is wearing Hawaiian stuff. I was hoping it'd be obvious since this is a tropical stage.

Anyways, Gamerdude, do you think we should make another bug fix release? Considering the time attack submission has a glitch in the current demo.

EDIT: Also, is it okay if we post the redesigned character in this topic now?

[BlazeHedgehog]

I thought the review was great, but I was really disappointed that you manage to slide a comparison to XG in there. That wasn't cool at all and I didn't think it would come from you of all people, Blaze.

I'll be doing an in-depth review on Sonic Stadium later this week, GD.

Yeah, I dunno. I'm sorry, I guess. I just needed to be going somewhere with that train of thought and that seemed like a good place to go. It probably should've been a warning sign that I was actually debating in my mind which fangame I should've named.

Sounds like Blaze to me...

Well, after 8 years of seeing this expo, "yet another Sonic game trying to be like the Genesis titles" becomes sort of hum-drum. That's what everybody is doing - the number of Mecha Madnesses and The Fated Hours are much fewer and far between compared to everybody who wants to be Sonic CD 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

Plus, as some Sonic fangames do approach the level of professionalism seen in retail Sonic games, it makes sense to compare them to real retail games (and I know, I basically said not to do this). "It's just a fangame," works for some arguments but it doesn't work for others. I want to play a quality game, regardless of whether or not its fanmade or not. Don't you? I don't want to have to artificially lower my expectations for something.

If somebody who does not normally play fangames started up your game and then quit a few seconds later with "Wow, that was crap", how would that make you feel? Would your defense against that honestly be "Well, it's a fangame, so it's allowed to be crap"? No. Your defense should be, "Well, I had fun making it, so who cares what this guy thinks. I did my best, and that's all that matters to me."

[Gamerdude]

Anyways, Gamerdude, do you think we should make another bug fix release? Considering the time attack submission has a glitch in the current demo.

EDIT: Also, is it okay if we post the redesigned character in this topic now?

The demo with the time attack record display has already been uploaded. As for the redesigned character, feel free to post him =P.

[Naoshi]

Oh. Cool then:

[Duckboy]

whatever that thing is fuck it in its face

[Gamerdude]

whatever that thing is fuck it in its face

Haha, well, if you knew the story you'd understand that no current character in the Sonic universe can play the roll that this character is meant to play...it just wouldn't make sense otherwise. However, this isn't another Shadow or anything, he makes a couple of appearances and you fight him once, then you don't see him anymore.

[Slingerland]

the number of Mecha Madnesses and The Fated Hours

Wow, referencing your own game doesn't make you look pretentious at all.

[Gamerdude]

Yeah, I dunno. I'm sorry, I guess. I just needed to be going somewhere with that train of thought and that seemed like a good place to go. It probably should've been a warning sign that I was actually debating in my mind which fangame I should've named.

Well, after 8 years of seeing this expo, "yet another Sonic game trying to be like the Genesis titles" becomes sort of hum-drum. That's what everybody is doing - the number of Mecha Madnesses and The Fated Hours are much fewer and far between compared to everybody who wants to be Sonic CD 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

Plus, as some Sonic fangames do approach the level of professionalism seen in retail Sonic games, it makes sense to compare them to real retail games (and I know, I basically said not to do this). "It's just a fangame," works for some arguments but it doesn't work for others. I want to play a quality game, regardless of whether or not its fanmade or not. Don't you? I don't want to have to artificially lower my expectations for something.

If somebody who does not normally play fangames started up your game and then quit a few seconds later with "Wow, that was crap", how would that make you feel? Would your defense against that honestly be "Well, it's a fangame, so it's allowed to be crap"? No. Your defense should be, "Well, I had fun making it, so who cares what this guy thinks. I did my best, and that's all that matters to me."

In all fairness, you do have a point that seeing the same thing of games trying to clone a Genesis game obviously gets repetitive. And I 100% agree that fan games should try to deviate from using just strictly the gameplay elements found in the Genesis Sonic games. That's specifically why when people complain to me that ET:CF's physics don't properly mimic those found in Sonic 3, for example, I tell them that I'm not trying to make a straight up clone (not saying that's enough to make a game not a clone). If I wanted to do that, I'd make a rom hack. Part of making a Genesis-inspired game is following the formula already set, but making it feel different and adding some new elements to the gameplay. That could mean different powerups, abilities, or ways to interact with the level etc.

What you've seen in ET:CF so far is two levels. The first level that has been around for quite some time, and a newer one. The first level in most games are designed so they are not overly complex purely because I want the player to get accomedated with how the game plays and how Sonic interacts with certain objects. Call it a playground if you will. It's going to be a little ho-hum. The second level I felt had a lot of variations in the level design itself. It wasn't a "hold right and win" there were a lot of areas where you had to stop and jump, change directions, dodge obstacles, etc. The boulder chase at the end of act 2 was certainly something that interesting I thought.

Regarding comparing fan games to retail games. I think that point is somewhat irrelevant since you really only compared it to XG. You made a mention to Sonic being attracted to ancient ruins and that being a common theme, but as long as the Chaos Emeralds exist, it's hard to escape that theme. The emeralds revolve around an ancient civilization. Then of course if you deviate from the Chaos Emeralds and get into too many fan-created characters, items, etc then you have people crying foul that it is too different than a normal Sonic game. As far as comparing ET:CF to other fan games, I still think comparing fan games to each other is pointless because it should be fun more for fun and not a competition.

Lastly, you used TFH as an example to the types of games that are becoming hard to come by. If you're going to give examples like you did in your last post, I wouldn't use your own game as an example because that doesn't make you look particularly good, even if you're game was the absolute crème de la crème of fangames.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Yeah, but TFH is different. I'm not saying whether or not it's good, just that it's different.

And I don't want this to turn in to an argument like I hate ETCF or something. I like it! It is better than most fangames. I just don't think it earns a gold star, is all.

[Rael0505]

Well, after 8 years of seeing this expo, "yet another Sonic game trying to be like the Genesis titles" becomes sort of hum-drum.

Emerald Ties does a pretty good job of straying from the genesis titles. Zone 1's level design has crazy loops and steep slopes/half pipes that you don't see in any genesis levels. The ruins has an "escape from the collapsing ruins while running through the stage backwards" scene ending with a giant boulder chasing you. We even have cutscenes with dialogue. Discrediting all of that is the biggest slap in the face you can give us.

Hell, we have people emailing us saying our physics are too different from the genesis titles, giving us advice on how to "fix" it. We respond, of course, by saying we're not trying to emulate the physics, and that we're only trying to make things comfortable. Just because our game isn't a "hold right to win" doesn't mean our game isn't original like yours.

[OverbounD]

I think there is something to be said for fan games that try to mimic Sega's games closely. For one thing I love all the old genesis games, what's so wrong with wanted more of the same? Not that I don't appreciate a little originality such as Emerald Ties. But games like Nexus and XG are popular because they do mimic the genesis games and almost make you feel like your playing a new genesis Sonic game. I love it when I play XG or Nexus and think to my self damn that's just how the Sonic Team would have done it in the old days.

In the case of why not just make a rom hack well, rom hacks only get a certain kind of crowd. Where as actual exe files allow your game to spread more into the main stream to different freeware game websites even the likes of download.com and are less illegal if you know what I mean. I can say for myself personally I chose game maker because its what I know, and there isn't much hacking for Sonic CD.

[Gamerdude]

Yeah, you do have a point. Genesis like games do definitely have a spot in fangaming. Sorry if I sounded like I thought Genesis-clones sucked, because I don't think that. I mean, if every game does it, I think that's a little much, but having a few games that do it doesn't hurt anything. They have their own place just like games such as Mecha Madness do.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Essentially I'm just putting my foot in my mouth. Ever since I posted the review I've been worried about what I said, and even though we talked it out on IRC, I'd like to apologize to the ETCF guys. I didn't want to dumb my review down "just because it's a fangame" - I thought it would be a gesture of respect if I reviewed it like I reviewed a real retail game. Believe me that any criticisms I had were only meant to be constructive, I just was constructive in the dumbest way possible. Most reviews I write are things that just come to me - inspirations.

Having to write SAGE reviews as a job (writing at least two reviews a day, every day, for a week) just unveils how inexperienced I am in that regard. Normally I roll a a review around in my head for weeks or even months to find the right wording and how to translate my feelings in to text. I don't have that luxury here. ETCF is a great game, and despite some things nagging at me, I did have fun playing it.

No going back here. No more putting my foot in my mouth. I said some things I didn't really mean, and in some regards, I don't even know what I meant at all. Sorry, guys.

Resume the thread as normal for this awesome game. I'll get around to trying and getting my own time trials in sooner or later.

[Gamerdude]

Thanks Blaze. Hey, no hard feelings, alright? I understand your circumstances better now.

At any rate, I hope to see your times up there eventually =P.

Resume discussion of the demo in 3, 2, 1, go!

[Naoshi]

I forgive you, Blaze. Infact, I can't really blame you because we all have our own moments. I don't know how many times I've said things that ended up sounding wrong and ended up pissing off a person.

Incase if you're interested, we've been releasing bug fixes of the demo. (Hopefully this new one is the FINAL version of this SAGE demo!) Also including improving some of the gameplay due to constructive criticism. Yes, this means the boss is no longer a pain in the ass!

[ClassicSonicRules]

Haha, it's good to know that people actually gave the game a chance after being turned down by the intro! I was kinda worried if the recolor would scare away a few people.

I came very, very close to just deleting it after the first 10 sec. TBH, I am not sure why I kept playing (must be a lack of sleep), but the game ended up getting better. So yeah, just watch out for that first impression.

Not to worry though, we've redesigned that awful recolor. (TBH, I never liked that recolor and I always hate them. But this new design we made is really awesome and me calling a Sonic fan character awesome is saying something)

Looks better. I would feel a little better about that. (Although I don't usually get too excited about fan characters.)

And as for that Robotnik outfit, Robotnik is wearing Hawaiian stuff. I was hoping it'd be obvious since this is a tropical stage.

Really? I couldn't tell. *Checks again* Yeah, I guess I could see that, but it is not too obvious to me.