Sonic Time Twisted WIP Join the Discussion and Help Me Make it Better

[OverbounD]

You got me the electric hamburger. If you want it off for any reasons I can do that, but its just the special thanks.

[DimensionWarped]

Electric Hamburger? In any event, I don't really mind or anything. I'm just curious.

[OverbounD]

the Robotizisor from Sonic CD it was a long time ago.

[JEV3]

I just played the new demo and it is much better. Its still a little slippery though, I think it should probably be a little slower but it was not only very playable this time around but fixing the temp-invinc allowed me to enjoy the level without dying every few seconds in Majestic Mine.

I couldn't get to Perplex Puzzle because I seemed to be stuck between two barriers at the end of City Edge Zone 3. Also my comment earlier about not enough changing between time zones still stands...

However one thing in there still bothered me and that would be the music. It just seems way too mellow for a Sonic music. I'd try to go with something with more of an outright melody rather than muted guitar chords (or whatever it is, I'm not a musician). Even the softer themes from the classic Sonic games like Star Light, Sky Chase, Hill Top, and Sky Sanctuary had something catchy in there that gave the song and subsequently the level itself substance.

I noticed I didn't say anything about the music earlier, concentrating more on my issues with the physics so I wanted to make sure I pointed that out.

[OverbounD]

I just played the new demo and it is much better. Its still a little slippery though, I think it should probably be a little slower but it was not only very playable this time around but fixing the temp-invinc allowed me to enjoy the level without dying every few seconds in Majestic Mine.

Some people like the physics some don't so I have to pick myself.

I couldn't get to Perplex Puzzle because I seemed to be stuck between two barriers at the end of City Edge Zone 3. Also my comment earlier about not enough changing between time zones still stands...

Stuck!? could you give me a little more? Where did it happen was it after you beat the boss? Did metal Sonic swoop down and grab Eggman still?

However one thing in there still bothered me and that would be the music. It just seems way too mellow for a Sonic music. I'd try to go with something with more of an outright melody rather than muted guitar chords (or whatever it is, I'm not a musician). Even the softer themes from the classic Sonic games like Star Light, Sky Chase, Hill Top, and Sky Sanctuary had something catchy in there that gave the song and subsequently the level itself substance.

The music is all that of the Smashing Pumpkins one of my favorite bands it will probably stay.

Thanks again for another excellent comment.

[JEV3]

Stuck!? could you give me a little more? Where did it happen was it after you beat the boss? Did metal Sonic swoop down and grab Eggman still?

Yep, he flew off and I was stuck there trying to either jump over the wall or run into the loop on the other side.

The music is all that of the Smashing Pumpkins one of my favorite bands it will probably stay.

Perhaps you can feature their music in the credits or something, but at this point it just serves to make the levels feel uninteresting. An important thing is to not necessarily include music you like, but music that will help build the overall feel of the level... these levels feel like I'm walking down the sidewalk at night through a town rather than blasting over hills and traveling through time... it just doesn't fit.

[OverbounD]

I'll look into the boss bug. As far as the music goes that's another thing that some people say they like and some say they don't. Myself, I like it and I picked each song specifically for each level because I thought it fit, and unless I find someone who wants to create music specifically for the game. It will stay.

[Rawr]

Alright, I tried your game and I found it to be quite fun. I thought the third stage in the demo was the least fun though, due to the badniks that were present in it primarily. It wasn't so much the guy who jumps out of the ground, but rather the mantis that shoots lasers (?) at you. Nine times out of ten I was getting hit by that when I didn't even know he was there, and if I tried jumping on him sometimes when he would turn to face the other direction his position would also shift...which meant that I missed him on a few occasions.

I personally like the music, then again I like the Smashing Pumpkins (not a hardcore fan, but I do think they are good). The game ran quite smoothly for me too. The levels look nice and I really liked the Water level since it was really large and well designed in my opinion, I hope the rest of the levels in the final version of the game are as fun as that one =). There was a small problem I had though in that level, which is in the parts where you jump through a small gap to get into a little area that has ring boxes or an enemy or something in it (I would grab a screen but I don't remember how I got there and the demo is closed), but when trying to get out Sonic wouldn't jump through it until finally I backed up and ran to jump out, which on about the third try that worked. I'd widen that gap a bit if you know what parts I might be talking about.

I liked Sonic CD, and I quite like your game too. The biggest let down for me as I said was the third zone, but that is mainly because of the enemies present.

[JEV3]

Copied from Slingerland's topic:

I believe I've mentioned a few things in my posts on your topic. Link

I edited the post to nitpick the grammar and help lay out one of the points I was making so long as it still may be pertinent. Anyways, what I said was significant changes in layout, enemies, and hazards as well as the gimmicks and path accessibility will make the player more motivated to do so. Changing the background is nice, but also change the music between time zones (ofc with this game's music I wouldn't notice the difference[/complain]). As I said before using a different gimmick for time travel would probably answer a lot of complaints as well help your game be unique.

I'll copy this post onto your topic so I don't run the risk of hi-jacking the topic.

Just some of my ideas on making the levels more interesting between time zones. I think it is pretty much agreed that all of them could use some refinement anyways. (even Perplex Puzzle's layout could use a few improvements, maybe to be a little less Labyrinth-esque and more Hydrocity like)

Also concerning the mentioned time traveling change, I was thinking about maybe having like a time gate, and if Sonic passes it with more than a specific number of rings, (probably only 20 rings or so) then he loses that number of rings but ends up in time travel. This way you have perfect control over where the player will end up in the other time zone, it will be a little easier to come across but can still be a hazard if you aren't willing to go to a more threatening time zone and accidentally pass the gate. You also don't have to worry about setting aside a long enough stretch that the player can hold onto their warp-speed.

I understand you want to do it the same way Sonic CD does, but its less intuitive, harder to plot out properly and then again, Sonic CD had four time zones instead of two (more like three and a half I think). I personally think its better to sacrifice imitation for innovation if you think its an improvement.

[Slingerland]

One thing that I forgot to mention is the opening boss (City Edge). He fires rockets, gets real low, and goes back up. Why does he go low enough for Sonic to hit him? Why would Robotnik/Metal Sonic himself vulnerable like that?

Like acting, there needs to be motivation as to why this person is doing such a thing. Take Carnival Night, for example. Robotnik had to pick up the giant ball in order to restart his attack pattern, which allowed you to hit him. He had a reason to make himself vulnerable.

[OverbounD]

MFZB

Alright' date=' I tried your game and I found it to be quite fun. I thought the third stage in the demo was the least fun though, due to the badniks that were present in it primarily. It wasn't so much the guy who jumps out of the ground, but rather the mantis that shoots lasers (?) at you. Nine times out of ten I was getting hit by that when I didn't even know he was there, and if I tried jumping on him sometimes when he would turn to face the other direction his position would also shift...which meant that I missed him on a few occasions. [/quote']

I'm relooking at the at all the badniks in that zone, their colors will be changed and I will make the Mantis with extending antenna's more fair.

I personally like the music, then again I like the Smashing Pumpkins (not a hardcore fan, but I do think they are good). The game ran quite smoothly for me too. The levels look nice and I really liked the Water level since it was really large and well designed in my opinion, I hope the rest of the levels in the final version of the game are as fun as that one =). There was a small problem I had though in that level, which is in the parts where you jump through a small gap to get into a little area that has ring boxes or an enemy or something in it (I would grab a screen but I don't remember how I got there and the demo is closed), but when trying to get out Sonic wouldn't jump through it until finally I backed up and ran to jump out, which on about the third try that worked. I'd widen that gap a bit if you know what parts I might be talking about.

I know exactly where you are talking about consider it fixed. I will try to make the third zone more fun and the first one is going to be redone when I get around to it.

I liked Sonic CD, and I quite like your game too. The biggest let down for me as I said was the third zone, but that is mainly because of the enemies present.

I appreciated your comments.

JEV3

Just some of my ideas on making the levels more interesting between time zones. I think it is pretty much agreed that all of them could use some refinement anyways. (even Perplex Puzzle's layout could use a few improvements, maybe to be a little less Labyrinth-esque and more Hydrocity like)

More like Hydrocity I hate that zone, so that probably won't happen. I wish I could get a little more idea about what's wrong with the level design in City Edge and Perplex Puzzle (I get Majestic Mines), everyone is saying they need work but they don't go into much detail and to be honest I'm not seeing where they do. If someone could fill me in a bit I'd be happy to fix it.

Also concerning the mentioned time traveling change, I was thinking about maybe having like a time gate, and if Sonic passes it with more than a specific number of rings, (probably only 20 rings or so) then he loses that number of rings but ends up in time travel. This way you have perfect control over where the player will end up in the other time zone, it will be a little easier to come across but can still be a hazard if you aren't willing to go to a more threatening time zone and accidentally pass the gate. You also don't have to worry about setting aside a long enough stretch that the player can hold onto their warp-speed.

Ok check this, I've redone the time travel. What happens now is this if sonic is has enough speed when he runs past the time signs he swings himself around the post and launches himself off it runs for a second and into a different timezone. This allows Sonic to travel through time rather easily but it also allows the player to cancel the travel if they wish and in my opinion still feels very "Sonic". If I could get some feed back on this idea if nothing else I'd be forever grateful.

I understand you want to do it the same way Sonic CD does, but its less intuitive, harder to plot out properly and then again, Sonic CD had four time zones instead of two (more like three and a half I think). I personally think its better to sacrifice imitation for innovation if you think its an improvement.

I think your right. A lot of people have been giving me complaints and I go wait... that's how its done in Sonic CD. So maybe Sonic CD is not as perfect as I thought and giving the game my own personal spin could improve it greatly.

Slingerland

One thing that I forgot to mention is the opening boss (City Edge). He fires rockets, gets real low, and goes back up. Why does he go low enough for Sonic to hit him? Why would Robotnik/Metal Sonic himself vulnerable like that?

I'll think of something to fix that. Maybe Metal Sonic will get tired of carrying Eggman and have to come down for a second sort of like tails does when he flys. Even a robot would get tired of carrying around Eggman am I right?

Also if you get a chance I'd appreciate a little more detail on the problems on level design, as I said above besides Majestic Mines I'm kind of at a loss.

Phew! lots of comments to comment on, thanks for all the feedback guys and keep it up.

[Rawr]

Ok check this, I've redone the time travel. What happens now is this if sonic is has enough speed when he runs past the time signs he swings himself around the post and launches himself off it runs for a second and into a different timezone. This allows Sonic to travel through time rather easily but it also allows the player to cancel the travel if they wish and in my opinion still feels very "Sonic". If I could get some feed back on this idea if nothing else I'd be forever grateful.

I think that sounds like a fantastic idea actually, since I found time travelling to be a little tricky (though I still managed to do it ). Perhaps could we have a small demo to show how this all works so we can get a feel for it? That way we can see if it is a really effective method, but by the sounds of it it sounds like it'd be much better ^^

[OverbounD]

Double Post I know... but the first one was getting really really long.

Rael0505

Everything you wrote is pretty much what I think of the game. It seems to lack polish severely... which is disappointing because I absolutely adored the first demo. I think that besides some of the obvious level design errors you mentioned, a big factor is overall presentation... graphically I find the last two zones are simply not pleasing.

I have seen the new background for zone 1, and it is loads better than the current one. If he can keep up the new style, presentation will increase tenfold.

Honestly I'm terrible at making graphics I do the best I can, but I'll take another shot at the graphics but I am severely graphically challenged. I'm not getting the level design problems (aside from Majestic Mines) could you expand on that a bit?

Kain

The idea is to incorporate it into the level design such that there are certain paths that you can only take in a certain time. I believe SCD even made it where you had to travel through time to complete a couple of levels. I'm actually not too fond of the "time travel and you can make all the badniks disappear" idea. Badniks are as much variety as they are hazards and a level without them would just feel lacking. I love the theme-specific hazards like the Lava flow of the past (even though I also hate it). Cause and effect could be neat to play around with also.

You don't have to travel through time in CD unless you want to good ending. The disappearing badniks are also from CD. I'll look into adding more time specific hazards right now its mostly just gimmicks.

The ParadoxX

How about a rock that is breakable in the past but not in the future, so you go to the past, break it and you have a new way to go in the future... Or any sot of event that once you do it in the past, it affects the gameplay in the future, that way time travelling would be much more interesting...

There are gimmicks and paths that are strictly in one timezone or another. I'm not sure how that would work exactly because who would stay in that one spot long enough to travel back in time and back to the future to see the difference?

But then, at least in areas where this becomes necessary to go on, you should make it easier to do a time travel, like springs in front of each other or any sort of thing that makes it obvious that you have to travel in time.

I fixed this with a new almost instant way to time travel: "What happens now is this if sonic is has enough speed when he runs past the time signs he swings himself around the post and launches himself off it runs for a second and into a different timezone. This allows Sonic to travel through time rather easily but it also allows the player to cancel the travel if they wish and in my opinion still feels very "Sonic". If I could get some feed back on this idea if nothing else I'd be forever grateful."

DimensionWarped

I'm going to go on record and say that the time travel gimmick was always a pointless, complete and utter waste of time. Even in Sonic CD, it added very little and generally reeked of lame. All it does is generate extra work and provides absolutely nothing in terms of game design. It's something that would be better used in a single stage ala the Kirby Superstar level that does the Seasonal progressions.

I don't think I'll do seasonal Mushroom Hill does that a bit and I never really liked it. The nice thing about the Time Travel element in CD is that you are never forced to use it but its there if you want it and if you use it you are rewarded for doing so with the good ending and different secretes. The Time element is more for the guy who collected all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. I plan on adding a bunch of extras to reward you for using the time travel and destroying the robotisisors.

[OverbounD]

I think that sounds like a fantastic idea actually, since I found time travelling to be a little tricky (though I still managed to do it ). Perhaps could we have a small demo to show how this all works so we can get a feel for it? That way we can see if it is a really effective method, but by the sounds of it it sounds like it'd be much better ^^

I'm glad you like the idea. I may release another demo but I can't right now, I have to reposition all the time signs and edit the level design a bit, as there are spots where you can launch yourself into badniks and spikes

[Rawr]

Alright, take all the time you need =). I can't wait to try it out when you release a demo though, just to get a feel for the new system.

[DimensionWarped]

I wasn't really suggesting seasonal changes which are forced like that, I was suggesting using the time traveling element as a single stage gimmick where it actually does impact level design both to save work and to make it a more effective gimmick. Fact is, all it does is add to your work load the way it is now and it doesn't really add a damn thing.

But, since you are doing it probably regardless of what I say, we should at least make sure you are doing it right.

So step 1... fix the time traveling requirements.

As is, you seem to check only the speed for when it get's below a certain value to cut off the time traveling sequence. This is probably a bad idea since it doesn't allow for the same amount of fluidity as Sonic CD did for time traveling. So let's change the requirements for canceling it. It should meet both of the following:

First, Sonic has to be on the ground. Don't cancel his time traveling under any circumstances while he is in the air! Sonic CD never did. You could literally come to a complete stop in the air and still have the sparkles.

Second, Sonic should have to be slower than running speed, not for an instant, but for a period of about 15-30 frames. This way the player can allow for time to adjust when landing and other things such as being between two springs. As is, it just cuts you off right there when you use one of the spring layouts from Sonic CD.

Those two requirements should pretty much be perfect for your purposes. It allows for more transition of motion, which is the biggest dealbreaker right now.

Second, let's talk badniks. They shouldn't be active until they are visible. Keep that in mind. You can check to see if they are on the screen (or at least really close to being so) by using your camera position and shifted offsets.

Your badniks movement lacks character. It's just to plain. You need more work put into how they move from the programming end of things. Taxman made this awesome variant of the buzzbomber for our current Nexus build that we've named the Bumblecopter... When it flies, it looks like you'd expect a bee to move. Less like a perfect machine, more organically. I'd advise you to check that out when we finally get our build up.

As for your gimmicks... they are very rough around the edges. You need to refine them more. Presentation value can and will kill anything worth having. I'm going to start with the first gimmick I encountered. The fan. In the Sonic games, running towards a fan doesn't actually change the value of your speed. It just pushes you back. The effect creates this awesome effect where the player appears to be trying to fight the fan. It's just great presentation value. Currently, yours just alters the player's x-speed. Instead, you should have it modify the position directly (make sure you update your object positions) and when the player changes direction, have it convert the x speed he had facing the fan to that direction.

I thought that the rotating swinging platform was going to be so cool from just looking at it, and I was thinking "how the hell does he get that to work?" When I found out that it just does this static animation thing, I was immensely disappointed. Either come up with a way to do it for real (I imagine this would take a while) or get rid of the gimmick and replace it with the conventional swings. A half-assed gimmick based on a cool concept isn't worth having.

Speaking of half-assed, your level design reeks of it. I haven't seen so many straight edges since RAGE. Cut that garbage and add more character to your passages. If you are at all serious about wanting to bring this game up to the upper-echelons of fangaming, then I don't ever want to see this crap again:

Let's continue. those swirly infinity looking signs are ok, but everything in moderation. There are so many of those pieces of shit in the level pieces that it's just stupid. You use them as background, forground, and grounds of the likes I've yet to imagine. STOP IT. Find something else to use for your cave interior and make some tiles with more variety. Thats such an eye sore that it isn't even remotely humorous.

Now, I'm going to let you decide whether you want me to continue or not. If I do, I'm going to nitpick every single thing thats wrong with your game, so if you are already starting to get mad at what I'm saying, you'd better not have me do it.

[OverbounD]

So step 1... fix the time traveling requirements.

As is, you seem to check only the speed for when it get's below a certain value to cut off the time traveling sequence. This is probably a bad idea since it doesn't allow for the same amount of fluidity as Sonic CD did for time traveling. So let's change the requirements for canceling it. It should meet both of the following:

First, Sonic has to be on the ground. Don't cancel his time traveling under any circumstances while he is in the air! Sonic CD never did. You could literally come to a complete stop in the air and still have the sparkles.

Second, Sonic should have to be slower than running speed, not for an instant, but for a period of about 15-30 frames. This way the player can allow for time to adjust when landing and other things such as being between two springs. As is, it just cuts you off right there when you use one of the spring layouts from Sonic CD.

Before I switched the Time Travel element I did make it so it would not cancel in the air. The other thing I will switch if I ever change it back again. But could you comment on what you think of this new concept I have:

"What happens now is this if sonic is has enough speed when he runs past the time signs he swings himself around the post and launches himself off it runs for a second and into a different timezone. This allows Sonic to travel through time rather easily but it also allows the player to cancel the travel if they wish and in my opinion still feels very "Sonic"."

Second, let's talk badniks. They shouldn't be active until they are visible. Keep that in mind. You can check to see if they are on the screen (or at least really close to being so) by using your camera position and shifted offsets.

They do get deactivated when they are off screen but get activated about 500 pixels before they get on the screen I'll make it shorter.

Your badniks movement lacks character. It's just to plain. You need more work put into how they move from the programming end of things. Taxman made this awesome variant of the buzzbomber for our current Nexus build that we've named the Bumblecopter... When it flies, it looks like you'd expect a bee to move. Less like a perfect machine, more organically. I'd advise you to check that out when we finally get our build up.

I will in the meanwhile I'll retake a look at all the badniks. Might I ask if any of them are in ok shape however?

As for your gimmicks... they are very rough around the edges. You need to refine them more. Presentation value can and will kill anything worth having. I'm going to start with the first gimmick I encountered. The fan. In the Sonic games, running towards a fan doesn't actually change the value of your speed. It just pushes you back. The effect creates this awesome effect where the player appears to be trying to fight the fan. It's just great presentation value. Currently, yours just alters the player's x-speed. Instead, you should have it modify the position directly (make sure you update your object positions) and when the player changes direction, have it convert the x speed he had facing the fan to that direction.

The fan does suck, but I'm probably not going to do anything about it right now see below to find out why.

I thought that the rotating swinging platform was going to be so cool from just looking at it, and I was thinking "how the hell does he get that to work?" When I found out that it just does this static animation thing, I was immensely disappointed. Either come up with a way to do it for real (I imagine this would take a while) or get rid of the gimmick and replace it with the conventional swings. A half-assed gimmick based on a cool concept isn't worth having.

I'll do it for real, part of the reason I decided to do it that way was that I thought it might be too easy for Sonic to fall off, the other part was me being lazy.

Speaking of half-assed, your level design reeks of it. I haven't seen so many straight edges since RAGE. Cut that garbage and add more character to your passages. If you are at all serious about wanting to bring this game up to the upper-echelons of fangaming, then I don't ever want to see this crap again:

[qimg]http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=889&stc=1&d=1219744148[/qimg]

Let's continue. those swirly infinity looking signs are ok, but everything in moderation. There are so many of those pieces of shit in the level pieces that it's just stupid. You use them as background, forground, and grounds of the likes I've yet to imagine. STOP IT. Find something else to use for your cave interior and make some tiles with more variety. Thats such an eye sore that it isn't even remotely humorous.

The first level is going to be redone maybe I'll start doing it right now, Damizean gave me some awesome graphics to work with and I'm going to redo the level design as well as the graphics. What exactly did you mean though by "stright edges" do you mean the corridor is badly designed, or were you strictly referring to the tiles in the level?

Now, I'm going to let you decide whether you want me to continue or not. If I do, I'm going to nitpick every single thing thats wrong with your game, so if you are already starting to get mad at what I'm saying, you'd better not have me do it.

I'm running off to star fixing stuff right now. I am no where near mad I am ecstatic, I was hoping I could get someone to nitpick everything in the game, but that's a lot of work so I appreciate you volunteering. I know feel I know why people aren't liking Time Twisted that much anymore, and I want to fix it. Keep going please!

[DimensionWarped]

By straight edges, I'm referring to the design of things like the cooridor and to a lesser extent, the level as a whole. There isn't enough variation. You need more rolling hills, more types of terrain, more of everything. It's just too bland looking.

I'll examine more when I get home. First thing I'm going to concentrate on is your bosses.

[JEV3]

More like Hydrocity I hate that zone, so that probably won't happen. I wish I could get a little more idea about what's wrong with the level design in City Edge and Perplex Puzzle (I get Majestic Mines), everyone is saying they need work but they don't go into much detail and to be honest I'm not seeing where they do. If someone could fill me in a bit I'd be happy to fix it.

The thing I'm talking about is that Labyrinth seemed to be not only very blocky but I pretty much had to crawl from one area to another to get by unharmed. Hydrocity still had plenty of water hazards but they didn't get in the way so much and it wasn't quite so closed in. Perhaps if you made perplex puzzle a bit open, even if you kept it mostly slope-free it would be an improvement. I also would like to comment that the corridor setup that DimensionWarped gave a screenshot of is also semi-frequent in Perplex Puzzle.

Your time changing concept sounds quite interesting but I think we'd have to see it in action before knowing if it could be improved. At the very least though it sounds like an improvement of the already established system.

You don't have to travel through time in CD unless you want to good ending. The disappearing badniks are also from CD. I'll look into adding more time specific hazards right now its mostly just gimmicks.

For further clarification, the disappearing badniks referred to here are such that in Sonic CD, the future's hazards themselves are far more cruel but the enemies are usually crippled (can't shoot and such) while in the past they are faster and more deadly... However if you manage to destroy the robotocizor and go back to the future you are in what is essentially the 'good future' which is entirely devoid of robots... I think the future hazards are still in existence but I've seldom managed to play through the whole level in good future.

However I would recommend going through the layout and taking the opportunity to make it unique between time zones... remember in CD there were walls in one zone that wasn't in another sometimes with rings in there showing that there must obviously be some way to get there. Personally I think the closest you can get it to being like a different level without no longer feeling like the same level is advisable.

With that and time specific hazards and gimmicks, it should at the very least make time travel more interesting. Now of course since stage-specific gimmicks are so interesting perhaps what you could do is incorporate SOME type of time travel in each stage but mix it up, like Braid.

Say for example one level just changes layout, gimmicks, badniks, and hazards when passing the signs. Another level could have a level in the foreground that the player could play through, but another one in the background (clearly visible except when the foreground gets in the way. One could have a 'twisted' time control set up where all Sonic has to do is enter a certain area to change the time to an alternate dimension and it will open certain passages he could backtrack to get. A volcano could become a glacier with huge parts of the level only accessible in one way (interior almost only accessible when its inactive, exterior only possibly crossed when its frozen over). All of these examples would still have the basic time travel or alternate level layout feature that was in Sonic CD, but it would be taken to the next level.

To apply these sort of ideas to the already made levels, perhaps City Edge would have day/night effects with the dark reducing visibility except around street lights and such but the daytime includes far more hazards not to mention a slightly altered set of gimmicks and layout. Perplex puzzle would be flooded in one timezone with plenty of water, but the past version dries it up with ruins being much less frequent but puzzles more so. Majestic Mine... ehh urm... I think you were heading somewhere with technological vs. natural, but instead take it a lot further... maybe have the typical factory based elements in the technological version while the older one is a lot more like Hidden Palace.

Just trying to come up with some ideas to make time travel more interesting of course... I hope I've been a bit of a help.

[DimensionWarped]

OK, I'm a little tired, so I'm just going to hit one boss tonight and I'll hit the other tomorrow along with elements from the next stage.

The missile boss breaks pretty much all of the rules of the boss design for the series. First, it bothered me that he didn't take 8 hits to kill... but thinking back to Sonic CD, I remembered that most of the bosses died after the first couple times you got a hit on them... But there was a reason for that! These bosses could legitimately protect themselves with more than just a cheap invincibility grab. The fact is, if you are doing this Sonic CD style, the bosses don't get invincible moments. They rely on movement to take them away from the combat and they rely on protection to keep them from getting hurt. And they all have some strong layer of protection. The first almost requires you to get behind him, the second has that annoying as fuck pinball table, Tidal Tempest has the wall of bubbles that you can once in a while punch through if you are really freakin' lucky, Quartz Qudrant is just so unique that you never actually hit it, Wacky Workbench has the least protection of any of them, relying entirely on movement to keep himself out of harm's way, and the fanbitch... he has it all. What you need to do if you want to emulate Sonic CD on this aspect is incorporate the following elements into all of your bosses:

1. Protection - Easier bosses can be less protected than others, but strictly speaking, they have to have a way to keep themselves from being easily hit. Something more than just floating slightly out of harms way for a period of time then floating down in front of you for no reason.

2. Get Away - Now, this obviously doesn't apply for every boss. The first two in SonicCD had no get away. After that though, they all did. Tidal Tempest did it in reverse by actually forcing the player away from the shield, Quartz Quadrant threw shit at the players to scare them away, Wacky Work Bench took to the skies, and fan bitch rapidly launched to the ceiling after getting hit. You couldn't get multiple hits in a row on any of these guys, but it didn't feel like a cop out unlike it does with your first zone's boss. Bosses don't get invincibility. Thats almost a set in stone rule in the Sonic games. If you can jump up on them, you can hit them as much as you want. The trick is, some bosses can't be squatted over. There is one exception to to this in all of the 4 main titles, and that comes from Aquatic Ruin, the only Genesis boss ever to whore invincibility. The Sonic CD bosses never got so much as a scrap of the stuff that could be perceived.

So instead of having your boss turn transparent (more on that in a second), have him get upset, fluster his mustache a little, and simultaneously have him launch up to the higher point. Preferably, do it with lots of animation and maybe even consider doing some kind of particle spray out of MetalSonic. Personally, I'd have scrapped the metal Sonic concept all together... the idea of Metal Sonic carrying Robotnik around so he can shoot a gun is about as anti-Sonic as anything there ever was. For one, Robotnik has no legitimate reason to be able to survive the blows Sonic gives him. Sonic rips through metal like no one's business... something readily observable in the Sonic CD opening video where Sonic crashes through an enormous boulder without skipping a beat... and thats why Robotnik makes machines in the first place. He can't fight Sonic without a giant heavy metal frame guarding him. It would be suicide. Yeah, there are those occasional freaky moments where Robotnik reveals himself to be the real fastest thing alive, but those are mostly there for humor...

While your boss is transparent, you are breaking the connection to the player. Not only is it simply not how stuff is done in the Sonic games,

Back on topic... instead, you need to make the boss flash white maybe once or twice while launching into his escape. Traditionally, only the black elements of the color pallet change to white. So you might want that to match. If you don't care for tradition, thats fine too, but you still need to find a good, non-cheap and shitty way of showing damage. Always, ALWAYS use the mustache curling frastrated animation. Anything less just isn't Robotnik.

Before I completely lose myself again...

3. Destructability - One of the coolest elements of the bosses in Sonic CD was that you could see the damage you were doing. I'll go down the line like I did the last two times...

Palmtree Panic - Loses arms

Collision Chaos - Loses pieces of his table

Tidal Tempest - Loses bubbles from his shield which then get reshuffled over time

Quartz Quadrant - Bottom of the shield actually begins to scrape away and fall apart

Wacky Workbench - in this case, the whole level is falling apart rather than the boss

Metallic Madness - The fanblades fly off.

This is another huge disadvantage to not having a vehicle. Not only do you not have the practicality and the evil genius image associated with Robotnik's various machines, you also have made it impossible for yourself to show off visual effects. Yeah, I suppose you could have his limbs fly off and blood to spray everywhere, but I'm pretty sure thats not what we are going for! So we've lost that element of presentation... and I have to say one thing in regard to that...

Presentation value is king.

Presentation value is about more than just graphics, it's about soul. Every little deliberate motion you put into a character affects it, and the more energy you put into it, the better the element you are working on will be. It rises out of every little thing, but in the end, your actual gameplay can be completely the same, but if you just add a little wavyness here and there to the movement, a chunk of metal flying off of a machine, any number of tiny little things, and you can go from having a boss that plays like shit to one that is memorable and exciting. You just need to work hard at making it interesting. Vary the movement, make him more reactionary, less like what you do doesn't impact what he does (he can still be a lazy bastard that follows the same track as long as you can slow him down or anything like that). Instead of moving straight, waver up and down semi-chaotically while doing it. The more organic it looks, the better. You don't want things to look like perfect machines moving around with the precision of popular dance The Robot. There is a reason they make a big point of Robotnik making machines from living beings. They wanted the games to feel alive.

In any event, I just want to stress to you how half-assed your first boss is... so I'm going to go over all of his motions and his attack.

1. He has a rigid motion pattern that is completely set in stone. Hitting him doesn't slow him down, it doens't even change his animation. He always shoots you at the same time, from the same places, prompting not a single bit of input from the player. Let the player knock him around a little. Make him escape not at the end of his preset movement position, but right when the player hits him. Make him show frustration that he gets hit.

2. He shoots a projectile that rehomes on the player from the middle of the air for no apparent reason. The missiles themselves could be better animated, and they could make more interesting noises. For instance, the missiles would be better if they curved into the target path, and consider for instance a blipping green light to indicate that they are locking on to the player while that curvature is going on, and provide a sound effect to accompany that blipping light. Remember, presentation value is king!

3. When it does come to exposure, you had a lot of time to deal with your problems in Sonic CD once that exposure finally arrived. In this boss fight, the boss just cruises through and is very easy to just miss. Have the boss do more than just dip down for a while. Get him to attack the player while dipping down. It doesn't make sense that he just does it for the sake of fucking around. The boss shouldn't take risks unless there is something to gain from those risks.

I think thats all for now... unless someone would like to qualify me on this. I'll discuss the next boss tomorrow. Suffice to say I liked it a lot more, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.

PS: To all who are wondering, yes, I'm aware the dragon boss at the end of the 2007 Nexus demo didn't react to the player in any other way than shooting a projectile up in the air. Yeah, it was a rushed bastard that fell far short of what I wanted to do, but I did at least spend a good deal of time beefing up the presentation value of it with a constant influx of clouds and a feverish background with pretty visuals.

[OverbounD]

I'm redoing the first boss completely trying to stay within the guidelines you provided. I'll show it to you when I'm done, I think this one is a lot better.

[Aerosol]

Is it wrong for me to take advice given for someone elses project? Cause that there is some terrific advice dude.

[DimensionWarped]

Not at all. Here in a bit, I'm going to start writing about boss number 2.

Alright, getting down to business...

The boss is of much higher quality than the previous boss. Problem is, it violates pretty much all of the same rules aside from actually having a machine this time. The boss doesn't react to anything, annoying transparent shit, and a complete lack of legitimate protection, again relying entirely on invincibility.

That said, you did give the boss a unique attack thats actually interesting in how it works and how it is avoided. However, I think a few more options for avoiding them would be preferable to just having to get to the opposite side of the arena. Let the player have more space to jump between the individual bubbles.

Also, on the presentation end of things, you don't lock the camera. The arena seems really superficial when you are just stopped by an invisible wall. Granted, lots of Sonic games do have these invisible walls, they stop the camera too so that it isn't staring you in the face.

And there isn't one incident I can think of throughout the games where Robotnik is in a machine and never stops laughing. It's a little weird for him to be a single step from death's door with no way to protect himself while Sonic is trouncing his ass and for him still to have that retarded giggle. Sonic CD always had Robotnik switch to serious mode once the battle started and then once he was close to death, he started sweating and freaking out. It was one of the better touches with the boss battles in the game, a lot like how you had bosses with chunks flying off of them.

I'm not sure what you can have fall off of this machine. Perhaps consider tossing some armor up on it. Maybe have it lose it's weapon half way through and have to retreat momentarily and grab another one... that shoots more bubbles.

The boss is really too incompetent to have only 5 hits if it doesn't bother to get away. The only thing that keeps it alive (again) is the invincibility... which just feels cheap. Let the player hit it more often and boost the HP instead. As long as there are plenty of destructable elements falling off the robot, the player won't really mind hitting it non-standard amounts like 10 or even 12 times.

You definitely need to work on the escape. As is, this machine can be hit at all times no matter what. It's a sitting duck and it has about as much intellect in it's movements as a Space Invader. Move Horizontally. Drop Down, Increase Speed, Rise up and Reverse Direction! Actually, I take that back. The Space Invaders would shoot with more than just a pattern.

So again, you need the boss to react to blows. If you are going to leave it at just five hits, how about after every two, he dives down and prepares for another attack? I'm sure you can think of another interesting attack to give him. Bosses with only one attack are hardly bosses at all right?

Back on the topic of presentation value...

The bubble, while a cool concept like something out of Megaman, could use some work. It should be programmed in a different style... one that can't cause fuckups like the player getting stuck in spindash mode. I'd suggest changing the player's movement state to the base running state the moment the player gets hit by it.

Oh wait, I was getting ready to talk presentation value. The bubbles don't quite make enough sense see? Basically, without a heavy, denser than water object, they float up at a slow rate. When Sonic gets in the bubbles, they suddenly rocket upwards. Yes, it's mad science, but it would both make more sense, and be more pleasing aesthetically if the bubbles floated up at an accelerating rate when Sonic got in them rather than launching from 0 to 60 in one 60th of a second... that is to say, a single frame.

So summarizing changes that need to be made:

1. More options for the player to avoid the attack.

2. Boss needs to avoid the player rather than being a target 100% of the time.

3. Do away with invincibility. Thats not how Sonic Bosses roll.

4. Destructable doodads to fly off the machine. Perhaps even losing a weapon to add a humorous moment to the fight.

5. Robotnik needs to be more human, less laughing stuffed Elmo toy.

6. More attack variety.

7. More care on how his attack affects Sonic's motion.

8. Boss reacts to being hit in a way that actually affects his motion since he doesn't have the health to be that vulnerable.

Anyway, thats all for this guy. I might write something else shortly.

[ClassicSonicRules]

Three quick things that I noticed:

1. The level design is cramped. It is kind of hard to navigate through the levels.

2. The time travel mechanic is (seemingly) useless. Sonic CD used it to destroy all enemies in a level and provide opportunity to earn more endings. The time travel in your game should have some type of purpose other than just changing up the level design/graphics.

3. I didn't really like the music. It was very bland IMO.

Nice game. Can't wait to see more progress on it.

[JEV3]

3. I didn't really like the music. It was very bland IMO.

QFTFTW!

Aaanyways, perhaps Robotnik could have a hovering machine with a few missile pods that shoot the homing missiles, but after a while it runs out of power starts to lower until Metal Sonic helps to charge it back up. Sonic can try to knock off one of the pods but when he does Metal Sonic will shoot a force field to push Sonic away and help Robotnik escape into the air again. (perhaps in such a way that a really skilled player can avoid the force field and score multiple hits) After two out of the three missile pods have fallen off Robotnik starts going much faster and more frantically, also dropping bombs. Once all missile pods have been destroyed Robotnik just drops the bombs and instead of losing power and falling, Metal Sonic stays close and promptly extends some machinery from the ground. To score the last hit, Sonic needs to climb the machinery and hit Robotnik without touching Metal Sonic who rewards any hits with a voltage.

After the last hit the machine would crumble and fall apart, Metal Sonic would grab Robotnik and fly away.

Just throwing some ideas around. I would like to play the Perplex Puzzle boss again for reference but I can't get past that invisible wall in the first boss.