Sonic Nebulous 2

[Ironrind]

I've finished the majority of the engine for Sonic Nebulous 2. The characters are mostly broken up into parts and then are rigged together. Cream is the furthest in development and animation. Her head, arm, and torso animate separately for a more fluid look than the others. I'll be doing the same for all of the other characters. It only took 12-16 sprites or so for her character so this won't be difficult.

The stages are connected and will be seamless once the tiles are complete(shown in other vids). The time, rings, speed, camera pan and angle, ect are not effected by the change. There is a multiple layer system which I may use very little. It is mostly for look, but it allows for the player and enemy objects to interact between them. I'll use this mostly for boss battles.

The 24-minute day cycle will effect events in this game such as NPC location and weather events. NPC's can be other players that offer to join the player's party(up to three). They'll help with quest as the player searches for items, rescues NPCs, destroys bosses, repairs sites, and delivers items to other NPCs. Most are optional.

The player's will be able to find different suits with some that include weapons. For example, Honey has same suit from SN1, but can also find her 'Angel' suit. I noticed while testing Amy's hammer that Cream worked well with it too. So as another example of a quest, Cream will have to locate Amy's lost hammer before Amy can join her party. While bringing the hammer to Amy, Cream will be able to use it. This is how the weapons will work. Some of the suits will be switched out just for fun later in the game.

The game's progressing along pretty good at 57% so I'm not far from a first build. Now I should be able to start completing the stages and tiles which I can post soon. Still no 'developed' stages, gimmicks, or tiles but any thoughts would be appreciated =)

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ctEJGACdAA

Older video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qg338-YcuY

[luksamuk]

Your games are very... well planned, must say, before anything.

This game is particularly... idk. Different. I've always thought the same about SN1.

This is actuly pretty good, but there is something I must say about both of them...

Several characters, abilities, skills... that might be a problem. When I first played Nebulous, I got somehow disappointed. Not because I didn't like it, but because I wouldn't be able to either play the whole game with all the characters or even discover al of their abilities and controls. Specially because of my lack of patience. To tell you the truth, I wasn't able to figure it all out myself yet.

This game specially seems to mix too much MMORPG with action and platformer. Remember that I'm not complaining about yout concept or graphics or programiing, those are perfect actually. And I also say that becuase I found Game Make programming very difficult. But I still think that indefinition is very dangerous. I know what you have in your mind. I know that you ahve brainstorms and more brainstorms, just like me or another programmer here, but the difference is that you can put you thoughts into practice with ease. And I risk to say that you have only ideas that never escape too much what you already have, but are still amazing.

But yet, be careful with this kind of indetermination. I know that you want to make that, but sometimes, the ordinary games may look better because of their clever simplicity. Think about that.

[Ironrind]

Makes since, LH. I don't want to overwhelm the player or overcomplicate the design. As for the features, maybe they should remain subtle. I'll have to think of ways to do that. I do have a list of things to add, but the majority of features has been added already. I just need to tie it all together neatly to make things more player friendly perhapse.

I'll give that some thought. Thanks for the response

[P3DR0]

Well, it looks amazing. The only thing that I have to complain about (wich is something that I complain since SN1) is that, it has too much information on the screen.

Take for example the "lasers" part. There are to many lasers on it, something that kinda pollutes the game itself. I've saw Blaze crouching down at the video and I thought... Why don't you reduce them a lil' bit and, I dunno, make a "avoid the lasers" part?

I particullarly don't find the game hard to understand, neither think that too much characters is a problem. I mean, it evolves the replay factor and make the game more dinamic... Well, good luck at it and I hope to see more of it soon.

[Ironrind]

I thought the same thing about the lazers after uploading the video. I'll lower the amount of enemies with laser sight and then shut off the lasers once the player has been disocovered. I'll probably remove the "Alert" on the hud and replace that with an ambient alarm in the distance that'll be rather quiet, but gets the message across. The alert just calls in robots to hunt you and doesn't actually hurt you. It's only used in stages that Robotnik has control of plot-wise. That should clear it up a bit.

I've given the replay value a lot off thought too. I'm going to be designing much around that idea. I'll try to get things organized for an area play through.

[DJGameFreak]

Yo man, I caught your new video the other day when you uploaded it, some of the best work I've seen in a sonic fan game. I even find it more appealing the that 3D sonic fan game, because of the fact of more characters and the dark atmosphere I find more appealing. So yeah, I'll keep waiting for this one to come out.

X)

[Ironrind]

Hey, DJ. Thanks man^^ I'm think I'm pretty close to getting a first build out. I just need to finish up on some tiles for the first few zones and then add some new enemy types. Should be two or three zones and a couple of boss fights.

[Ironrind]

Demonstration of the Knothole and the Great Forest areas:

http://youtu.be/ErXodqw5ZUg

It's rather plain and I'm still spicing up the stages, but I'm going to post a build of what I have so far in a few weeks or so.

[luksamuk]

I pretty much liked it. I'd really appreciate to play a build of this.

[Ironrind]

I'll try to get a build up in a bit. The first zone is pretty much ready now, so I'll hold off on the others. I'm just having some problems with platforms at the moment.

[Ironrind]

The first build is up. There are three areas which include Knothole, the Great Forest, and the woods. There are two bosses within the build. Only Cream is introduced as of now. Other characters still need to be placed.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5kege4gyit33nej

A - Hold direction

S - Hold to boost speed(Drains rings)

D - Jump/Dash(+Down)

The arrow keys move the player.

[sonicyoda]

What on Earth do I do here?

She doesn't jump high enough to get to the next platform.

[luksamuk]

What on Earth do I do here?

[qimg]http://i54.tinypic.com/k1vvrn.jpg[/qimg]

She doesn't jump high enough to get to the next platform.

There is a switch over there, before you get to it.

I um... gonna talk about your damo later, Ironrind. Gotta get past that second boss, lol.

[Ironrind]

@Sonicyoda That yellow block is the door. There's a switch that opens that door below to the left. Just above the spring.

@LH Cool =)

A quick '360 Platform' demonstration:

[luksamuk]

So here's what I think.

Ironrind, definitely, you're one of the best programmers - and one of the best artists - I've ever seen. You games - specially Nebulous 1 and 2, now - seem like they were made out of both a dream or a nightmare you had. I love your graphics (are they all hand-made?). But as this is just a demo test, there are some things you should take care of:

1. on that part of the tree, I carefully came to the edge of the ground, waited for the platform to come closer, and THIS happened to Cream:

(Cream's animation spins 360 degrees, then stops on a random direction. But you can still walk or whatever, so when you move, it comes back to normal).

Pretty strange. But I'm sure you can fix this.

2. The way the time passes is a bit... strange. I mean, not the time passing itself, but the way the background changes. The fog intensifies out of nowhere, etc. Isn't there a way you could... I dunno, make it less perspective? Maybe you should make the fog's visibility gradual as time passes; same to the lighting effects.

3. I'm sorry, but the second boss (when you hit the Eggman Head's nose) is practically unbeatable IMO (And I couldn't beat it). I mean, I thought it was just my bad fangame playing skills, but unfortunately it's not... After I figured out how the Surveillance Bot works (you have to wait for it to try to attack you to hit it), I started destroying most of them just for fun. But in the boss, that's an annoying thing to do, as the camera isn't limited! It seemed to me like bombs just come out of nowhere, as well as those bots. I could hit the boss for a good time, but I couldn't kill it because it seems like ghost things from nowhere were hitting me or draining my rings. The max of rings I could get in those levels was 16. It's so easy for the enemies to hit you there. Also, when I was playing on the boss, as I managed to stay where the head is, I was hitting everything that was coming to me. But a smoke bomb that probably exploded at my LEFT, instead of sending me against the yellow wall, SENT ME BACK TO THE REST OF THE LEVEL (the left). That was terrible! I couldn't come back to the head's platform, as it could kill me with ease, with those almost invisible bombs.

4. The rings... I don't like how often they appear. They are a way not to get killed. It's good that it can be found inside enemies, but the Surveillance Bot, for example, seems way too tough to obtain it with ease. Maybe you should lessen the enemies' health, or at least the smaller ones. Or else, you'll have to add shields that support more than one hit or even add a health bar for the character (what DEFINITELY does not fit).

I love it all. Not making the balloon juice here, but hey, fella, you have one more fan.

[Ironrind]

Much thanks for the lengthy critique, LH

I recently screwed up some of the collision code while trying to create a platoform that works only as a floor and threw something off. I'll figure out what part of it.

As of now, I haven't figured out a way to transtion the time of day with fog. I havn't figured out the coding for the digits in the color change. I'll play around with the depth and will hopefully come up with a transition.

The second boss needs a lot of work and better AI. I can give him a much stricter form of movement and then set it to a good pattern suitable for the level layout.

As for the rings, I can apply the dropping of rings to only certain enemies. I'll lessen their health too. I'm still working out how much health to give them while health is taken from the enemy depending on their weight and how fast the player is moving when he hits the enemy. I don't plan on giving the player a health bar, but yeah, sheilds and player abilities will do much higher damages.

The sprites and tiles are done with MS Paint and then are halfed in size using GM8. The backgrounds are sci-fi/fantasy paintings from the web. I loop the image and touch up the edge with Paintshop Pro. I usually alter the hue and saturaton depending on the stage.

Thanks, dude