Freedom Planet (v. 1.4)

[Strife]

Damizean, LarkSS, and MCKaosu - If any of you guys are reading this, do you have e-mail addresses? I'm planning on sending out a mass e-mail to all of my contributors soon. ("Soon" meaning when I've grabbed all the addresses I need, which could actually take a while if not everyone is quick to respond. xD; )

[Mareeo64]

I really like that you decided to use customs as a base. it takes more creativity than to just use already-made sprites.

[Strife]

Thanks!

This is what I've drawn so far for Relic Maze Act 2's background. From my personal experience, I've found that "ancient ruins" stages in Sonic games tend to drag out a little more than what's comfortable (S1's Marble Zone and S3's Marble Garden being two big ones for me), so Act 2 is going to feel almost like a completely different stage. It has just enough in common with Act 1 to keep them together, though.

[Apricity]

Oh man, I haven't seen anything that makes me want to get back into game making as much as that for a long time.

I swear Strife your use of colours and shades is impeccable, such a simplistic background that still conveys the image of a cave and with a tonne of depth too.

One minor piece of criticsm I might like to add is that the crystals and the rocky part in the floor tiles look superb but I'm having trouble understanding how it goes from the crystals to the rock. If it's like the crystals are the floor and the rock is just sort of like covering them then I think the top of the rock and the bottom of the crystals needs to be a clearer segregation. If it's just all one piece then it's fine, I guess I'm just having trouble working out what it is.

Infact it's fine I'm just rambling on aha. The blues and the greens work really well together it definitely looks like the base for some interesting terrain:)

[Strife]

Yeah, I tried to make it look like the crystals are embedded into the rock. xD; I could probably add some extra shading underneath them to distinguish it more. In any case, thank you so much for the compliments Chronic! I'm glad I could send an inspire beam your way.

I've got about 25% of the act done so far. Here's what it looks like with actual objects in place:

If the pickaxe gimmick looks familiar, I ripped it from my Spectrum Chase project since I'm not working on that anymore.

EDIT: By chance, would anyone know an effective way to change the colors of backdrop objects? I want to add a "shine" animation to the crystal floor, but if I just overlap the floor/ceiling tiles with active objects, that would obviously cause major slowdown.

[Sotsug]

Yeah, I tried to make it look like the crystals are embedded into the rock. xD; I could probably add some extra shading underneath them to distinguish it more. In any case, thank you so much for the compliments Chronic! I'm glad I could send an inspire beam your way.

I've got about 25% of the act done so far. Here's what it looks like with actual objects in place:

[qimg]http://i42.tinypic.com/sg51xl.png[/qimg]

If the pickaxe gimmick looks familiar, I ripped it from my Spectrum Chase project since I'm not working on that anymore.

EDIT: By chance, would anyone know an effective way to change the colors of backdrop objects? I want to add a "shine" animation to the crystal floor, but if I just overlap the floor/ceiling tiles with active objects, that would obviously cause major slowdown.

Have water in this part??? *-*

[Kessler12]

You should make some tnt type enemy here (creeper?) Or just plain old tnt itself that could destory breakable walls and maybe cause the ceiling to drop stuff [like a pow block], also some enemys with hard hats, by jumping on their head they cannot be hurt but stunned.

[Strife]

Sotsug - After Dragon Valley, there won't be any water until Battle Glacier (the 4th zone).

Kessler - I was actually thinking that I could put a lot of explosives in some sections. Aside from that, there's a few enemies that I'd like to give the ability to drill through walls and such. We'll have to see if I can plan out the level design accordingly.

ATTENTION: I've sent out an e-mail to all of my contributors, which from this forum include Damizean, LarkSS and MCKaosu for their work on the Worlds engine. If you didn't get an e-mail and it's not in your spam inbox, let me know and I'll try sending it again.

[Duckboy]

game continues to look gorgeous

[Kessler12]

I didn't get it... I hope you didn't sent it to my live email.

[Strife]

I sent the e-mail to my contributors, not my testers. ^_~

[Kessler12]

Oh I must had miss-read. I'm about as derpy as my avatar.

[Strife]

Dear Journal,

I find it both amazing and amusing how my past experiences on the Internet tend to come full circle. Yesterday I found out that not only does my composer use Second Life (a 3D social network), but she's loose friends with pretty much the same people that I used to hang out with when I was still using SL around 3 years ago. And I had no idea of this when I chose to collaborate with her. Mind. Blown.

Anyway, I found an artist on DA that I'm thinking about commissioning to help me with website graphics and cutscenes for the game:

http://r-no71.deviantart.com/

He's told me that I'm not the first game developer to approach him for commission work, but that this is the first project that's caught his interest. He's currently busy with other work and can't help me at the moment, so I hope he'll think about it when he becomes available again.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to figure out how I want to create the website/booth for SAGE. I would like some way of monitoring the amount of traffic that I get, including a download counter, so I'll have to continue to do research and see if I can integrate such a system into my existing website.

[Candescence]

Can't say I object you your choice. R-no71 is a fantastic artist, his animations are wonderful, and, well, a Blaze fan is an added plus.

[Strife]

Yeah, I've always thought Blaze was cool - a crowning example of a strong female character done right. The way Lilac is turning out kinda reminds of her in some ways.

Anyway, I've decided to open up auditions for anyone who might be interested in voicing one of the characters in Story Mode. You can find out more here:

http://voiceacting.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=22873

I'll accept auditions until June 1st for the six characters listed, and I'll likely add the rest later on.

[Candescence]

Auditions, huh? Interesting. Might be able to throw something together for Spade's voice. Not sure if my acting will work for him, but, eh, might as well give it a shot. Figuring out a good tone of voice for the third line is a bit tricky, IMO, but I think I've got a good idea of it - Spade seems like the type of hot-shot poker player who gets openly aggravated when his "cunning bluffs" fail repeatedly, whether it be because of his own skill, or his opponent's.

[Instrutilus]

Aww, I don't have an account there...I'll have to make one and get that microphone from my brother back =P

[Strife]

You don't need an account on their forums, technically - All you gotta do is e-mail your audition to me. If you have any questions about how it works, just ask here and I'd be happy to assist. ^^

[Instrutilus]

Noticed the moment I read the bottom half |3 God I feel like an idiot now...

[Strife]

I'm honestly surprised at the number of voice auditions that I've been receiving. Suffice to say, I'll have quite a list to sort through once the deadline passes. I am, actually, thinking about shortening the deadline to mid-May, but it all depends on how long it takes me to sort out the story dialogue.

Speaking of which, work on the actual game has come to a standstill aside from some minor graphic/sprite work so that I can get the plot structure straightened out. I'm aiming for it to take no more than a week or two before I resume work on Relic Maze Act 2 (and hopefully during that time, I'll find out whether or not I made it to NGIN).

[JetHawk95]

I'll probably whip something up for Spade the Cavy.. I like his attitude and its fit my style of voice best.

I have a pretty good mic (Shure SM-57) Because I've been singing/rapping my own material for sometime now. I'll record and send you the Audition Lines soon

[awesomesonikku]

The character seems too much like a mary-sue and seems too much like Sonic. Unlike some people, I'm not too intrested in this project.

[Strife]

That's quite alright. Especially if it's just her appearance that makes her seem that way, as opposed to her personality or abilities - since, honestly, I would say that any of the official hedgehogs (Sonic, Shadow, Silver) are more powerful than her and have more Marty Stu-ish traits to boot. (For example, they all have super forms that render them invulnerable and can allow them to literally destroy any supernatural being through sheer force of will, in addition to having Chaos Control under normal means. The plot pretty much revolves around their every move.)

[Hybrid35]

Woah. Ok where to start.

(This is all about Relic Maze Act 2 btw)

The background, I love it man, and the light coming form the cave opening was a nice added touch. Love how all the colors seem to go well with each other. Also nice new Hud. But what I love most is the fact that you can somehow make this game somewhat of a fan game, but not make it too much like a Sonic game.

Hoping to see more ^^

[Strife]

Thank you muchly, Hybrid!

I finally received an answer from NGIN. Freedom Planet was not accepted for the event. Honestly, I was anticipating a rejection since they've received over 60 submissions and could only pick 8 of them to showcase, and I had a gut feeling they'd be turned off by the similarities to Sonic. If I'm available for next year's event, though, I'll try again, since I think that the game will have evolved into something more original and distinctive by then.

But, hey, that's one less thing to worry about. Now I can just focus my attention on getting things ready for SAGE. I still don't know what the heck I want to do with the website, because I have my doubts about whether or not the artist I want will be available in time to help me.