Sonic ATS - Released

[W.A.C.]

Really looking forward to your fangame. Considering some of the influences from the Kirby franchise for both BTS and ATS, I take it Kirby is one of your favorite game series?

[Djawed]

You just made another day for me lake. I may not express as many words as I used to, as it would just be repeating the same thing over and over again. You're really good lake and keep up the good work. Looking forward to the release and i'm allready sure that it's going to be an unforgettable experience.

I just told it to a friend of mine, but your game looks like something that would be a masterpiece if it came out officially with todays gen technoligy. But personally I don't care for all that, you've done a great job with the resources you have. Those are some beautiful graphics and show to have been made with so much care and determination.

The best part is that you're really doing this voluntarily for yourself and others to enjoy. I sincerely think you got talent and deserve more in return. At least I hope it won't go unnoticed

Awesome gemaplay trailer

[Sparks]

Curious question, will all this content be at SAGE?

Also, I meant how you keep such a steady work ethic. Some days I lose motivation or lack inspiration. :X I think that cripples me more than my skills or enjoyment of actually designing sprite gimmicks and levels. You go at it nonstop though, which I find impressive!

[LakeFeperd]

thanks guys =)

@Sparks

the SAGE demo will be pretty much like BTS's last year SAGE demo.

but, well, i dont go non-stop, if you run out of ideas and inspiration, dont stop. just try to keep pushing yourself, it usually works.

and try to not get distracted by anything. =P

[Chaos-Fusion]

Have i said it already? Whatever, Still a fan of your level creativity and your game seems to look better with every video release.

[Falk]

I'm really glad to see the art style gradually ditch the retro, limited-shades+dithered look. While the resolution is still similar to the golden 90's age, everything just looks a lot more volumetric and vibrant.

Part of me actually wishes we'd just said 'hey let's do ATS OST from the get go' but I think the stuff I've learnt/developed while doing BTS is invaluable. ;p

[Serephim]

Damn straight, it sounds amazing.

And this game makes me feel fuzzy inside

[LakeFeperd]

i've mixed P3DR0's Super Sonic sprite, which now will be using in BTS'12 with the mod.gen sprite i'm using now.

what do you guys think?

[Shadow_Striker]

It's very cool, in my opinion.

[XeroNazoBlaze]

Ditto. You could give him an "angry face", like the S3K sprite.

[Instrutilus]

i've mixed P3DR0's Super Sonic sprite, which now will be using in BTS'12 with the mod.gen sprite i'm using now.

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/r0igA.png[/qimg]

what do you guys think?

The arms look odd, can't really explain it, the side of the head away from the camera looks too protrusive and Sonic looks like he's looking up instead of ahead. Fix then and it's golden <

.

[XeroNazoBlaze]

Ignore the fact that I'm terribad at editing sprites, but how about give Supersonic a new idle animation?. Here's is my take:

The sprite is pretty much a "Frankenstein", I took various parts from various sprites from 2 different games.

[LakeFeperd]

@XeroNazoBlaze

well, thanks but i guess i've already got it right

it might need a bit more of polish, but i'll do it later

[XeroNazoBlaze]

@XeroNazoBlaze

well, thanks but i guess i've already got it right

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/7XdcT.png[/qimg]

it might need a bit more of polish, but i'll do it later

Looks tons better than mine.

[Djawed]

Supersonic looks mad crazy. Just like the way he should 8)

[BlitznBurst]

I played this game and I absolutely loved it. I had to debate with myself whether or not to use the level select. Needless to say that didn't last long and I was playing Parhelion Peak in five seconds. But damn, this is amazing. I haven't played much but what I have played was just glorious. I'm really excited for the final release.

[LakeFeperd]

SAGE demo is out

https://sites.google.com/site/sonicbtsbooth/

i guess i was a bit too late =P

[BlitznBurst]

So just played it all the way through and my favourite zone is definitely the lava stage (Can't remember the name, redhot ride or something) or Foliage Furnace. Every stage is just great. Although there's one problem. The shields will carry over to the next zone which resulted in me having a bubble shield in the lava stage (Although naturally I lost it in a few seconds) NNot only that but if you die you respawn with the shield (UNless you reach a checkpoint, possibly. Not sure)

Lange's tracks for Foliage Furnace also don't loop all that well but that's not too big of an issue.

**EDIT** Forget what I said about FFZ and whatever the fire level was called. Fucking Parhelion Peak (I seriously wish I knew what that meant but oh well) God damn that level is sexy. I fucking love that zone. The Eggman snowmen were pretty funny too (I laughed when a monitor popped out of one) Only issue was some of the bumpers but other than that amazing. I also like how you can transform into Beam Sonic at will. This game is just amazing.

[KCEXE1386395867]

Can you please make a mediafire mirror? I can't seem to be able to download it. AT ALL. I'm dying to play this. xD

[LakeFeperd]

alright, i made i mirror for my dropbox while i wait for the SAGE site to get back

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59639010/Sonic%20ATS%20SAGE%20demo.rar

[Djawed]

Allright, so I played the game as well, and...

First things first, I gotta get this out and make it clear. You have improved from before the sequel on so many levels that no doubt is after the sequel a much better game allready. I guess it goes without saying that it is what you tried and aimed for from the beginning. But there's your confirmation lol, even if you may have thought it yourself allready.

Now more into details, this may probably become long, but consider this as something i'm giving you back for the amazing present you are giving to me/us. Edit: Well this became much longer than I expected 0_0

The first level is always gonna start out basic but even here it's starts out very interesting. Defenitly a milestone better than before the sequel(sorry for the comparisons but just to give an indication of how you succeeded). The game allready starts out becoming interesting from act 2 and from there on it just keeps on getting better and better. (By the way, i'd love to know what music you used for act 2 from Horizon Heights)

It just conistently keeps getting better. The next stage surpasses each stage that comes before it. Not only in fun and joy, but also in challenge and enemy functionality. I really like how all you executed your ideas. All the enemies function in a unique way and especially later on you cannot just run and jump through a level without getting hurt. This is what I really loved about before the sequel, and what I love even more about after the sequel. You literally cannot mindlesly go through a level without dying, but it's also not botomless pits causing this. The game soon allready punishes you from playing like modern sonic 2d games. You get hit, and as i've complimented you in before the sequel, there are no rings on the way to encourage such mindless play. Losing rings actually means something and having 0 rings means something as well. I tried doing this when I wanted to get to act 2's to give you specific feedback, but I pretty much died. Not only does the challenge not let you, but the level design itself doesn't either. You have to think when navigating through a level.

Now on to the specifics(writing this while playing). I really love Horizon heights boss as a first boss. I love the fact it has 2 segments. If it only had 1 it would feel similar to the standards of the classics, which isn't nesceseraly bad. But putting the standards highter than the ones allready set is a wise choice. Taking an example is good, but i'm glad that you made the game start engaging even from the first zone. Alot of games do this, yet sonic never really does.

Those shield enemies in cyan city zone are great. When you hit their shields you get thrown into a direction and then the second hit kills them. I like how something small like this really affects the gameplay alot. Also love the minoboss in the level, hope to see more of minibosses because it felt like a perfect icing on the cake.

Than act 2 starts, and really from here on, the bar gets lifted so much that I felt goosebumps from here on through the whole SAGE demo. That cutscene with that background music that continues on in the next stage, is just amazing. Your music choice is still great as ever and i'd love to know where this song is from as well. Not to discredit the custom music made by falk in before the sequel, but when you gather all these great tunes together from all these fantastic proffesional composers, your defenitly gonna find some very top quality songs among them. More about the music later.

Notice: Oh I just found a bug right now, going "kirby mode" in cyan city zone act 1 and continuing onto act 2 made me back to normal again, but still kept the skin of "kirby" sonic in front of my regular sonic.

Anyway the flying act is great and very well designed. Again another major raised bar. Continuing onto foilage zone... yeah this zone is fantastic. The gimmicks in this level are really great and original. The music sound to be from a genesis games for both acts. I wonder where these songs came from as well ^^.

The bubbles weren't just a great gimmick, but I feel like I see where you are coming from. To me at least, it almost feels like a big middlefinger towards how the recent games are handling everything as of late. They forgot about how 2d games only needed simple jump and aims, and you actually turned this into one of the game's most awesome gimmicks.

Foilage furnace act 2 again manages to surpass the previous level with added gimmicks and reused gimmicks from the first act done better. See this is another thing which I really love. You reuse gimmicks in a very clever way. They just stay interesting that way. Also love the barrel shooting inspired from donkey kong country. Love how the forest part still gets a small revisit in this act as well.

There doesn't need to be alot said about technoligy tree zone. It's a great act. But I feel that a fast paced music track would fit this zone alot more

Catle zone is another great act. I especially like the enemies here. The one with the spikes circlign him. Or those spiky enemies which turn up and down after a while. They're not useless and require a bit of thinking which is really good. I might be repeating myself by now, but it also shows how you are consistent and consious with these design choices. I admire them alot. Those moving platforms are also a really nice touch. Again you reuse the same gimmick twice where these moving platforms move from left to right and you have to get up, but in the 2nd and 3rd time with added spikes on the sides.

Redhot ride zone was for me the hardest level, but it was also very great. Diagonal platforms are another small thing that I find brilliant, especially with the established physics. Also that monitor badnik. God, that mofo actually killed me once XD. There is btw a little bug after you get the fireshield going into the lava. The part where you have to get up a ramp, when you spindash, you go into a halt just before the end of the ramp so it prevents you from getting up.

The next level. Bumpers as enemies huh? You troll

With so much brilliance, there are a few issues here and there as well, allthough just 2 thankfully . 1 is something I noticed for both of your releases, which is massive fps slowdown. I don't know what causes it but it does this on every computer I used it with. Oh and they are pretty fast computers with one being very high end. This affects the gameplay GREATLY, so if you can possibly fix this, I hope it will soon be fixed. 2 are the checkpoints. I don't know if it's few being placed or them being placed wrong, but I died some times and then starting all over from the start without encountering any checkpoint. This happened to me on a few occasions so check it out

Anyway about what I was gonna say about the music. I really like your music choices and basically what I wanted to say is, that I played before the sequel 12. I like the music alot but I feel like the variety was missing a little bit which you do find in your original picks. I also really love the melodic nature of your original music picks. Overall I think Falk's before the sequel's music is overall better, I just hope the music people take more inspiration of what's allready there when composing tracks for after the sequel. There was some of that in BTS but I hope to hear more of it in ATS ^^.

Anyway I am really sorry for this TL;DR but I hope you apreciate it.

I would say keep up the good work Lake. There doesn't need to be much said except for that. I really hope one day you can grow with the graphics in the sense of higher resolution. I think both of your games have amazing gameplay and music, but I feel if it had more high quality graphics, the games would only benefit from it. Nonetheless, the graphics you made are amazing. You improved alot with your spriting . I hope alot of people will notice your brilliant game, kudos.

[Duckboy]

Awesome stuff, plays like it should. There was a part in the lava level that I got stuck on that I couldn't figure out how to get past. The part where you have to run on the ball to make it shoot up. It doesn't go high enough to get out of the lava and I couldn't figure out how to make it go higher. Anyway, plays great, just like a real Sonic game. And the various gimmicks in each level was great, especially loved the DK-barrel style cannons.

Oh and of course it gets points because it allows me to use the gamepad, AND you can turn off cutscenes so I can just play it like a regular game and not worry about the story which is nice.

[Apricity]

I had the same problem Duckboy. There's a ledge that almost looks like part of the background that you have to land on it but mos tof the time you just fall through it.

[Falk]

AND you can turn off cutscenes so I can just play it like a regular game and not worry about the story which is nice.

whatwhatwhatwhat noooooooooooooooooooooo

[BlitznBurst]

Djawed, just for the record, Foliage Furnace's music was made by Mr Lange. It was a track created for the game.

He also did Sugar Splash but that isn't in the game (Have to question this, considering it's the second level and there's nothing from it, but oh well)