In Progress Streets of Rage X (Windows / Android) Beta 33

[Miru]

Max new moves and anims are TOP.

I'm not so sure about the shadows... I think it would have been better just an option to deactivate projected shadows to play with the sprite based shadows only, like in the originals. Removing shadows from sprites could lead to deleting legit pixels from characters body. In SORR this happens A LOT...

EDIT: In fact, you can see what I said just in the new video. See attached pic.

It wouldn't be too much work to restore the body pixels that shared colors with the shadows, however.

 

[DCurrent]

The last task on level creation was finished. Now the two SOR3 bike levels were recreated and added to the game.
They will work the same as the original ones, and are organized in the same level order according to the original BK3/SOR3 "Level Selection" menu.

Plus I'm showing a preview of the new Shadow option in the Extra Menu. You can select between the "projected" or "rounded" types. Another new option in the Extra Menu is the "Route Change'', which allows the player to switch between all SOR1/2/3 routes during the "Stage Complete" screen.

In addition, I did a quick test with the new Max's slam moves: Full "Nelson" Slam, Twisted Slam and Body Slam.
Credits to "Luke K." for the new Max's sprites used on the custom slam moves.

Did you mean the new SORX name? Yes, this name is official, but it would be good to know your suggestion too.

Fantastic as usual. Only thing I really don't like is the truck. It's just too fast and sticks to the PC like glue. I think you need to slow its movement down, or better yet, give the PC "running" when on the bike. Side dashing and back dashing would be really nice too. Not just for the maneuverability, but just to give you more things to do. It would be pretty simple to animate too:

• Run - No new animation needed. Maybe just add an engine rev and slightly speed up the wheel cycling. Done.
• Back dash - Maybe a quick dust spawn and brake screech.
• Side dodge - Use the wheelie animation. If you already plan on adding the wheelie animation as an attack, then just spawning some dust and a tire screech would work fine too.

Love Max's new moves. It's hilarious how they animate much better than SOR4 since that game never bothers with any true binding or Z axis correction. Also, think I have an idea for Max's grapple rage like we talked about. Use his rolling sprites to make a Death Cradle. He rolls them over and over back and forth (knocking down other enemies natch), then come out of the roll with a Giant Swing. I would have him finish by not letting go and instead using the momentum to slam them down hard on their back.

Anyway, just my two cents. It's all looking great.

DC

 

[pepodmc]

antastic as usual. Only thing I really don't like is the truck. It's just too fast and sticks to the PC like glue. I think you need to slow its movement down, or better yet, give the PC "running" when on the bike. Side dashing and back dashing would be really nice too. not just for the maneuverability, but just to give you more things to do. It would be pretty simple to animate too:

For me its only a matter of adding a little inertia to the movement of the truck, like when a character walk on ice and tries to go in the opposite direction.
Because its true . it sticks like a glue, but gameplay wise is understandable why kratus made it that way.

If you give side and back dashing, will make the stage too easy because you will have a lot of maneuverability.

but a little front dash making a willy with the bike, using it as a front attack too would be good

This is just an opinion

 

[machok]

Did you mean the new SORX name? Yes, this name is official, but it would be good to know your suggestion too.

X name sounds cool and simple especially when called SORX. It's just that I always thought that X represented mr.X?

another alternative I think of is something identifying trilogy or something that represents the BOR engine itself.
It doesn't always have to be with a name but adding 3 lines to the x logo will also look attractive and represent the trilogy.

Another suggestion is Bare Knuckle: the streets of rage. Something that identifies the original but it might be too long

 

[DCurrent]

If you give side and back dashing, will make the stage too easy because you will have a lot of maneuverability.

I have to respectfully disagree. Giving players more options is always a good thing, and doesn't lead to balance issues if you handle it correctly.

More to the point, the last thing you need to worry about in a vehicle stage is it lacking difficulty. Vehicle stages always seem like a good idea on paper, but they're almost always over tuned against the player or just drag on too much. SOR Remake is guilty of both to the point its vehicle stages are basically punishment for taking a wrong turn. Adding some player maneuverability to counteract those tendencies won't hurt the balance a bit.

You want an example of it done right? Look to Shinobi 3. While riding the horse or the ski you retain all your movement options, and it works perfectly.

DC

 

[Kratus]

Thanks for all the feedback, buddies
This is not the final version, I'm doing many tests and will do all necessary adjustments according to every suggestion.

I'm not so sure about the shadows... I think it would have been better just an option to deactivate projected shadows to play with the sprite based shadows only, like in the originals. Removing shadows from sprites could lead to deleting legit pixels from characters body. In SORR this happens A LOT...

EDIT: In fact, you can see what I said just in the new video. See attached pic.

Man, I understand your point, but unfortunately all original shadows belong to the sprite design and can't be removed with scripts.
It's not an impossible task, I was able to enable/disable by changing models but it will double the total sprites amount and the game file will be much bigger than now.

In this case I prefer to remove all original shadows and adjust the wrong sprites one by one according to community's feedback, same as Miru suggested and like the image you posted.
In Abadede's example, I removed only the black pixels related to the shadow and tried to follow the default foot's design, but I can do adjustments if necessary.

In addition, most custom sprites I receive from the community don't have original shadows, same as the SOR1 that will be used. I will need to draw a shadow for every new sprite, delaying all game's development. In this case, it's better to make the opposite and maintain all sprites with no original shadow by default.

Your bike stages are great and I like the knives throw too . I'm wondering if you will add the up, down and front attacks with the bikes?
Do you have all the sprites that you need?
The gfx shadows can be improved by simply lower the offset of these sprites.

Thanks! About the bike stage, different from SOR2X, I'm doing a more simple and quick level, close to the original. The player will not stay too much time playing there and for now we can let the simple punch. However, maybe we can do improvements and add some new moves after all the main content is finished, you sent me some good ones that can be used.

Fantastic as usual. Only thing I really don't like is the truck. It's just too fast and sticks to the PC like glue. I think you need to slow its movement down, or better yet, give the PC "running" when on the bike. Side dashing and back dashing would be really nice too. Not just for the maneuverability, but just to give you more things to do. It would be pretty simple to animate too:

• Run - No new animation needed. Maybe just add an engine rev and slightly speed up the wheel cycling. Done.
• Back dash - Maybe a quick dust spawn and brake screech.
• Side dodge - Use the wheelie animation. If you already plan on adding the wheelie animation as an attack, then just spawning some dust and a tire screech would work fine too.

Love Max's new moves. It's hilarious how they animate much better than SOR4 since that game never bothers with any true binding or Z axis correction. Also, think I have an idea for Max's grapple rage like we talked about. Use his rolling sprites to make a Death Cradle. He rolls them over and over back and forth (knocking down other enemies natch), then come out of the roll with a Giant Swing. I would have him finish by not letting go and instead using the momentum to slam them down hard on their back.

Anyway, just my two cents. It's all looking great.

DC

Thanks man! I'm doing adjustments in the truck's movements, you are right about the "glue"

About the bike's run/dash/dodge I liked your suggestion and will do some tests. In SOR2X you already can use a "run" animation by activating the "nitro" and it works like an attack too. However, I removed it on SORX to make it closer to the BK3 bike level, but it's a good thing to have back.

About Max's rage I'm really planning to give him an exclusive rage move while grabbing an opponent, he will be the only character allowed to do that (same as Sammy's exclusive rage move while jumping, is the only character that can do it).

I'm interested in knowing more about this Death Cradle, maybe if you have an example in another game I can try to recreate it. I'm thinking about let the Twisted Slam for the rage move, would be good to know your opinion about it.

For me its only a matter of adding a little inertia to the movement of the truck, like when a character walk on ice and tries to go in the opposite direction.
Because its true . it sticks like a glue, but gameplay wise is understandable why kratus made it that way.

If you give side and back dashing, will make the stage too easy because you will have a lot of maneuverability.

Yeah, in fact the truck's movement was directly connected with the gameplay. The first truck version was very slow and much easier to avoid, then I added speed to make it more challenging. However it needs some adjustments, the "inertia" suggestion is a good idea.

About the difficulty, the side and back dashing maybe can help on the first bike stage (the bridge), because this one is "timed" according to how many barrels are thrown from the truck and during this time you can avoid many attacks waiting until the level ends.

But for the second bike stage (the road), the stage will only end when all enemy bikers are killed and even if you can avoid all attacks by dodging, you will need to stop dodging and attack the enemies to finish this stage.

X name sounds cool and simple especially when called SORX. It's just that I always thought that X represented mr.X?

another alternative I think of is something identifying trilogy or something that represents the BOR engine itself.
It doesn't always have to be with a name but adding 3 lines to the x logo will also look attractive and represent the trilogy.

Another suggestion is Bare Knuckle: the streets of rage. Something that identifies the original but it might be too long

In fact the "X" on SORX is some kind of "heritage" from SOR2X, which was used to represent an advanced SOR2 version only.
I can think of a way to remember the trilogy by making small changes on the X design, it's a nice suggestion.

SOR Remake is guilty of both to the point its vehicle stages are basically punishment for taking a wrong turn.

You did a "sniper" shot on the point, "punishment" is the best word to describe. I will go a little far and say that I never liked most vehicle levels in a lot of games, including some classics. Most of them appear to be totally disconnected from the main game and I can't wait to finish.

This is why the new bike stages are shortened in SORX and now I added more challenges so that it doesn't get tedious.

 

[IAmTheWeapon]

It wouldn't be too much work to restore the body pixels that shared colors with the shadows, however.

Yeah, but that's guessing work unfortunately.

Man, I understand your point, but unfortunately all original shadows belong to the sprite design and can't be removed with scripts.
It's not an impossible task, I was able to enable/disable by changing models but it will double the total sprites amount and the game file will be much bigger than now.

In this case I prefer to remove all original shadows and adjust the wrong sprites one by one according to community's feedback, same as Miru suggested and like the image you posted.
In Abadede's example, I removed only the black pixels related to the shadow and tried to follow the default foot's design, but I can do adjustments if necessary.

In addition, most custom sprites I receive from the community don't have original shadows, same as the SOR1 that will be used. I will need to draw a shadow for every new sprite, delaying all game's development. In this case, it's better to make the opposite and maintain all sprites with no original shadow by default.

Good point. I totally understand it. At first, it was only a handful of custom sprites and the work could be doable, but now you have a lot of custom stuff.

EDIT: Here is a "corrected" example from my SOR4 retro fix. Retro Fix [Streets of Rage 4] [Mods]
You can use my work as guide to do the adjustments if you want. Be aware that the brightness in my spriterips are the default Genesis brightness and the brightness in your spriterips is based on the pancake tool, so do the corrections by hand, don't just copy paste.

 

[darknior]

Impressive work ... i love your game so much
And specially your last video with moto update and the truck, really excellent

 

[Kratus]

Yeah, but that's guessing work unfortunately.


Good point. I totally understand it. At first, it was only a handful of custom sprites and the work could be doable, but now you have a lot of custom stuff.

EDIT: Here is a "corrected" example from my SOR4 retro fix. Retro Fix [Streets of Rage 4] [Mods]
You can use my work as guide to do the adjustments if you want. Be aware that the brightness in my spriterips are the default Genesis brightness and the brightness in your spriterips is based on the pancake tool, so do the corrections by hand, don't just copy paste.

You did a great job with this SOR4 mod, thanks for offering as base to fix SORX shadows.
I will compare the sprites and use yours as a guide to correct mines manually.

I'm curious about the brightness... I didn't notice a difference between pancake and genesis, I would like to see some images of this comparison.
You're right about the sprites, most of them were ripped with pancake, but some I got by using the Gens11svn too.

 

[Felina]

Something really good to play with !!

 

[IAmTheWeapon]

You did a great job with this SOR4 mod, thanks for offering as base to fix SORX shadows.
I will compare the sprites and use yours as a guide to correct mines manually.

I'm curious about the brightness... I didn't notice a difference between pancake and genesis, I would like to see some images of this comparison.
You're right about the sprites, most of them were ripped with pancake, but some I got by using the Gens11svn too.

Pancake and Gens have the same brightness in the spriterips by default, so no problem there. I think its something to simulate the extra brightness from old TVs, but the real colors of a MegaDrive are a little darker.

I've attached an example from my SOR4 mod. You can see it more clear with whites. Look at Big Ben. Right one is clearly mnore darker. That's the real color of the game.

Don't bother with this, because if all your sprite/bgs rips have the standard pancake/gens brightness is just too much work to fix it, barely noticeable, so don't bother.

 

[pepodmc]

Hello.

I made a "mini" animation so, we can see the inside of Atlas in the last part of Sor 3 route stage 2A.

Before, you went to the bottom to enter atlas , but i thought that it can be improved. So i changed the order of the buildings (the first building "smiley" is now the last, put above it the atlas neon cartel and added the mini animation in there using the sprites of the stage 2b but in "mini" form.

I can give you the sprites if you want to add it to the route in the base "sor x sor 3 route" when i finish it.
I still need to improve the window and i still have to do the "lights down" effect, plus the "pink lights" have a little delay at the start i dont know why, but i think its looking cool.

 

[Kratus]

Pancake and Gens have the same brightness in the spriterips by default, so no problem there. I think its something to simulate the extra brightness from old TVs, but the real colors of a MegaDrive are a little darker.

I've attached an example from my SOR4 mod. You can see it more clear with whites. Look at Big Ben. Right one is clearly mnore darker. That's the real color of the game.

Don't bother with this, because if all your sprite/bgs rips have the standard pancake/gens brightness is just too much work to fix it, barely noticeable, so don't bother.

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand better the difference.

Hello.

I made a "mini" animation so, we can see the inside of Atlas in the last part of Sor 3 route stage 2A.

Before, you went to the bottom to enter atlas , but i thought that it can be improved. So i changed the order of the buildings (the first building "smiley" is now the last, put above it the atlas neon cartel and added the mini animation in there using the sprites of the stage 2b but in "mini" form.

I can give you the sprites if you want to add it to the route in the base "sor x sor 3 route" when i finish it.
I still need to improve the window and i still have to do the "lights down" effect, plus the "pink lights" have a little delay at the start i dont know why, but i think its looking cool.

Cool, I never imagined the disco had a name.

About the entrance on the screen, in the original game I thought it was not possible to see that because it was underground, due to the stairs at the very beginning. I always imagined that the disco is in some place below the lower screen edge.

The "route change" was removed in this part due to the same new option in the extra menu. Now you can switch between sor1/2/3 at the "complete screen".

However, the logo you created is very cool. Maybe we could use it for decoration above some kind of entrance with a "closed" door at the end of the level, similar as you did. What do you think about it?

 

[pepodmc]

Thanks for the explanation, now I understand better the difference.


Cool, I never imagined the disco had a name.

About the entrance on the screen, in the original game I thought it was not possible to see that because it was underground, due to the stairs at the very beginning. I always imagined that the disco is in some place below the lower screen edge.

The "route change" was removed in this part due to the same new option in the extra menu. Now you can switch between sor1/2/3 at the "complete screen".

However, the logo you created is very cool. Maybe we could use it for decoration above some kind of entrance with a "closed" door at the end of the level, similar as you did. What do you think about it?

Yeah, it can be that the disco is underground (ingame is not stated that is underground) but i think that asuming that not is better, because you can add an animation from the street to see the disco from the outside so the stage has more "life", but its subjective, take this as brainstorming, if you consider keep it as an underground place its ok.

Compared to the "sor 2 route stage 1a" (more taking in consideration the version i did using sorr sprites) , the streets of "sor 3 route stage 2a" is very lifeless, so any excuse to put more animation here and there its good for me (will put animations inside each building as well)

The cartel is a Sorr sprite XD, i only did the mini disco sprites ( i adapted the sprites of stage 2b and make them smaller to fit in that little place).


PD: Do you plan to remove all alternative paths of the stages?

I mean, even with the "route change" option, you can keep the route change inside stage areas too, at least the ones already in sor x.

 

[O Ilusionista]

Hey buddy your game was featured on Top Hat Gaming channel

 

[Kratus]

Yeah, it can be that the disco is underground (ingame is not stated that is underground) but i think that asuming that not is better, because you can add an animation from the street to see the disco from the outside so the stage has more "life", but its subjective, take this as brainstorming, if you consider keep it as an underground place its ok.

Compared to the "sor 2 route stage 1a" (more taking in consideration the version i did using sorr sprites) , the streets of "sor 3 route stage 2a" is very lifeless, so any excuse to put more animation here and there its good for me (will put animations inside each building as well)

The cartel is a Sorr sprite XD, i only did the mini disco sprites ( i adapted the sprites of stage 2b and make them smaller to fit in that little place).


PD: Do you plan to remove all alternative paths of the stages?

I mean, even with the "route change" option, you can keep the route change inside stage areas too, at least the ones already in sor x.

Yeah, I forgot that the cartel is in sorr, but you did some good changes.

About the alternative paths, I maintained the ones for Tracker and Ringmaster stages, because it will change only the level but not the route.

I will save this feature for future new levels from Master System/Game Gear, plus I got all necessary sprites to create the Streets of Kamurocho port too, thanks to the "ninjaripper".

Hey buddy your game was featured on Top Hat Gaming channel

Thanks buddy! I'm very honored to see my game there, this guy did a great job with the video.

 

[dmolina007]

I can make backward kick sprites for the motorbike levels if you want.

 

[Uche]

I'll have to download this just to compare it with Streets of Rage Remake.

 

[pepodmc]

I'll have to download this just to compare it with Streets of Rage Remake.

Take in consideration that this game is still in development, if kratus doesnt change his plan, this game still has 2 or 3 years more of development, perhaps more

 

[maxman]

Awesome work Kratus!

Congrats on your game in Top Hat Gaming's video.