In Progress Sonic Super Jam - Sonic ZX 1.0

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

"Oh no, DJGF is making another Sonic Mod!" 
Blame Sega for not making a new Sonic game with a lasting impression, I don't want to keep playing remakes of the classics over and over again.  :'(

Sorry, anyway, I was having a conversation with some guys about an alternative to Sonic's gameplay, and I was like "how about an arcade style, fast paced, MMO style game"? So I grabbed that old Sonic defense demo I made a few years back to make a tech demo, this isn't something I plan to make a full mod of and if I do, it would be short. Now if you're a Sonic fan and pay attention to the Sonic fandom, you may have noticed a tech demo that came out some time ago, Sonic Utopia, a classic style 3D game.

From what I can tell it's just a wide map but there's suppose to be an end to it somewhere, I never watch this for that long because I get bored watching it. Imagine if that tech demo was like a Sonic MMORPG(FYI: the infamous Sonic 2006 was going to have an online feature), tell you to go to a certain point on the map to complete a mission. It being a Sonic game you would go there in the usual Sonic style, speeding, rolling, dodging traps, as you would in any other Sonic game, this is the arcade style gaming I mentioned before compared to the more PC style slow and methodical gameplay. Me and my friends talk about this kind of stuff a lot, we have like terms and stuff now.

So there's the idea, here's what I got so far:
When you start this stage, you're told to go to a waypoint. You're not told where it is but there's no need to atm, the panel is pretty straight forward.



When you get close to the waypoint, random enemy spawners are spawned in an attack animation I gave the waypoint with set ranges, it works like the points I made from Sonic Revolution's map. After 10 seconds the, the waypoint spawns the entities that kill the spawners, then spawn a certain enemy you have to kill to complete the mission, it's given more HP then the other enemies so you should have most of them beaten before that.


Once the specific enemy is killed, I plan to make it spawn a new message in it's death animation. You're gonna be told to find one of Robotnik's Robot Generators and destroy it. Again, it's straight forward, not hard to find, though it particularly blends in this shot, I actually ran past it and turned back cause I knew I went to far then what I set it to, it's only suppose spawn a short distance outside the screen, 500x away from the enemy you kill



This is all I have atm. The idea is to make some action based and replayable, think Super Smash Bros but if the events and other modes were used for arcade mode. Once you do a few missions, I plan for there to be an actual boss, then it's off to the next stage. There will be more when I work on it, but I need help with something right now, I need a script or @cmd to make an entity spawn something at the exact coords I set.

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[Miru]

Maybe these MMO-ish ideas can be used for Beast Mode? I have a name for this mod: Mobius Unlimited. Even have free-flowing environments between each level based on locale, such as going through all the Little Planet levels, across Angel Island, etc.  Perhaps even feature a shop system? And again, I am curious about spawning at an exact location, but I think “bind” and “spawnframe” might be part of it. The commands “summonframe” and “unsummonframe” might be good too.

Speaking of Sonic Defense, I like the idea of being able to play as either a Hero or Dark faction campaign, leading your forces to victory.

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Got enough done to record a video. Sorry for the low quality, my frame rate was bad when the window was larger. I'll try other settings in the future. I'm looking for feedback if anyone wants to give any.

Maybe these MMO-ish ideas can be used for Beast Mode? I have a name for this mod: Mobius Unlimited. Even have free-flowing environments between each level based on locale, such as going through all the Little Planet levels, across Angel Island, etc.  Perhaps even feature a shop system? And again, I am curious about spawning at an exact location, but I think “bind” and “spawnframe” might be part of it. The commands “summonframe” and “unsummonframe” might be good too.

Speaking of Sonic Defense, I like the idea of being able to play as either a Hero or Dark faction campaign, leading your forces to victory.

I always planned for Beast mode to be closer to River City Ransom in that aspect, so there's that. I like the name you came up with, I'd even use it but it would create too much expectation, and I'd be let down for a game to be called "Mobius Unlimited" with it's implications, only to find out it's just a tech demo that might not be completed. Already got help with spawning, and I been using entities with type panel to summon those flying badniks in the background of City Invasion in Sonic Revolution so that had already been solved.

The faction idea sounds cool. It could even happen one day. I have far too much on my plate, or rather I have too many plates, if you get what I mean.

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[Miru]

I think the dialogue in the game needs to be a little more urgent. Instead of “Destroy a group of Swat Bots in the area”, it could be “A squadron of Swat Bots has been sent to the waypoint! Destroy them all!”

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

I had thought about that, just figured I get something done to show for now. That could be changed before the demo release.

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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Thanks nsw. It could be me as well, I was never too keen on perspectives and stuff so I'm not thinking about it when I do this stuff. I made another variant of the panel just in case, with higher contrast but lower brightness like I did when I first got this critique before, it could've been you or someone else. I also added a sprite so you can see how it looks with it. If it still feels like it mashes to much, I'll try using a totally different panel. This could be because I'm using tiles from Sonic games which are always on the side and meant to be walls, but I didn't want to use a regular street either.

EDIT:
I looked for a video of Sonic Battle, the 2D game where these brightly colored sprites were up against the panel. The colors here are more bright the ones I used outside of the gold part though, but I notice the colors in some stage for this game look more faded. If this is beyond me needing more or less contrast and brightness, hopefully this video can be used as a basis. Also, it may help if you skip to 2:21 or 12:30.

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[Miru]

Speaking of floors, I think more diversity of floors could work to keep track of where the player is right now. And in case "Unlimited" sounds too weighty, I think maybe "Mobius Quest" would be a nice name for the game.

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Speaking of floors, I think more diversity of floors could work to keep track of where the player is right now.

That's why I made that panel like that, all 4 lanes match the white lines on the map I drew up, but I'll give it a shot regardless.

And in case "Unlimited" sounds too weighty, I think maybe "Mobius Quest" would be a nice name for the game.

Maybe, but either way I don't plan on making a full game of this, so I'm not worried about the name.

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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Thanks for showing me, I thought it was just about the colors, but I've never done an actual conversion like this before, nor do I have photoshop. Maybe Gimp if I reinstall it. Sounds like this problem will persist regardless of what panel I use so I don't know.

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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Ok, I don't have photoshop but I found out Gimp had the same tool, so I used it on this stage with the original panel. I took shots at the left, middle, and right side of the stage so you can tell, this stage is 5500+ pixels in width.

EDIT: If the enemies are still blending into the panel, I'll just give them higher contrast, been needing to do so anyway.

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[Bloodbane]

That's interesting mission modes you have DJ

I'm looking for feedback if anyone wants to give any.

Hmmm... instead of having arrow pointing where to stand on to start next mission, why not have it like this: say for 1st mission,  spawn some badniks to right of screen and show arrow pointing right. When player goes to the right, he/she should see the badniks right away and won't need to get to an arrow

For 2nd mission, I see that you have placed generators right away but to make it better, show the image of the generator on mission's message to tell player how they look like

3rd mission should have similar setup like 1st mission.

For 4th mission, show the image of GUN drone on mission's message and show arrow pointing left to tell player where the drone would be. Instead of arrow, just have drone waiting on standy and let it move when player gets close. Last but not least, show drone's lifebar

More suggestions: 1st and 3rd mission would be much better to set up if area to start the mission is unique, for instance, 1st mission is held on area with red floor while 3rd is on area with green floor

BTW about escort drone mission, what will happen if drone is destroyed?

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

good job its looking better, can still do more tweaks to increase perspective of size s things get closer to screen and maybe change brightness etc as things get closer and further away. But its already looking less of a strain to eyes to look at.

I don't know if I'm capable of all that. Changing up the X perspective is one thing but I don't know if Gimp can do the Y perspective that way, or if it would even look right when it's scrolling straight up and down, plus enemies farther from the screen will still be the same size, not matching the perspective of the ground.

That's interesting mission modes you have DJ

Thanks. 

Hmmm... instead of having arrow pointing where to stand on to start next mission, why not have it like this: say for 1st mission,  spawn some badniks to right of screen and show arrow pointing right. When player goes to the right, he/she should see the badniks right away and won't need to get to an arrow

I suppose that's not a bad idea, but I think after that it would be a matter of how to trigger the badniks when you get to a certain position right then a specific spot.

For 2nd mission, I see that you have placed generators right away but to make it better, show the image of the generator on mission's message to tell player how they look like

I actually thought about that before. Good call.

3rd mission should have similar setup like 1st mission.

Noted.

For 4th mission, show the image of GUN drone on mission's message and show arrow pointing left to tell player where the drone would be. Instead of arrow, just have drone waiting on standy and let it move when player gets close. Last but not least, show drone's lifebar

That seems doable, but can an NPC's life bar be shown like enemy bosses? If not, I'll need a script, which I'd help on.

More suggestions: 1st and 3rd mission would be much better to set up if area to start the mission is unique, for instance, 1st mission is held on area with red floor while 3rd is on area with green floor

How about changing the floor pattern altogether? If you check below you'll find a sample shot.

BTW about escort drone mission, what will happen if drone is destroyed?

You'll be given a message telling you that you failed, then you'll be given the message to do the mission again. Like most open world games, failing a mission doesn't trigger a game over, you're just told to try again.

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[Miru]

NPC lifebars can indeed be shown, using “lifebarstatus”, the same command one would do for bosses.

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Hey guys, been going around and working on different things for a while in order to try and keep myself busy, so it took my a while to get back to this after the last post. Here's me improvements to the missions texts that needed it, along with mission 7, and I'm looking for critique on the panel. I used the other design I made before to created patches in the panel, and I can try to come up with another if it's recommended. Also, the perspective tool worked better on it then last time so it did shrink down a little at the top.

EDIT: I plan to spruce up the dialogue for the mission texts after I get the groundwork done, then all that would be left to do is update the other characters.

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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Aight nsw, I gave it a shot, check it out below.

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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

After some tests and many changes, I'm about done with what I've got so far. I planned on adding a little more to this but I got plans I wanna get to, so I'm gonna drop what I have now very soon for people to play. Here's a video with every mission I made.

I changed increased the range on waypoints so you don't have to get near them, their range 300x and 400z so you just have to be halfway within the screen where they're present. This excludes the last two missions givin' their circumstances.

Every character is much faster now. The fastest characters, Sonic and Shadow, both have a walking speed of 25 and running speed of 60, with the others not too far from that.


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[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Ok, got the download up for anyone who wants to try Sonic Open World Style.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/p2n7afyzpndldyt/SonicOWS.zip/file

I tried adding this to the download section but it kept saying there was an error, that I had to add a download title, even though I clearly did.

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[Bloodbane]

Ah that looks better

If you can add landmarks to the field (either by editing or placing decorations), it would be easier to tell player destinations with the mini map

You have shown  Generator and Gundrone sprite in mission description so you should do the same to Pyrodrone and M

BTW M looks like sprite edit of a character from Streets of Rage 2 or 3

 

[DJGameFreakTheIguana]

Ah that looks better

If you can add landmarks to the field (either by editing or placing decorations), it would be easier to tell player destinations with the mini map

Yeah, I skipped out on that when it was said before, thing is this particular stage doesn't have too many decorations so I couldn't really think of anything. I'll try to remember to improvise when I com back to this.

You have shown  Generator and Gundrone sprite in mission description so you should do the same to Pyrodrone and M

Good point, was kinda leaving it as a surprise though but it wouldn't hurt.

BTW M looks like sprite edit of a character from Streets of Rage 2 or 3

You caught onto that huh?  Her overall design and some of her sprites are based on SOR3 Blaze and Mona/Lisa, and some other sprites are based on custom Mugen sprites of Rogue and Cyclops from Marvel vs Capcom  2. Her being pretty much a female Terminator fit with the moves.

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[Miru]

I can report a few oddities and bugs:

* The Pyrodrone spawns exactly on the mission mark, allowing players to quickly lock it in and defeat it in only a few seconds
* Sometimes I can clear the GUN Drone mission simply by standing close to it and walking into it when it begins its flight path.