Sonic in Troll Island [WIP]

Discussion in 'Showroom' started by matheusbrancobs, Oct 11, 2019.

  1. matheusbrancobs

    matheusbrancobs Newcomer Member

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    Hi, I would like to show a hack that I've been working on this last year:

    Sonic in Troll Island is a Sonic 1 hack, which main focus is to be a very fun and entertaining game for those who will play, with some pretty funny stuff at the levels and with a great soundtrack too!

    This hack is very focused on 3 things:
    musics (mostly), layouts, and troll things.

    Here is some images:
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    At the end of the game, Sonic must fight with Robotrollnik for some reason (I haven't thought of the story yet).

    Level art has not been modified for now.

    Everything that has changed since then:
    Layouts of all levels (not finished yet), pallets, musics, some sprites, some .asm files, texts

    Main programs used:
    SonLVL, SonED2, mid2smps, SonMapEd, Hex editor, Notepad.

    All SMPS conversions were done by me, and some songs I had to create the midi file (but I don't compose, they are remakes of existing songs)

    if anyone wants to listen some of these soundtracks, here is a playlist:
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYyCSxFIFSTrihdmz21EJpQC9nb6_ER2m

    I'm still finishing layouts and hack in general, and if everything goes right in the next weeks, I'm planning to release this hack on SHC2019.

    Also, this is my first romhack. So, constructive criticism / suggestions are very welcome!
     
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  2. Devon

    Devon Down you're going... down you're going... Member

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    Going by what you have released here so far, I have a couple pieces of criticism.
    • I think the palettes are generally too saturated, and doesn't really fit in with the naturally less saturated color design of Sonic 1, and overall just don't look very pleasing.
    • The soundtrack, while competently made, I feel is brought down by the (honestly, awful) stock MID2SMPS instruments and Sonic 1 drums.
    I'd like to know what you mean by "troll things". Is it meant to be "kaizo" in some kind of sense, or what?
     
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  3. Deactivated Account

    Deactivated Account Well-Known Member Exiled

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    I listen Renard vs Kitsune song and the S1DAC sounds very slowly, the FM instruments sounds very strong, man those palettes are very bad, think good when you want to upload your hack, this is for General Screenshot Movie Thread. The next time upload your hack there in case if you hasn't a rom ready for launch.
     
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  4. matheusbrancobs

    matheusbrancobs Newcomer Member

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    Thanks for the feedback

    About the pallets, some are really saturated.
    I will try to improve these, but I don't wanna
    a very smooth and natural pallet in this hack. I will try to find a balance
    between "very saturated" and "very smooth".

    About them not looking very pleasing, I haven't changed the level art yet
    so I didn't know exactly what pallet to put in some zones
    (mainly the aquatic zone), and I will change that

    About the soundtracks, I like the mid2smps instruments, I think this is more
    personal taste, but the S1DAC... maybe I'll change it to s3 futurely

    The "troll things" are things placed in levels that make you
    lose rings and die a few times. But nothing is too difficult
    like a Kaizo Sonic... it's actually very easy

    I also didn't like the S1DAC in this music too, but I still don't know how
    to change. This really wasn't one of my best remixes...
    I will try to improve the pallets later, and I will check this thread too.
     
  5. Deactivated Account

    Deactivated Account Well-Known Member Exiled

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    You can change your driver with Sonic 2 Clone Driver, DualPCM, MegaPCM, there are tutorials for change the driver and put new samples. I can help you with the palettes if you want.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2019
  6. matheusbrancobs

    matheusbrancobs Newcomer Member

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    I accept your help!

    But only these pictures above it's not enought to see so much,
    in this video below you can see more things about the pallets
    and hack in general:



    I don't know exactly how to optimize them, so if you can help me, I thank you!
     
  7. Deactivated Account

    Deactivated Account Well-Known Member Exiled

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    What thing, optimize palletes? You can use HivePal for make good palletes, I don't recommend SonLVL and SonED2 for make palletes.
     
  8. Devon

    Devon Down you're going... down you're going... Member

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    @matheusbrancobs My main advice in this instance is to desaturate/lower the intensity of the colors a bit. What I do to do that is mix a little bit of grey into the colors, not too much where it turns grey, but enough to be less intense on the eyes, and tweak it some to make them look nice.

    Why not? How does the program influence how well a palette turns out?
     
  9. EMK-20218

    EMK-20218 The Fuss Maker Exiled

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    Then I'm fucked up with my hack because I only use SonLVL to edit my palettes. lol...

    Man, Hivepal is a very useful and handy tool and it's true, but it will never be better than editing the palettes and seeing them being changed in the levels in real time. I'm sorry, but I can't agree with this you said. Especially because you didn't even mentioned the reason of which makes you to prefer editing palettes in Hivepal rather than in the level editors.

    @matheusbrancobs About the hack itself...hm... I don't find very attractive changes in this hack in what refers to the department I'm specialized... Music. The palettes says for themselves, but what bothers me most is the hack's name. For some reason, this name makes me remember the bizarre joke hacks that were made between 2014 and 2016. Those names also said by themselves, resulting in products without any good potential or without any quality in most possible terms, without even attending to the purpose the name suggests. OK, a name is just a name. But if I was you, I would go into something that could attend the hack's purpose in a way it doesn't make the hack looks like just one more between the various discontinued crappy stuff we seen becoming lost somewhere in a black hole of the community accross the years. Focus in quality rather than quantity. Focus in one zone and do it to be stable enough to be fully playable without major problems. Don't focus in joke hacks because we already experienced how poor they are in any possible point of view, so don't take me bad and be careful.
     
  10. Deactivated Account

    Deactivated Account Well-Known Member Exiled

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    HivePal for me is much better than those editors, I only I did a suggest, but okay, if he want to use SonLVL and SonED2 is welcome.
    I'm not being rude or something like that, I think than not all working with SonLVL or SonED2, I guess, but not in my case, but if someone works with those editors are welcome.
    @Novedicus I started with SonED2 also, all uses SonLVL and SonED2, I'm not the only guy that used that editor, but I'm get accustomed to use HivePal.
     
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  11. Devon

    Devon Down you're going... down you're going... Member

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    But, you did not give a proper reason to why you prefer HivePal over the other tools, and thus why this guy should also use it, besides that you've grown accustomed to it.

    When recommending a tool, you should explain why it should be used, especially when it's compared to other tools.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2019
  12. matheusbrancobs

    matheusbrancobs Newcomer Member

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    Thanks for the tip. I will mix some gray colors in the palletes to see if it looks better, and try to make it smoother.

    About the hack name, this is not to be a "joke" or a low quality hack. I'm really trying to do something interesting and with a lot of entertainment. I don't want it to be another generic hack and that will fall into oblivion.

    It's still too incomplete to see it, but I intend to add various interesting things
    during the levels ... and yes, I agree with you:
    Quality is much more important than quantity.

    I will try to optimize more this hack in the next weeks and see if it will get good results...
    thanks for the tips!
     
  13. Deactivated Account

    Deactivated Account Well-Known Member Exiled

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    Right, the reason for me is because, I can edit the palletes more easy, of course I see the .sep file for see the colours of the palletes in SonED2, but with this tool is more flexible and more useful. SonED2 for me is a bit confuse, equal to SonLVL, but I never said that those two programs are bad, to opposite, if someone wanna use thoses tools are welcome.
     
  14. TheInvisibleSun

    TheInvisibleSun Visible Member

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    I always used SonLVL for palette editing, until a friend of mine sent me a private build of his editor years ago. His includes different shading and blending effects, and allows for editing multiple palettes at once. It also included a screenshot uploader feature as well (but I believe that was incomplete at the time) I don't know if he ever released it in any form here or on Retro.
     
  15. matheusbrancobs

    matheusbrancobs Newcomer Member

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    *UPDATE*

    Some palettes have been smoothed, some sprites changed, some texts edited and some soundtracks modified.

    I'm still making more adjustments, and if everything goes right in the next days, I will release a beta version of this hack at SHC Expo.

    soon!
     
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