Sonic G6 Version 2 Release

Now some of you may remember Sonic G6 lite but now it has returned with a big update with some improvements such as better level layouts and better pallets. there has also been quite a bit of asm code editing during the development of this hack 
 
Changes: (Can be found a readme.txt file included with the download)

• Zone text has been put back
• glitches such as messed up graphics fixed
• more then one special stage
• changed music
• better Pallets and level layouts
• speed cap removed and spin dash added
• added more stages
• changed level selectdebug code
• higher "say-ga" sound

More information is stored in a readme.txt file included with download
 
Release Trailer:
http://youtu.be/ZMZL4a_AOuE
 
 

link deleted. check my final post in this thread for updated media fire link
 

Please note that the bin file is in a zip folder so you will have to extract it. if this download does not work then use the alternate download 
 

Link Deleted
 
like i always say please share your opinions on this hack. if you have any suggestions for the next version of Sonic G6 please let me know

 

Here we are again, you releasing a hack, and me giving my opinion. Initially I was going to just link this to a Ninja Sex Party Song, but I will reserve that for last, let's discuss this hack.

Alright, just specifically your hack....

- You must really not understand the whole concept of challenge. In GHZ 1 alone, I got hit multiple times by either badly placed enemies, horrendous spike placement, or both at the same time. Please, play test your hack. Most of these issues would be ironed out if you'd spend more time on your hack by play testing. Whatever, let me discuss just level design.

     1. Problem Spot One: There is some points where you have like 3 or 4 Buzz Bombers all come and converge at a central location, which is where one 10 Ring Box is located. Quite annoying that I only have a few pixel spaces to avoid them. Don't cite that there are shit ton of rings nearby as a reason to justify that design choice. That is stupid and quite horrible design.

     2. Problem Spot Two: At some point at the top path, if you miss the jump, or fall, or whatever(I was quite irritated by the first thing to react as quickly), you are punished by falling to the bottom path. That is good level design. Want to know the issue, it has a giant spike pit with a few floating platforms. Ok, what the actual fuck? It's bad enough that I fell, but now you add a spike pit, why? That is a huge cuntish move, and not to mention you didn't even bother to remove the spike recoil( I don't call it spike bug as it isn't a bug, it's a feature!), which means auto death if I didn't fall close enough to the floating platforms, which btw, are a bit too far. And to even go further, at the beginning of the spike pit, you put a collapsing floor right over the spike pit. Why? Being a dick doesn't make your levels harder, and makes the players annoyed. This is something you are still not understanding, and it's been a year since you last released this, and you still haven't learned. Moving on.

     3. Problem Spot Three: Rings everywhere. Why? Putting rings EVERYWHERE is not some kind of good design choice, especially if you make it stupidly easy to lose them, see above. Rings are not only protection, but rewards for the player. Just plastering them everywhere is just stupid. In what Sonic game did you see Sonic Team just ejaculate rings all over the fucking map? None, and neither should you. I mean, it's much better than the last time you did this, where rings covered almost every square pixel of the map that wasn't level chunks. Jesus Christ man, you need to learn to control yourself. Put rings down, but put them down in places where it would make sense. Same for ring boxes, holy fuck. I counted at least 5 within the first 15 seconds of the level. These two things need to be placed reasonably, and in the case of the latter, sparingly spread out throughout the level. Rings need to be placed in smaller groups, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air. Put no more than three on slopes, 6 or 7 in loops, straight away areas need no more than *5, random in the air should be three, same for bridges. That is a pretty good set of rules on ring placement. Fix this please.

* If the area is one of those difficult and really secret areas, then more can be applied, as that is a reward for the player to explore and locate them.

Now, the sad thing is that this was just about Act 1 of GHZ. I didn't even bother playing the rest of the hack, because if this is what I'm welcomed to, you might as well put a sign in the level that says "You can kindly fuck off now." This hack is still a horrible mess, a whole lot better than last time, but definitely still a mess. Here's some other points I'd like to discuss.

Music: Oh God. Your high pitched SEGA chant didn't impress me in the slightest. I tuned it out. Broken port of the S3K theme song, Splash Hill Zone. 

Actually, let's talk about that. Why did you put a rather upbeat tune in a night time level? Night Hill Zone with Splash Hill Zone's music makes no sense. Kinda ruins the atmosphere, don't you think? 

Moving on, two things. Your GHZ palette didn't make my eyes bleed. It looked nice, though I've seen palettes similar, it was nice that I didn't want to turn off the hack the second I started playing the first level, can't say the same about your Title Screen though....

Second, your chunk layout didn't look like a random jumble and looked they could fit together, mostly. A few times where you revert back to your old style, but otherwise, nice job.

Also, Sonic's speed is a bit too much, kinda makes controlling Sonic difficult, especially when you decide to be a dick about level layouts.

Now, enough about the hack, let's talk about everything else you've done to promote your hack. One question comes to mind......why? Your video has a long intro sequence, 15 seconds, and it tells me who made the hack...twice. Why? Do you need me to be impressed? Come now, that is just silly.

Secondly, why all the fan art and potential box covers for this hack? It's great you are excited about your hack and all, but it seems like you're jacking off to a picture...of yourself and getting off on it. Most people don't do this. People who've made "critically acclaimed" don't do it, so why should you? If you put as much work in actually making your hack great as you do promoting it, it wouldn't even need promotion, people would play it on merit alone, but it seems even a year later you still haven't learned that. Maybe next time.

In summary, this Ninja Sex Party song should suffice to explain my sentiments.



edit: Grammar

 

to superegg and to everyone else who agrees with superegg. 3 things.

1. the level layouts although not very good at some points have had a lot of work it may not look like it but they have had a lot of time spent on them
2. the reason why the "splash hill zone" music plays in the green hill zone with a night time feel is because i couldn't decide what music to use and plus half of the music i wanted to use the sonic 1 sound driver had trouble processing the DAC channels which was leaving me with no choice but to disable the DAC channels but because i didn't want to do that. the music that sonic 1 sound driver had trouble processing the DAC channels on had to be removed
3. about the promotion. although it may have looked like I put a lot time in it but actually i didn't spend a lot time on the promotionartwork in fact i wasn't even trying to make the artworkpromotion look good i was trying to make the hack its self look good. 

Editi forgot to put this) But any way superegg thanks for sharing your opinions on this hack and giving out suggestions. i will try my best to take advantage of them 

 

I was going to quote parts of SuperEgg's post, but I've decided that I want to leave my own feedback.

• The palette for the title screen and Green Hill Zone doesn't work. The shading is broken, there's way too much dark blue and it contrasts way too much against the grass and trees (which use the original green shades, by the way).
• The changes in Sonic's speed/acceleration do not work. Sonic feels more like Mario with the way he ascends to full speed.
• There are way too many rings all over the place. One loop had 16 and they weren't even placed in a pattern or anything.
• The first special stage I went into has many issues. Too many blocks causing the graphics to tear, the breakable blocks over goal blocks in a tunnel, almost seizure flashing on some blocks in a sequence, etc.
• Being blind-sided by dick-ish enemy placement isn't fun. This happens a lot and it's annoying.
• There is no use of object 44 (Green Hill Zone solid wall object) which could help fix some of the level issues in regards to collision. You've even used object 71 (invisible solid object) in places where object 44 would be more appropriate.
• The end of Green Hill Zone Act 2 is a mess; the art glitches out and the placement of objects to fix the area isn't done very well.
• The spin dash isn't ported properly and Sonic floats above the ground. The death pit behind you at the start of Act 3, that I rolled into from a spin dash, is questionable.
• The background in Act 3 is then broken due to Sonic's starting position being changed too drastically.
• The boss is OK but due to the placement of the platforms, the graphics pop in and out due to too many in the same place.
• In a stark contrast to the last Zone, Marble Zone feels empty with minimal badniks and a lack of fireballs.
• Block placement looks as if it was dragged and placed, as opposed to using the snap to grid feature. It looks sloppy as a result.
• Way too much of the original Marble Zone exists to make it feel as if it's a new Act.

I got to the end of Marble Zone 1 and stopped playing. I had no interest in continuing. I'm sorry, but most of the issues I encountered could be easily fixed and I felt that this was another person attempting to release something rather than focus on the quality of the product. I apologise for being somewhat rude, but I'd rather tell you how it is than sugar-coat it.

 

thanks D.A Garden for listing all the stuff you found that are wrong with this hack. i will take this as an advantage to improve my work on this hack along with what super egg found wrong with the hack. 

 

"Night Hill Zone with Splash Hill Zone's music makes no sense."

I have a theory as to why Splash Hill act 1's bgm was used, SuperEgg, and that's a night club atmosphere; I could be wrong but it's just a guess.

Anyway to give a summerised analysis, as Josh watched and commentated as I play tested the entire hack a couple of days ago, overall the hack is an improvement over the previous version, however I too have a couple of things I want to point out:

1. Blind drops leading to pits and/or spikes... these were a major annoyance, especially the red spring + platform section in Spring Yard zone; the thing I found causing this most was the removed speed cap giving me a false sense of safe ground when Sonic just ended up falling to his death perpetually.

2. As you saw during my playthrough, particulary in Star Light, the collision detection of walls/floors needed more attention to ensure that they are definately solid objects.

3. Although we probably shouldn't have been laughing at the time, especially as it would put other players off the hack straight away, the special stage where Sonic kept spinning really needs fixing; although, as I've not played the "updated version 2" you now provided the download link to, I have a feeling that you have already fixed it.

 

I want the time I spent playing this back. How can I claim for that?

 

There's something that really annoys me about this hack, aside from the dick moves, or the shitty balance.

It just feels like you didn't care. Badly misaligned objects, really basic palette errors, and so on and so forth. Just really basic stuff that would take very little effort to fix, just so obvious from even the most rudimentary of playthroughs, but you didn't care enough to fix them up.

If you don't care about your own hack, why would you expect anyone else to?

 

I hate to fight about things like this. but there is an explanation for palette errors and misalignments.

first off the explanation for palette errors:

When im editing the palettes i tend to get a little carried away or just trying work which part of the palette effects what part of stage or object and sometimes this can cause palette errors that i forget what i changed in the palette to cause that to happen or when i attempt to fix it effects another part of stage or object. thats why in my hacks you will most likely see little errors like that. in my opinion as long as it not major it doesn't really do any harm to the hack or doesn't do any major "bad" look effect to the hack. fair enough it may not look polished. 

explanation for misaligned objects:

Now this can be really annoying in my opinion but i can fix it if I put more attention into it and it doesn't really help that some objects for some levels appear as question marks in the level editor i use. but i guess there's nothing you can do about that. 

Things like dick moves i can easily locate in the level editor and remove them. 

 

Usually, I'd forgive bad hackers because their generally quite new. However, seeing as you've apparently been at it for a while, and the above post kicked my OCD into overdrive, I've decided to help guide your technique a little...

Do not focus on singular aspects of the level when editing palettes. When I edit palettes, I glance at the level, then edit based on the palettes alone (for example, to make GHZ more bluish, I'd simply lower the red and green values of the existing palettes, instead of overwriting them. This usually results in smoother, nicer looking palettes (provided the colors mix and you don't resort to acid green and eyeburn red)

If your not using sonlvl, use sonlvl. It's constantly being updated and has very easy to edit object definitions; I've replaced several question marks with the appropriate object art. Also, as other people mentioned, it has a grid feature, which definately helps (I personally zoom all the way in and manually adjust until it's pixel perfect, but I'm just OCD like that).

This last post fucking pissed me off. A lot. It's the most untrue statement I can think of. For starters, if this was so easy, why is your hack clogged with dick moves? I struggle with it to this day, and all I can do to attempt to fix it is playtesting to death (which you should also do; my hack would probably look just like yours if I never played it)

 

 I hate to fight about things like this. but there is an explanation for palette errors and misalignments.

first off the explanation for palette errors:

When im editing the palettes i tend to get a little carried away or just trying work which part of the palette effects what part of stage or object and sometimes this can cause palette errors that i forget what i changed in the palette to cause that to happen or when i attempt to fix it effects another part of stage or object. thats why in my hacks you will most likely see little errors like that. in my opinion as long as it not major it doesn't really do any harm to the hack or doesn't do any major "bad" look effect to the hack. fair enough it may not look polished. 

explanation for misaligned objects:

Now this can be really annoying in my opinion but i can fix it if I put more attention into it and it doesn't really help that some objects for some levels appear as question marks in the level editor i use. but i guess there's nothing you can do about that. 

Things like dick moves i can easily locate in the level editor and remove them.

First off, judging by your UK flag, I'm gonna assume English is your first language and request that you please use proper punctuation when posting. Not doing so makes me not want to read your posts.

Second, a palette error is not a 'little' error, especially when it is blatantly off from the title screen. It is a visual problem that directly affects the player's gameplay experience. As a person working on something as time consuming as a ROM hack, you should have enough pride in what you're doing to not just accept things like that.

Personally, I ran into the same problem with a few 'question mark' objects in SonLVL; to fix the issue I just play-tested the crap out of the layout, fixing it until I felt it was perfect (and people still pointed out a few issues!). I don't know how long it takes you to do your layouts, but if you feel that what you release to the public can just be 'good enough', you should raise your standard and put yourself in the shoes of someone who is taking the time to play your hack. Do you enjoy playing your own work?

Also, if you can easily locate and remove dick moves, then that should have been done before you released it while in the testing phase. If you don't really notice them, then you could ask someone else who doesn't play like you to test it out.

 

This last post fucking pissed me off. A lot. It's the most untrue statement I can think of. For starters, if this was so easy, why is your hack clogged with dick moves? 




Because when the development progress of this hack got to about 97% (which is when i started working onplay testing the special stages) i started rushing abit and i didn't get round to moving the dick moves. what i did manage to do is fix a level order bug that was found when i was watching someone else play it through skype. 

also when i was doing play tests i was avoiding the disk moves. yes i can clearly see them and i will release a patch update to fix it. 

 

You can't just shoot in the dark. Plan a level, make it. Shooting in the dark leads to...this. 97%? Do one act and one zone at a time. Perfect it. Make it fun. Give it variety.

 

Your telling me you completed over 90% of the hack before you even fucking playtested it!??! For the love of god! WHY? Don't do that! Playtest levels as you make them, not as an afterthought! I couldn't live with myself if I didn't playtest every tiny thing I implemented imediately after adding it, and that habit has resulted in my levels being much more fun to play then they would be, otherwise.

 

It's also the only reason that S2: TRoC, as I entered it in the SHC of '14, was ever remotely enjoyable. Half of the production time I spent on it was constant playtesting. The levels, while not very well-variated, were possible to pass, and the characters weren't broken to hell and back.

So yeah, I side with Pac here. PLAYTEST. CONSTANTLY. Every time you make a change, playtest. It's important, trust me.

edit: bad me for quoting the above post

 

Your telling me you completed over 90% of the hack before you even fucking playtested it!??! .



no thats wrong i play tested it after every change i made. but when it got over 90% of progress i sped up with play testing and making test play throughs. 

edit: thats also when i started playtesting special stages. as i didn't start working on them until after 90% of progress

 

I checked out your special stages and I encountered a fatal game-breaking problem with the UP/DOWN blocks: The more I touch the UP block, the maze spins even faster, so fast to a point that it's impossible to complete the stage, Chaos Emerald or not--this was evident in Stages 3 and 5. The layouts could use a ton of improvement since there are places I can get trapped due to poorly placed bumpers.

Other observations:

- Stage 2 has no rings.

- Rings are worth 300 points although they count as 1. A 5400 ring bonus does not mean I collected 54 rings, I actually collected 18 rings and did not earn a Continue. Seems inaccurate to me, but maybe that was your intention.

I understand this may be your first time working with Sonic 1, but I would suggest that you test your special stages for game-breaking flaws and look out for places where you can get trapped and be forced to reset the game. Other than that, you do have some hacking potential. :good: 

 

thanks for pointing out problems with the special stages. i'm currently working on an update for this hack which i will make optional for people. so yeah i will fix up the special stages as well 

 

I don't understand. Do you mean that you will be keeping the version of the hack you have now along with the update for people who would rather play an outdated version of the hack rather than the version with many of the problems fixed?

 

The biggest problem I think people have with this hack is not the raw quality of the hack but that you are making a lot of really bad excuses for your mistakes.  Rushing the last 10% of your progress is not an excuse, it shows laziness and the fact that you were so anxious to get your hack to the public that you put out a bad product.  If I were you. I would remove the version you have up right now until you are ready to release a quality hack that you have put plenty of time into, and with all of the complaints at least somewhat dealt with.  I haven't even played your hack and I can tell it is not something you should have distributed.