Sonic and Amy Fan Game Idea

Alright so I have always wanted to make a sonic fan game and about a year ago made a deviant art page where I started posting my sprite art for a fan game due to the fact that I could not code or use any kind of engine. I hoped to find other sonic fans that would help with the coding aspect while I made the art. I've been posting art quite a bit over the year and recently came up with a finalized idea for the fan game. Sonic and Amy because why not? So now that I have my idea and a bit of art to show off I thought I would share it here. Currently I'm only a trialist so I have limited access, but I hope that I could become a full member soon. Anyway here is some of my art (not all of it has to do with Sonic and Amy): 

                 

Well that's all I've got to say I guess. You can see all this and much more stuff that I felt didn't need to be posted at my deviantart here: http://cloud6625.deviantart.com/

 

You know, topics about ideas are usually discouraged, because most of the times they are nothing but a gigantic "do everything for me"; but in this case I see you actually posted some content, quite good art, too. My only objection is that you shouldn't write an entire post in bold for no reason, keep that in mind for your next 19 posts if you want to "become a full member soon".

 

Color me impressed. That is some fine art you got there. Damn fine art. The only thing is that generally, fan games are rarely taken well on this site, more or less became a lot of them are horrid. With that said though, you'd might be better off posting to SFGHQ or....you could easily instead stay here and have somebody plop your sprites into a hack, assuming their palette can be adapted to the limited palette line of whatever Sonic game.

 

(this is also for nineko if he sees it) Yeah thanks I peaked around the forums a while before making my post to see what this community has and I did notice that this sight was pretty much hacks, but I have been a fan of the Youtuber MegaGwolf for around 2 years now and was bored one day and was just watching a big stream of videos when I finally payed attention to the SSRG logo and came here. Also a few months ago before I had my finalized Sonic and Amy idea I tried getting accepted to the Sonic Retro Forums, but nothing ever happened... I've never been or really heard of SFGHQ, but I'd like to check it out now. Finally the main problem I have with hacks are you can often bee limited due to the limitations of the genesis so I don't feel I could make my full vision with a hack (though there are some amazing stuff I've seen people do with hacks.) Well sorry for the rather long reply. From now on I will try and keep my posts much shorter so it doesn't seem like rambling or spam.

 

Personally, I think your post is fine. As long as you say something in the poat, it can be as long as a novel for all we care. But try not to talk about your experience in other forums. This is a fresh start man. Don't bring your past into this Also, try not to quote posts above you. On to what you presented, this is some very good art man. Keep it up.

 

everything looks great, keep it!

 

There is certainly room for people who make good art on this site. I would imagine people would love for you to help with zone artwork, object sprites such as characters or badniks or perhaps menu's or even just fonts. I know I would be very much interested!

However like someone said, I would recommend you getting familiar with the 512 colour palette of the genesis and 320*224 resolution in 8*8 pixel tile system the Genesis offers if you want to help people from this site out as I think few are working on fan engines rather than any of the Sonic games on Genesis. Also I wouldn't bet anyone to take your ideas to heart and create the game you want. It's a group process and while you should have a definite say in the design, don't expect someone to just code a game for you. Though if you want to take it up yourself I'm sure you can get lots of help by showing real effort in learning and helping others with your strong suits, namely art (like others do with music for example).

 

Thanks everyone. I'm really happy about all the positive feedback I've been getting. When I was making the post I honestly wasn't sure what people would think. I know everything here is pretty much hacks which limits things like palette. I would still very much like to make it a fan game. I am now trying to learn stuff with Game Maker which I'll admit isn't really the best tool, but I feel if I can get good with Game Maker I can move onto Multimedia Fusion 2 and using the Sonic Worlds Engine. In the meantime I will try and stay active here getting into the community and TimpZ suggested making sprite art for people and their hacks. I may take people up on that offer, but the main thing I really need right now is a kind of full chart or guide showing the genesis' limitations so I could try to adjust some things for hacks. Oh and I will not be giving away any of the art I make for my fan game as I would like it too stand out and most of the art will not be made with the genesis' limitations in mind so it may not work well with hacks. I will try and make new art based on what people would request... If I can find a good place I may post a topic about it somewhere, but as of now I really have no idea...

 

I don't know the actual colour values but you can find information on the palette here http://segaretro.org/Palette. Basically most 512 palettes can be converted to genesis more or less seamlessly and with some programming tricks you can squeeze out even more. If you use a program like SonMapEd you can open up an existing sprite and export a PNG with the correct colours. That program will also import PNG's into the closest matching colours and you can then customise the palette within the program if you're not happy with the result.

Another thing to keep in mind is the CRAM limitations. A 8*8 pixel tile can only use 16 colours (one of which is alpha) and a single sprite/object have the same limitations (I think?). This is important to keep in mind while designing levels and objects. In total the CRAM can keep 4 palettes in memory at a single time giving you 16*4 total colours to use but any sprite or tile can use any of the palettes at one point. If you want to animate something you generally want to keep the number of total tiles in the sprite the same to minimize VRAM usage. If you want to animate using colours you can change one or more colours in the palette per frame, though you can't change what colour is alpha afaik.

There's also things like DPLC's to keep in mind. I'm not gonna explain the process but in a nutshell you only change the tiles needed, when needed. Sonic's character uses this a lot. Having duplicate tiles or just tiles with very few differences is very unoptimal, so if one sprite contains 10 tiles, and the next frame of animation only requires you to change 4 of those tiles, that's what you change. This is also how for example dancing flowers are animated. It's also useful because you don't need a 14-tile VRAM space since you only use a max of 10 at a time.

 

Actually, I was going to suggest that some of that animated grass could be handled by the same system that handles the flowers and what not. All in all, don't let limitations fool you. A lot of the stuff you want to create is possible, given the right programmer.


On that note, TimpZ has made a good point. Even if you were to find somebody to help you put your art in the hack/fangame and actualize your idea, you've got to remember, it is a team effort. Trust me when I say this, expecting to find somebody to make all your wishes come true and make something as per your request isn't going to come, or if it does, at a high price. When it comes to things like this, compromise is going to be key. At the same time though, a lot of what you're asking isn't that impossible. So it's all a matter of finding a willing team mate.


Lastly, I honestly think your art would much more fabulous in a hack. Though lots of fangame engines can give limitless possibilities, a lot of them play like shit, or just above decent. I'd rather not see great work like yours wasted in a place where good things only come so few. I'm not dissing fangame mind you, but at the same token, a lot of the fangames out there are bad, mainly due to how it plays. For example, I love the art and music of the "Tense of the Sequel" series, but to be quite honest, the controls on it are playable, at best. The only reason I play it is for the ice cream toppings, not the ice cream itself, because its shit. That's the truth, that's why some many people praise the music itself, and not the whole game in its entirety. I guess it's all preference.

 

edit: this is a reply to TimpZ. I didn't see SuperEgg post inbetween.


The only mistake I see in your post is that you assume 1 sprite == 1 tile, while a single sprite can be as big as 4×4 tiles (e.g. 32×32 pixels), where every tile can use a different palette line. Bigger objects will need to be split into smaller adjacent sprites.


And yes, the on-screen colors (without tricks, of course) can be 61 as most, since 3 of the 4 palette lines use index 0 as transparency.


As a rule of thumb, if you want to know which colors are Genesis-able while using your graphic editor of choice (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, ...), you should only use colors with a RGB code where the two nybbles of each component are identical even hex values ($00, $22, $44, ..., $EE). For example, a pink can be $EE00EE.

 

Wow this shit seems confusing I'm sure I'll get it down eventually though. Also a response to SuperEgg on Hack compared to Fan Game stuff. I do know exactly what you mean and about a year or two ago I actually wanted to make a hack not a fan game so I downloaded a bunch of random tools to try and make the hack, but it seemed very confusing and overwhelming due to the fact that I had no idea what tools really did what. I would really like a tutorial with the necessary tools to: change level layout and design, character design, and if possible even enemy or boss behavior. As far as I have seen unless you are a hacking god you can't really do a whole lot with enemies or bosses. I mean right now its pretty much all just a mess for me on how to due any of this whether its a hack or Fan Game. I'm just trying to figure all this out....

 

I'm not trying to be mean or anything but...

 

Don't worry you aren't being mean I'm the dumb ass for not seeing that before XD. Anyway I will try and stay active looking at posts and stuff on the forums and posting my own stuff until my 20 post limit is done, but as for my stuff it will pretty much be on standstill until I figure all this out and hopefully get started making this on my own without help because that is the optimal way for me to do it. I am always looking for help though so I probably will not hesitate to ask for help from others with the project (after I actually look at that useful link.) 

 

Good news, everything you want exists, aside for the do - it - for - me boss and enemy editors. There's even multiple tutorials on how to use programs like SonED2, SonMapED, etc. Also, you don't need to be a hacking God to make ASM edits to bosses and enemy's. Your just, well, need to know ASM, and there are tutorials for that as well. As a final note, don't download random tools. There are a lot of topics in this forum telling you what tools you should use (via higher members giving advice to lower members like you see here). For right now though, work out your priorities, and focus on what your going to put it in later.

 

Ok I was bored looking at posts on the forums and reading shit when I saw mine again and went here only to see an elephant instead of mu Sonic sprite XD. Sooooo what is that exactly? Did you find my sonic sprite had a problem or is it a joke? I don't even care about it getting changed or anything. just....What is it and why is it there lol. Also sorry if this is counted as like bumping my thread or whatever because I'm not trying to do so...

 

Don't worry, your sprite is still there. I have no idea why it's showing up as a picture of an elephant HERE, though.

EDIT: Also, you did not bump this thread. Posting in a thread after a day has passed does not count as bumping. inb4 b& for being backseat mod

 

Ok glad to here I'm not bumping, but now there are two different pictures on the post . I just need to let anyone else that may come here know if its not sonic sprite work I didn't post it here. I really have no idea whats wrong. It may have something to do with the site I used to upload the pictures, but I've never had problems with it before and the other pics are just fine so...

 

Interesting, I see even different pictures from my end, one of which has some Italian text written over it. I bet TinyPic is going nuts for some reason, or there might be a collision amongst the randomly generated filenames.


All I can say is that this is not a prank done by the Staff, according to the Moderator Log nobody edited your post (even if I'm tempted to do so just to remove that bold).

 

Consider using Dropbox, that way you can drop your images into a folder on your hard drive at any time and all without having to visit any site for upload.