Random hack/Mini project thread

But you said you had three acts done...so how did you not test the other acts too? That's what I don't get.

If you show anything off, anywhere, you are bound to get comments and constructive criticism from it.

You also didn't say you weren't working on it any more. So not sure why you're telling people to leave you alone, aren't you wanting people to play this and share their feedback?

 

My mini project:
Sonic 3 Complete: prototype zone palettes
Palettes for Data select icons, Carnival night mid-boss, water sections, Launch Base act 1, Mushroom Valley act 1 and Lava Reef act 1 was changed to be more similar to Nov.3 1993 proto, and Lava Reef act 2 was changed to looks like S3C beta. Also, slotes from Slot machine was redrawned to be more looks like Nov.3 1993 proto versions, but with final palette.

Spoiler: Screeshots

I hope you enjoy!

 

Here's an hack that i've recently abandoned and that i want to share with everyone. This hack is called "Sonic Band Project" or SBP for short. Basically it was an hack that was focusing on bringing back some discarded Sonic The Hedgehog concepts. The reason why I've abandoned it it's because i've lost motivation into making something great like Sonic 1 Pilot (by MrLordSith) so i want to share this with the entire community. Here's the ROM.

 

There's definitely a number of interesting concepts presented in this hack! I hope the things you've done so far make their way to another project of yours someday. In the meantime, I wish you good luck with anything you may choose to pursue!

 

Thank you so much!

 

Hey, guys! I haven't been hacking for a long time, but today I found my old hack, back in 2016. For some reason, I didn't put it out in public then, but I think it's better late than never. This is a pretty simple hack for the first part of the game, with a decent, in my opinion, level design, changed music, palette and other minor fixes.

 

You all seen a hacks, where Sonic was replaced by another characters. But have you seen hacks, where was changed Eggman?
So, i want to present you..
"Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" Robotnik in Sonic 1!
Yes, it's just a modification, where Eggman was replaced to Robotnik.
I'll answer to a few questions:
"Why are you made it?"
So, i was bored, and in my head comes this idea!
"Is it joke?"
Um.. no
Was modified all Eggman sprites!
"Where is that S3K hack?"
All in progress)
Screenshots:



Rom at bottom.
Have a nice game!

 

Hello there People.
Remember my first ever Sonic 1 Hack that I posted here few months ago, yeah it's back. Now with more additional stuff in it as well.
This is Sonic 1: Unfinished Example Remade. The following stuff are in the hack:

• Now with different level design, as well as longer and a little high levels, [if that makes any sense lol].
• New ASM tweaks such as S3K slow ducking, a double jump, a slightly slower JumpDash. And better fading in and out of colors,
• A new and not so new palette for Sonic.
• Some new chunks as well, [well not many but yeah].
• And finally, A NEW SPECIAL STAGE. wow never see that one coming, very original DSK..

Now these are additional changes as well as some changes in the music side as well, but you wont get to hear those if you don't know how to access the level select HAHA =P.
Now few insects I found out that was accidentally done by me, The Boss theme doesn't stop when you defeat the boss apparently. Don't know why, but that apparently exists. If you go to the Special Stage, at some areas you can get yourself stuck due to how collision is making sonic getting stuck, well it was my first time making a Special Stage, so yeah. =P
Credits

• Joshwoakes for the HUD code and few helping in general knowledge of coding. And help on level design help as well.
• D.A Garden for help on level design and object managements and object placements.
• Darkex for the Double Jump Code.
• The Tutorials and Utilities on SSRG and Sonic Retro.
• The People on SSRG Discord Server for the help.
• And few others that I can't remember on top of my head at the moment but you guys are remembered.

 

Props to you for the improvements on the level design!
There are a few gripes I have in terms of flow (e.g. inappropriate Badnik and wall placement in the middle of speed sections), but otherwise, the first two acts are actually quite fun to explore and pretty solid!
Act three, however, is definitely the low point of this ROM hack. The level design is not inherently bad, it just grabs too much off of the original GHZ3, a flaw shared by previous versions of this ROM hack. The boss fight is unentertaining and overdone: hp boosted fast Robotnik, a trope that has been done to death, and not once have I enjoyed.

As for the Special Stage, it is quite bland: flashing blocks are lacking, and the parts that have issues were not exactly made with Sonic's proper hitbox in mind. Some may be misled, especially those who favor the 2013 version of Sonic 1, where the hitbox is different, but Sonic's hitbox in Special Stages is quite larger than a single block, so do keep that in mind for your next Sonic 1 based Special Stages, if you're to make any.

Overall, I see you've improved significantly in terms of level design, well done!

 

Thank you Giovanni, I really appreciated/loved that you enjoyed the rom hack. The badnik placement as well as object placement, quite frankly yeah I may have put some thinking on it and put the badnik's at the right places, but at the time I thought it was fine. But yeah, the next time I'll remember that.
Green Hill Act 3 was indeed me being lazy, since I didn't put my time into the act but instead put it on the other 2, but yeah I apologize for my laziness in GHZ3. It was just me being lazy in act 3. For the boss tho, it was intentional to be a little hard. But I understand where you're coming from, people might not find it enjoyable, or Even interesting.
I can't say much about the special stage, because it was my first time. But yes I agree. And I'll a better version of the special stage next time.

 

Hello! I've come to the community because I have a ROM hack that I have been cooking up in the works for a few days, and since it's still in development, I'd like to show all of you about it.
It is also my first proper modification to the game that isn't just a simple stage layout change (looks at my S3&K "hack")

I introduce to you:

SONIC 1 RESTART0.

Which contains:

• Modified Sprites (ASM Editing)
• New level design
• An added Spindash, inspired by Sonic CD

I do admit it doesn't sound very promising, and it quite isn't, as it is only an very early version (possibly a prototype), with only GHZ1 being really modified and playable.
Even then, I would like to hear you people's criticisms about it, what I can improve upon, what I can add, and what applications do you recommend I use for this.

Speaking of which, here are the applications used in this project (at least at the moment):

• Flex2, by snkenjoi
• SonLVL and SonicPLN (MainMemory)

Below, are some screenshots of the hack in its current state.
I hope you guys enjoy, and have a wonderful day.

 

Just finished playing the one level featured in the hack, and I'm certainly unimpressed.The level design features plenty of issues. I will list what I've found with pictures to provide examples

- Improper chunk usage, with multiple cases of cutoff chunks, which additionally, lead to odd level geometry.


This could've been avoided by using chunks with collision and instances of Obj71.


This one was easily avoidable. The chunk list does feature matching chunks for both short and middle stump. Why'd you choose to do this is beyond me, and if you must, at least use some instances of Obj44 to make it look less cutoff.

Speaking of...

- Improper object usage and alignment


This is not the right shading, and not correctly aligned.


Using swings this short is an unnecessary waste of processing power and an eyesore. Please stick to using regular platforms rather than swings this short, or extend your swings.


This checkpoint is turned on before you even come across it. Did you forget to set its subtype?


Use of swings and rings combined leads to sprite limit issues. Please don't align swings and rings horizontally, you can only have so many sprites rendered at once on the same horizontal lines.

These are just a bunch of the issues with level design I've found. With those explained, I'll talk about the artwork. Sonic's artwork looks pretty basic, lacks shading, and Sonic's clothes clash directly with his head in terms of art style. I'd say these clothes would look better on Advance Sonic.
Additionally, the little numbers on the life counter are really hard to read with that white outline. Please use the same black outline you use for the rest of the HUD.

Finally, the Spin Dash. This is NOT a "Sonic CD inspired Spin Dash", this is the Sonic 2 Spin Dash, except it's a very unfinished port that was made using the Spin Dash guide. To claim it's a CD inspired Spin Dash sounds a lot like a cheap excuse derived from laziness, and I am disappointed every single time I read it.

That said, you should really go back to the drawing board with this hack and learn proper Sonic level design.

As far as tools you can use, you can use whatever you want, and honestly, the tools you're using are the ones I'd personally recommend myself. However, what matters really is how you use the tools.

 

...wow.

Personally, with all of this, it makes me realize how many mistakes I have done.
To be completely honest, I don't have a clue on what I am doing. I'm so glad you've shown what I did wrong.

Perhaps I should restart this hack entirely from scratch. Whatever I'm doing at the moment simply is not working out.

 

To be honest, the hack has potential. Your sprites, to be honest, hooked. They have some kind of trick, though they are not finished. Try to finish the sprites and learn how to do more or less the structure of the levels. Of the pros: a good GHZ palette. Oh yes, make a full-fledged Spin Dash, as @Giovanni said. You can also put on new music. I think I said everything about your mini-hack.

 

I am here to announce the cancellation of Sonic Magnified.

So, what even was it?

Well, originally, it was myself experimenting with Sonic 1 level design, except the gimmick of the hack was that layouts were larger. This was achieved with the help of the Sonic 3 & Knuckles Object and Ring managers, which were actually ported in by ProjectFM. I just took the disassembly and expanded the level design, using information that was provided by RandomName and Ralakimus, without which, I would've never figured out how to expand the level layout.

The first release in 2021 was... not a success. The level design was not particularly interesting, and was actually pretty repetitive, too, and the music was... not exactly the best. Had I learned about MIDI events, I might've made something better, but I still haven't learned that stuff. I probably should go back to experimenting with music composition.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...

After the 2021 release, I changed the focus into making Sonic Magnified into a full fledged game. However, making large level design is really hard, and I have poor artistic skills, which severely limits what I can make.

Another reason why I'm canning the project are the technical skills I had at the time. I had made a lot of... questionable decisions throughout the development of the hack, like using a Sonic 1-like format for my level layouts (a level in this hack takes up $1000 bytes of RAM!), or making the disclaimer and instructions a whole plane (I hadn't quite figured out how to render text or use the VDP at the time). But I shouldn't keep beating myself up.

There is, in fact, a bunch of neat stuff in this build, like an in-level palette switching system, and some new objects and object behavior too. I might even repurpose this stuff in future projects (although I probably will code the stuff differently).

So, what's next? Well, I'm in the middle of working on something else. I've managed to fully implement $8000x$2000 level support in Sonic 1, this time in a S2-like format loaded from ROM, and I've even got arbitrary Y-wrap working, which allows me to Y-wrap the level at whatever number of chunks I wish (that is a power of 2). I'll probably shift focus on making a bunch of disjointed levels for this new disassembly, both as an exercise in level design for myself, and as a way to showcase what I can do with this much freedom. I might even bring in some stuff from Sonic Magnified and/or past projects that never saw the light of day!

Anyways, I should definitely credit those who provided what I needed to make Sonic Magnified until now:

Spoiler: Credits

Project leader: Giovanni
Level design: Giovanni
Music: Giovanni
Programming: Giovanni, djohe
Testing and feedback: djohe, Monopattino, users from redhotserver's #backstage

Tools/Assets utilised:
Sonic 1 with S3K Object and Ring Managers Disassembly: ProjectFM
Mid2SMPS: ValleyBell
SonLVL: MainMemory
Sonic 1 Expanded Sprite Sheet: Rosabelle
Sonic 1 Optimised Sound Effects: MarkeyJester
Sonic 3 Title Card custom font: Jermungandr
ReadySonic: Mercury (Improved Loading Chunks from ROM, stripes on Sonic's shoes when he uses a Spring, Rings bouncing at the bottom of the screen)
MegaPCM: vladikcomper
Advanced Debugger and Error Handler: vladikcomper

Sonic 1 Static Splash Screen: Hixatas, ProjectFM
Spin Dash Guide: Lightning, kram1024, Puto, shobiz, Mercury
Speed Cap removal: Tweaker, Puto
Spike Bug Fix: FraGag
Make an Alternative Title Screen: JcFerggy
Make the Title Screen use its own Background Deformation Routines: Techokami
Sonic 2 Spring Port: RandomName
Walk-Jump Bug Fix: Cinossu, Mercury
Better Fade-In/Out: MarkeyJester
How the Drop Dash works in Sonic Mania: MainMemory
Sonic 1 Sound Driver Fixes: ValleyBell
Extend ROM chunks to $FF: GenesisDoes

Special Thanks:
RandomName and Ralakimus: information on how to extend Sonic 1's level format.
djohe: tons of programming help that eventually allowed me to learn, pursue new stuff, and get better at Sonic ROM hacking over time.

And here's the build of Sonic Magnified in the state where it was the many months I've left it behind. It features only one level. It's not a finished level, but you can explore the level to see some of the new features in action.

 

This is, of course, a very decent hack with a chic level structure, but in the SHC'21 version, the first act was completed. I understand you decided to completely redo the act, but abandoned it? And so awesome hack

 

Hello there Giovanni, I recently just played your hack [like 30 mins ago] and wow I am stunned on this. The level design, the ingame palette switching. And yeah I am hugely amazed by it. The big level design, and also a DROPDASH. I enjoyed every single bit of it and explored every single bit and piece of it. However I had a confused moment where I thought the chunk's shading was wrong.

Spoiler: Confused lookin me

This chunk kinda made me confused, if this is the right chunk shading or not. Whilst I don't know if it is the right or wrong shading that is entirely debatable.
Final Thoughts
Very neat hack with interesting concepts. I really enjoyed it and would recommend people to play it and have a go of it. Keep up the good work Giovanni.
[Also yes I know it's a cancelled build. So it's unfinished/incomplete, but yeah]

 

Hi everybody.
Today i want to present you my old S2 hack, where was restored something from prototypes.
Why it's old? I start work at summer of 2021, and last massive updates was in January-February.
Its a small hack, because this project was restarted 3 times, because results was too glitchy.
Was restored:
Proto Sonic and Tails sprites
Early EHZ layout
Some badniks used early designs
Special stages and CPZ uses their proto palettes
Some little things...

Also, remember: IT'S UNFINISHED
So, it hasn't Super Sonic's sprites, and glitchy SEGA screen



At this moment- i can't work at this, because i too busy with multilang. project.
But, at one day- I'll be back....
ROM at bottom

EDIT: fixed waiting animation

 

Great hack! I will wait for the full version.