Sonic 1: Terra Night (Final Version)

Discussion in 'Showroom' started by Burst, Oct 19, 2017.

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  1. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    The hack is cancelled.

    Sonic 1: Terra Night

    Sonic 1: Terra Night is a simple Sonic 1 hack.

    It contains (as of the current version, 1.0.5.1)
    New GHZ (Terra Night Zone) with new Music, Palette and Layout (but no new art)
    Some of the OST is custom and made by LordXernom. Expections are the Terra Night Music (which is a port made by DragonWolfLeo) and the boss theme (ported by A-S-H, originally made by YeppersPeppers)
    Some bugfixes and coding, inculding the removal of the Spike Bug and the addition of the Robotnik Monitor.
    Changed level select code to be different than the one from the Expo demo
    2 new Special Stages
    A hard mode to test how good you are in this hack. No rings, a lot of enemys and some other placements. Are you ready to take on the challenge?

    CREDITS:
    A-S-H - For porting the boss theme to SMPS, which is a port from "Omelette's Theme", made by YeppersPeppers.
    Mr. Cat - For palette help
    Ashuro - For coding help
    LordXernom - For some OST and beta-testing
    LakeFepard and Unlimited Trees - for help with the first Special Stage
    You - For playing
    DragonWolfLeo - For the Terra Night Music (Port of Super Metroid - Brinstar)
    And others, where I forgot who... xD

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Now it's time for the most important part - the download.

    Have fun playing! :)
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 30, 2018
  2. LuigiXHero

    LuigiXHero Well-Known Member Member

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    The palettes are really bad, you lost all the shades and it now looks really flat.
     
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  3. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    Please tell me what I could improve instead. How dark or light should be palette be?
     
  4. Gamma V

    Gamma V Well-Known Member Member

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    The South Fields Zone palette isn't bad, but it's not too different from the vanilla Green Hill palette. The palettes on the other two levels that can be seen in demo mode, however, are pretty ugly, but I'm assuming they're sort of placeholders. After all, you return to the title screen after finishing SFZ. I kinda like Sonic's more Mania-esque palette, which is what I might give him in my next hack.

    Level design doesn't seem to offer the same smooth, speedy flow as the original levels. There are times when I build up a full head of steam, only to be stopped in my tracks by a wall. Sonic isn't all about going fast, but levels should flow a bit like a roller coaster. Try using upward slopes to make Sonic smoothly slow down from a high-speed section before moving into a platforming section.

     
  5. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    First of all, thank you for your feedback! :) Those demo-mode palette's are placeholders, like you already said. One of them will be changed in the future. I do not know about the Marble Zone through, I might remove it.

    The layout will also be changed for the next version - inculding also some new custom layout.
    Also, thank you so much for recording my hack. :)
     
  6. StephenUK

    StephenUK Working on a Quackshot disassembly Member

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    So, I decided to try this out as I've not tried a hack in months due to a lack of time. I only played South Fields Acts 1 and 2 on my first run, and watched the demos play out, and there is quite a lot of room for improvement. I decided to try out Act 3 during a second run while I refined my thoughts. I'll try to break it down as best as I can.

    Palettes
    The palette for South Fields isn't terrible by any means, but it just feels like a washed out Green Hill and feels pretty uninspired. A first zone usually has a bright, vibrant feel to the palette, so I think you should revert back to the Green Hill palette and experiment with different colour schemes while maintaining a bright feel to the zone.

    The palettes for the two zones in the demos are just plain awful. I can't actually think of any other way to put it if I'm honest, nothing about them works at all. I recommend reverting back to the originals and experimenting as I said with Green Hill, because trying to build something from what they currently are will be much harder. I know you say they are placeholders, but why can't the original palettes be placeholders?

    Finally, Sonic's palette. While I don't mind the Mania colour scheme when done correctly, this misses the mark somewhat. The lightest blue is much to light and vibrant compared to the other shades, and it looks quite distracting. Maybe making the blue a bit softer and adding in a bit more shading between the lightest and middle blue will make it blend better.

    Layouts
    The layouts, while not the worst I've seen, definitely have room for improvement. Some of the chunks don't seem to fit together properly, having a wall against wall match up, or not having a wall at all where there should be, which makes the chunk seem cut off.

    Then comes the biggest problem with the layouts - flow. Every time it seemed like I was in a position to build up speed, I was stopped in my tracks by a set of spikes or a wall. While Sonic doesn't need to be running at full speed at all times, not being able to reach those speeds makes the level quite boring to play through.There was also a badly placed Motorbug right at the start of act 2, where the nearby spring propelled me into it when I wasn't rolling, causing me to take damage.

    Finally, there was a reason I didn't play beyond Act 2 on my first run. That reason was because you used a loop at the end of the act. Unless you intend to remove the "run to the right" behaviour after hitting the signpost, this is a no go. As I ran around the loop at speed, I hit the signpost, tried to jump off into the ring and missed. Unfortunately the game then took control of Sonic, and he could no longer run around the loop to finish the act, meaning I was stuck until I reset. After that, I didn't feel like playing through it again.

    Music
    With the exception of one track, the boss track, I wasn't a fan of any of the music. It all seemed to fit a similar theme, bland and repetitive. After playing Act 1 of South Fields, I actually found myself muting the sound until I got to the boss in my second run, simply because I couldn't listen to it anymore. The boss music actually seemed to fit quite well, although I didn't allow myself to listen to it for too long because the Green Hill boss goes down too quickly. I don't know what to suggest for the music in terms of improvement, as it's not just down to weak instrumentation, but also weak composition. I mean, the music could be used as a base to build on I guess, but in its current state, it falls short. Also, the "speed shoes slows down music" bug is present in South Fields.

    So in summary, a fairly average first effort with room for improvement, but shows some signs of promise to not consider it a complete write off. Have a look around at a few tutorials here, experiment a bit more with the palettes and liven up the music, and I think you might end up heading in the right direction.
     
  7. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    Well, thank you for your feedback! Well, I might stick with normal OST or ports from other games. The boss theme has no problems, so I do not remove it.
    Again, about the Marble Zone, it has a critical bug where a illegal instruction comes around when hitting a certain point in Act 2. Also, I tried to experiment a bit with GHZ's palette, but not with Marble and Spring Yard.

    South Fields (will be renamed into Neo Green Fields Zone in the upcoming version)'s palette will be fixed and I already began to make a new layout for Act 1 and 2. The third act is based on Sonic CD, since the Act 3's had also just little bit short layout before boss.

    Same with Sonic, I look into his palette again. :)

    Again, thank you very much for that feedback, I'll try my best to fix anything you said up there!
     
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  8. Wudibou

    Wudibou Newcomer In Limbo

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    If you go get the shield on the left in act 3 there's a wall without collision !
    (and die...)
     
  9. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    It's alright, it's already fixed in the next version... :p

    Also, I added some run and slow down, then platforming parts like StephenUK and the Unlimited Tree's Guide suggested, so you won't slow down that quickly anymore-
     
  10. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    Bad message about the hack. My PC might be dead and therefore, there will be no progress - and I have to begin again, as soon I get the possibility to do so. I don't know if my PC is dead, but when it is, then, like I said, there won't be any progress for a while...I'm sorry.

    As soon I know that my PC is dead, I'll let the admins lock this thread for now.
     
  11. EMK-20218

    EMK-20218 The Fuss Maker Exiled

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    I told you to use SVN, didn't I say? If you were using, you'd not lose your stuff in a unrecoverable way. Good luck with the rework in the hack. I really hope you to be able to do the stuff even better than before the next time. Don't shut the project and keep up always improving!
     
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  12. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    Okay, good news! My PC is still alive. That means, the hack is NOT cancelled.

    EDIT: There will be a new version of this hack coming to Expo! With smoother layout, new music (this time, it's a port) and more.
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2017
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  13. Burst

    Burst You call this a connection? Oh, give me a break. Member

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    Update 1.0.5.1

    Tweaked layout a bit
    Changed some wrong placements
    Changed header name
    Changed Level select code

    Download is in the opening post.

    EDIT: There is now a hardmode edition of the hack. Are you ready to take on the challenge?~
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
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