Random hack/Mini project thread

A quick ROM Hack of Sonic 1 with new chunks, new music and more.
There are no context of this hack and it is just for fun.

Spoiler: Image

NOTE: This hack was for fun and cancelled immediately.
Download:

 

Hello there, I have a joke rom hack made by Sanchi(aka SonicDuder69) and me that is already 3 years old. It has long since been canned and is getting a referesh soon. Have this before the refresh is done (Credits to MDT for the Sonic Debut assets, if MDT does end up seeing this just tell me if you mind us using them or not; also a note this hack has NOT been updated for a while so yeah do not expect much)

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

I am releasing this prototype because it got too difficult to finish.
Features:
Sonic can Dropdash.
Sonic 2 Level Select. Aswell as Sonic 1's level select code.
Only EHZ 1 is playable, (EHZ 2 is kinda playable through the Level select menu)
(This was originally Sonic 2 PN Arcade)
I hope you like this little hack!!!!
Made by TheSunsetHacker

**Credits To PikaNoob for the disassembly**

 

I was messing around with a Sonic 2 Nick Arcade Dissasembly when I added Tails Solo in it, I thought this was a good Idea, so I made it into a full hack!

Spoiler: other misc Changes before I updated it twice

I made it so Final Zone doesnt crash, I modified Hidden Palace Zone, I fixed GHZ's Collision, I added the Title cards, and I added Act Clear screen

Here are some screenshots

Spoiler: Screenshots

Update1:updated it so Tails has fixed animations and other stuff
Update2: Changed Title Screen, fixed act clear a bit, fixed GHZ Collision more, and restored Labyrinth Zone
(Also yes, this will be a series)

 

I really liked this, Tails isnt playable in the original prototype, so im surprised!
I also noticed an error in the camera after doing an spindash:

But appart of that, good job!

 

Hey people, I have yet another canned hack from 2023 and it has not been updated for a while so dont expect too much, you can expect more from this one than xanax 1 tho.

 

Yeah, I said this was a Series, and I wasn't lying.
Heres Tails in Sonic 2 Simon Wai, beware, this isnt finished.

Spoiler: other misc Changes besides Tails being added

made HPZ beatable, fixed music bugs, and sorta added title cards

 

Heres a creepypasta hack I made, I'll release the full story soon.
(THERE IS A GOOD AND BAD ENDING!)
The name of the hack is "...", and I spent 2 MONTHS WORKING ON THIS.

 

Sonic Spazdunka

one of the rom hacks i made, developed in feb 27th, first version dropped in march 11th.
(tho the version here was made a couple of minutes ago)
(all zones are playable)

 

Looking good!
The palettes looks excelent for me!
Same for the musics, it has a good music selection
But I noticed an error, if you break the monitor the centisecond part of the HUD will replace a bit part of the monitor VRAM:

But appart of that, good job!

Spoiler: (EXTRA) Uhm... what?

And also

This is one of my sprites?
I ask because in the pack I released here theres a s2 beta running in sonic 3 style.

If Im wrong, let me know.

 

Michael the direchel added those Sprites, so idk nothing

 

Hmmm... I will leave as that, I dont wanna get in another trouble, I have already ones
I will just say that if my content is used, it means that you need to add my name, because i did that things.
Just to mention.

 

Hello! i am the person who putted the S2 BETA RUNNING sprites. i got an random sprite sheet on the internet. So if i actually stolen it. Sorry

Leason Learned: Never use random sprite sheets on the internet

 

Nah its fine, just check the thing before using.
From here, I want to mention something for all comunnity, if you see something that its on internet, please, check the creator before using, and dont claim that content as yours, that can bring you a lot of problems.

 

You do remember there is a S1onBHI Dissasembly file in your SNA Dissasembly that is there without asking me to use it.

Also can all of you guys check this out btw:

 

i got both endings (I Had to sacrifice rings to do this)

 

Hearing "good job" in regards to this hack had awaken me from my slumber. I beg to differ!

Spoiler: Review

Bullet points:

- A common issue with a lot of your palettes is that the color ramps are not preserved or preserved poorly. For example, Sonic's Special Stage palette is atrocious. It's a monotone blend of unpleasant hues lacking the contrast the sprite once had. An another example is the look of MZ's enemies. The shading no longer makes sense, resulting in a bad-looking sprite.



- Fishies jumping out of the ground! They are misaligned against each other, to add salt to the injury. A messy section.



- Random bridge stumps. Why?



- No checkpoint before the boss in GHZ Act 3.

- The new instrumentation heard in your rendition of Rusty Ruin is kinda ass, to put it bluntly. The "highlighted" parts (as in, how "noticeable" the instruments playing certain sections are) are all over the place, it gives the melody a discordant tone it does not need.

- Pleeease, stop putting indoor MZ chunks in outdoor sections. Outside sections look really bland without the vegetation, y'know? Oh, and don't put grassy platforms indoors. There isn't any sunlight there, is there?

- This crumbling bridge section is just a sprite flicker lagfest, it's not really engaging. The ones in Act 2 are alright, though.

- Those two crushers don't look too comfortable against each other. They are supposed to be tangible, physical objects, why do they overlap so blatantly?



- Ah yes, the only way forward is a spring that leads right into spikes you can't avoid on your first playthrough. A good trap is usually avoidable, here it's pure guesswork.



- The automated section (if I get your intention) at the beginning of MZ3 leads you straight into lava.

- The zone music doesn't resume after "S" monitor's theme ends. Refer to how the invincibility monitor was programmed.

- SYZ's theme has this really basic mid2smps sound to it.

- I was about to say that SYZ doesn't feature anything notable level design-wise, but then I fell into a bottomless pit following a ring trail secretly gently suggesting me to kill myself. (act 2 btw)



- Water flowing underwater. Sonic's world is surreal but not to this degree.



- LZ's underwater palette doesn't look like it's a tint applied to bricks, more like just straight up a different color configuration appearing out of nowhere.

- LZ3 can be unbearably laggy at times.

- SLZ's theme is really, really quiet. Another MIDI conversion, I presume?

- The SLZ boss arena looks like it was changed just for the sake of it. The added platforms don't bear any function.

- OH REALLY NOW. A speedy section in the beginning of SBZ1 leading right into an Eggman monitor! This is what people who complain about being unable to foresee obstacles due to going fast in Sonic games mean, except in your case it's not resolvable through player experience. Find a way to nudge the player to change their pace, please.

- Why is Sonic pink when underwater in SBZ3? Doesn't really give off the impression of an underwater tint given the rest of the graphics' look.

- There's a checkpoint in SBZ3 where you can get killed on respawn if you stand still. Might wanna reconsider that design choice.

- Noooo, you botched the S3 credits theme... Plug'n'play mid2smps work doesn't cut it, chief.

Overall impression:

Uh, props to you for rebuilding each act without preserving much of the original level design! Sonic's palette here is also kinda nice, could work in a grittier setting. That's about the only positive things I have to say...

It's not the worst beginner hack imaginable (trust me, I've seen worse), but each and every aspect of it is poorly executed even on the surface level. The palettes aren't pretty (SLZ being the only exception, but that's because it's hard to mess up a color ramp of grey and the accent color happened to mesh well), the music, wherever it's "custom", isn't pleasant, the gameplay doesn't feel good...

I don't mean to discourage you. If I just wanted to spew some poison, then I would've just done that without explaining why your hack is bad. The thing is, everyone starts out by making bad hacks! It doesn't mean constructive criticism can't be applied to those beginner works.

Suggestions:

That being said, going forward you probably should learn how to polish mid2smps arrangements. The SMPS format is well-documented and working on music is much more fun when the process isn't "okay, I need to find something someone has already made and put it through this mysterious black box spewing out Sonic-compatible music". Be creative, dammit! Palette-wise, some color theory would help you improve the look of your hacks. You could reference good-looking palettes instead, that works too. Level-design wise..? Uhh, that's not my area of expertise, but studying well-built stages certainly helps.

Overall, just pay attention to everything you do. Make purposeful design choices, try to understand why similar things work in games you like, etc. It'll be rewarding to see the improvement later down the line.

 

aight i'll be answering to most of the things

this entire version (except from small changes i made) was actually made by michael the direchel (he's basically co-developer of the game)

- these 2 palettes was made by michael. and i will warn you the special stages suck here, which is why i wanted to disregard them from the game. the reason palettes look ass tho is because my laptop screen has a more dull color than on other devices.

- i am of evils

- this was by michael once again.

- with the jumpdash, double jump, and that one extra platform, the boss really isn't that hard.

- peak music industry real

- the mz was based off of the nether from minecraft. so that's why some areas lack grass outside (idk about the grass inside, probably michael again)

- peak sprite overload

- i am of evils The Sequel

- those 2 crushers are having a very "awesome" time

- use the double jump

- michael

- peak music industry, again

- i am of evils The Prequel

- spongebob logic in sonic

- that palette for LZ is the whole point of the level

- didn't encounter the lag in lz3

- yes. the music industry peaks again.

- had no idea what to add there. so i just added those platforms

- i am of evils The rise

- lz and sbz3 was supposed to have a paletted sonic, but sonlvl didn't register it. and i do have programs that can change the underwater palette. but i didn't do it since i really saw no problem with it.

- gotta move before the opps get ya

- once again and final, peak music industry.


so yeah, this is what i have to say for all these things,

and that one image with the eggman monitors is because eeevillls yeayayayay

as for the music's, i can't find any good apps that can edit the midi's, and fl studio free trial just sucks, and the reason i even used it is because i ain't payin smth that's above my 0,00€ budget.

i might take some of these suggestions for the next update (now that the summer break is close) so yeah, bye for now.

 

I feel so old reading this... It's not like I don't understand the words, my mind just... bluescreens due to how unexpected this tone shift in response to a genuine critical review was.

Okay, breathe in, breathe out.

Spoiler: bro went to the serious response island and everyone there knew him

1. "Peak music industry" is a nothingburger response that bears no substance whatsoever. I figure you don't treat your hack like a huge shitpost, do you? If so, then please refrain from using irony to cover up poor-quality work.

2. I'm aware that you weren't alone in making this hack. Redirecting the blame is not the way to go, it's not an excuse. Michael should also consider the critique and do better, simple as.

3. Nether doesn't have blue lava, but I digress. See the roof there? What supports it? That's not a room, why is there a roof in the first place? Perhaps if there was a wall in the background, it would've made sense... Oh, wait, that's precisely what vanilla MZ does! It's not just about bricks lacking variety and looking flat, it's also about logically coherent composition.



4. "i am evil" - refer to point 1.

5. I didn't know there was a double jump until much later into the game. Seriously, who maps J+C to Jumpdash, J+B to nothing and J+A to Double Jump? I went through the first two combinations and figured A was also configured to do nothing. I rarely use A as a jump button, so that's a factor too. And even so, there's a good chance a player might do a blind double jump and hurt themselves the same way...

6. "spongebob logic in sonic" - refer to point 1, but that's a good one, I suppose...

7. "that palette for LZ is the whole point of the level" And what is it supposed to convey, again? Original LZ features what's unmistakenly flooded ruins. The textures and colors look natural and cohesive. Here, I fail to understand what exactly I'm looking at.

8. "didn't encounter the lag in lz3" It's near the section with a shitton of swinging balls on chains.

9. "had no idea what to add there. so i just added those platforms" That's the thing! You don't have to add stuff to every small section of the game. Modding games isn't about making them different for the sake of being different, it's about reassembling what's there in interesting ways. Boss arenas are a good example of that because they're setup up very deliberately in S1. Even small changes to their composition can force the player to act differently. Your change bears no such function, it's only visual clutter.

10. "lz and sbz3 was supposed to have a paletted sonic, but sonlvl didn't register it. and i do have programs that can change the underwater palette. but i didn't do it since i really saw no problem with it." Okay? I provided feedback for something you overlooked, consider it. Visual cohesion is not something you can ignore when making a hack.

11. "gotta move before the opps get ya" refer to point 1 fr :skullemoji: :skullemoji:

12. "as for the music's, i can't find any good apps that can edit the midi's, and fl studio free trial just sucks, and the reason i even used it is because i ain't payin smth that's above my 0,00€ budget." You don't need to edit the midis? mid2smps outputs data in the SMPS format which as I've said is well-researched and editable by hand. That being said, I had luck with using Anvil Studio for setting MIDI flags and editing them but that was a while ago and it's likely the workflow is different for modern-day romhack composers. You can ask around, it's not like people are gonna shoo you away the instant you approach them.

13. "i might take some of these suggestions for the next update" Please do me the favor, yes.

 

Soon there will be a Best ending