Robotnik Returns!

I like it, but it need more art changes, like backgrounds, GHZ foreground, etc.

Also, why LAZY field?

Spoiler

Sounds like THAT:

=D

 

My art does not look natural enough to work with GHZ, sadly. THe bits in peices that I create that are actually usable are usually rectanguler (It works when it fits, though; I made all the forground art for technopolis, the Backgroundwas LooneyDude's work)

P.S. That show is soooooo creepy! Why do kids watch it!?!??!

Edit: Also, did you check out Scrapped Ruin Zone?

 

Your hack crashes in Regen at the end of Lazy Field 1, after the score tally. So, I thought I'd try level select to see some of the other zones and it crashes when I press A+Start to access it. Oh dear. In Kega, it's fine but I wouldn't really call that a solution. Anyway, onto the game itself:

• Your new monitors are a little odd. The static monitor threw me off when I hit it as I wasn't expecting to get hit. The time monitor is also a bit weird. It freezes the enemies. OK, but why? For what benefit? 
• There's a big emphasis on floating platform objects and blind jumps in Lazy Field which, unsurprisingly, make the level design feel lazy
• For some reason when moving left, I can't roll. I can spindash left and I can roll left if I was rolling right and then go left from a spring or the floor,but if I'm moving left and press down to roll, I get nothing. I actually thought it was an issue on my end at first but it's not.
• The Legend of Zelda music port is so loud, it's hard to hear anything else. It's actually quite annoying for me.

I didn't play much else after this as it appears I have seen it all before. Construction Zone still feels like it's in progress, I got stuck in a wall in Pollutant Plant (collision was non-existent on part of a wall) and Technopolis didn't appeared to have much changed, apart from the artwork. Unless I'm missing something, here.

 

I found a bug in which if you smash open an invincibility monitor, and then a speed shoes monitor, after the invincibility wears off, the BGM slows down and quickly speeds up to the normal speed. I'm using Kega Fusion.

 

@ DAGarden: It doesn't work on regen? Wow, I didn't think it was that complicated...

The static monitor is mentioned in "important new things" on the front page, the idea is that its broken and doesn't help sonic like it should. As for the time monitor, the benfits are pretty clear: Enemies essentially become sitting ducks, and you'll never have to worry about a midjump chopper or a rogue buzz bomber bullet

I tried to keep with the slower feel of Sonic 1, thus platforming is a larger part of the game.

I noticed this weird rolling bug myself, actually. You can only roll if you run at full speed. I have no idea what causes it :/

I can't do much about this; it isn't my port, and I can't hex edit music.

@TheStoneBanana: This is an issue with the lazy field zone music. For somereason, it plays slower then usual when the speed shoes effect is on, then turns to normal speed once you lose the speed shoes effect. I have no idea had I'd fix it, it only effects the one song.

 

byte_71A94/SpeedUpIndex is what you're looking for. Just find the value that lines up with LFZ's theme, and make it a faster tempo multiplier value than what the song uses by default. There's a chance that your song's default tempo is already near-maximum, requiring you to retool the song for a lower tempo, or perhaps port the 'delay on overflow' tempo algorithm from another driver, and modify all of your song to suit it. Hopefully, playing with the table should be all you need to do.

Then look into the human-readable SMPS2ASM format. You should then just need to insert an 'smpsSetVol' coord. flag into the beginning of every channel (I don't have the flag's actual name and details at hand, but you should get the idea).

 

I was able to make it play LFZ's music at speed that is just a tiny bit faster then the normal speed, its barely noticeable, though (I set the corresponding byte to $FF). As for the SMPS2ASM, I actually already had that implemented for another song, but looking through the actual music file, I couldn't find an appropriate place to put the variable setting you gave me, and the readme did not help at all.

 

I just said that you should put it at the beginning of every track. So that's after the LFZ_FM1 label, after the FM2 label etc. And be sure to use the real coord. flag; the name I used was a mockup.


It does sound like you're shafted as far as speedup tempos go. You've hit the maximum there.

 

Actually, even simpler solution:

In Sonic 1, the format for defining, say, an FM channel is as follows:


; FM1 Pointer location pitch volume
smpsHeaderFM Song_FM1, $00, $08

In Sonic 1, the lower the volume value the louder, while in S2 and S3K, the higher the volume the louder (I think). The master pitch variable works just like normal pitches (+$C goes up an octave, -$C goes down an octave, and so on).

So really, the only thing that has to be done is changing the volume parameter in the channel definition. Thus, you do not need a coordination flag to mess with the volume, so long as the volume is consistent throughout the entire song. If it isn't...well, then, yes, the smpsSetVol flag is the way to go for mid-song volume changes.

 

Thanks TSR, the volume has been set down two hex values now!

 

Of course, I did, and I love that concept! But other zones needs more. Don't forget, you can turn GHZ for something like city or giant machine.;-)

 

Actually all volume values work with lower = louder, because that is the sound chips' internal scale. (for -6 db you add 8 to FM volume values and 3 to PSG ones, btw)

S3K has this one exception with the cfSetVolume flag that takes a value 00..7F and converts it to 7F..00 (FM) or 0F..00 (PSG).

For FM channels, I usually don't go lower than 8. (Which is approximately the same volume as 0 for PSG channels.)

 

I noticed some weird bug. In middle of LFZ3, I noticed that Buzz Bombers art got overwritten by Special ring, so I decided to backtrack through the level and then...



I really don't know why and what happened. I had Speed Shoes and Special Ring loaded if it matter. After dying everything was normal though.

I also have a savestate of the situation from video. Odlly, when I don't jumped on that ledge, I noticed that a lot of objects dissapeared or appeared from nowhere such as Obj's 44 and monitors. WHhen I'd go more to the right the level was totally empty or the objects were appearing with how I'd go to the right.

Here's the savestate: http://www.mediafire.com/download/gj4lvh2qr94aobt/RR%21.gs1

I'm sharing this, because it's really weird. But anyway, nice hack. Still better than Painto Edition 2 :<

 

This is a really serious bug that I haven't been able to explain. From what I can tell, it's caused by there being too many objects in one place, if it attempts to load too many, the art and level collision get corrupted and objects stop spawning. The only way I can fix it is by deleting objects in the affected area. Can you describe where the issue occured?

Edit: as for the special ring art issue, I haven't looked into fixing this yet, it still loads the ring art S1 style, in other words, it doesn't even attempt to unload it yet.

 

The video is recorded at beginning of Lazy Field Act 3, close to the first checkpoint.

 

Well, hopefully that's fixed. Turns out I added a bunch of breakable wall objects to cover up some shitty chunk placement (I was such a noob when I first started this )

 

Your "too many objects in one place" issue may cause another (possibly related bug) here.

As for the graphical issue, I don't 100% know what you've done, but I can explain what's happening judging by what's occurring in the video, this should give you an idea and hopefully help you fix it. The fact that the blank areas of the level are the first to end up with lines, I'd make a strong assumption that the VDP or 68k is filling data into VRAM starting at 0000. The fact that it spreads, means it's heading down, all the way to FFFF. Give that Sonic's art, the HUD art, scroll data, etc, are not being overwritten, means they are successfully being written to VRAM overwriting the overwrite.

I'd say it were a DMA fill being triggered, but with the VDP being given other tasks to handle midway, it seems unlikely. I'd point it out to be PLC related (perhaps you have caused an issue whereby, no art is being decompressed to the buffer, but the buffer is being transfered to VRAM in sections/stages, thinking arts decompressing as part of its PLC job).

These are just assumptions though based on the video, it could be something much simpler, but without enough information, this is all I can muster. You appear to have "fixed it" though, but if you do ever have it happen again, go take a look in the above place, good luck...

 

Even though I play tested this version a few weeks before it came out I think I still should put out my opinion of a few things since I did not get the time to do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZasw3OCSc

The time monitor is pretty cool and pausing time is something I have never seen before. I just wish time monitors would be placed in more places. At the moment the only one I found was the one at Lazy Field.The layouts are mostly too hard. The first zone Lazy Field has a great layout which can be sped through if you remember the layout and everything there is to it. The later zones have imo dick level layouts. Construction zone gave me 1 or 2 game overs! Let me remind you that it is the 2nd zone! I really think the difficulty needs to be turned down before anything else. It really is too hard and most of the time I don't feel like its my fault for dying. I did not get past Pollutant Plant. At that moment I gave up. It was just too hard and I could not be bothered with it. 

The art is very good. Palettes are not eye burning and the art edits are just overall nice to look out

Overall this hack would be ok but the layouts need fixing. They are just too unfair and when I die I don't feel like its my fault. Also there are a few bugs.

 

Keep in mind that the level order is different. Pollutant plant is NOT after Construction Zone . Check the fron page for more on that.

Also, what do you mean by dick moves? Looking at the video, you appear to be trying to blindly rush through the level; like the original star light, and the rest of sonic 1, this zone has fast and slow sections, and has several flow stops in place to prepare you for whats coming. I might reduce the number of orbinauts, though, I can see why those things might up the difficulty a bit much.

As for the time monitors, severe issues made it so I could only place them in Lazy field zone and Technopolis. They cause issues when activated in the presence of caterkillers and orbinauts (in the later instance, the game can crash).

Ugh, the bugs. Not sure what to do about them at this point. Also, it'd be helpful if you listed them. The video is good, but its easier to implement when read down a list.

 

This happened while I was playing the hack:

http://youtu.be/SpJCRG97aaM

Seems the object placement is kind of screwing with the hack...