Socket the Hedgeduck (hack progress)

@ProjectFM I was just wondering about why it's called Socket the Hedgeduck. Is he going to replace Socket instead of Sonic? It's most likely like a Sonic Socket Simulator.
@CaveQuest So I guess Sonic Simulator is going to be the new trend instead of Sonic Edition.

 

I don't think so. Maybe? We never know until we see it happen.

 

...it's a combination of Socket's name and species, and Sonic's, since the hack is a combination of their games' assets. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the name. A portmanteau is more clever than some cookie-cutter equivalent.

 

A few hacks that share a common feature doesn't mean there's a trend at play, mate.

 

Haha, that's alright. Wasn't sure how the parallax was being sped up/down at first, until I looked at the code and saw those power of two bit shifts. The parallax layers have all been adjusted in the working build to be at sane speeds between -3 & +3.

 

Behind the scenes, EFZ3, HSZ2, & HSZ4 have recently been completed for the working build of the hack. (I don't feel like making YouTube preview videos for all of the special stages and act 3 zones in this hack and spoiling things).

Also just recently, finished Stone Age Zone acts 1 & 2, albeit with some minor VRAM issues I need to fix.

 

Looks nice! I hope you get to fix those little issues soon. What I'm wondering is, why did you change the jump SFX? Don't get me wrong, I'm not too bothered by the change, but I'm just too used to the original, I guess.

 

So... much... lag...

Do you have something potentially interesting? Yes. It's badly muddled by details, though. I say this to a lot of people, and it applies here as well: It's all about the attention to detail. All the little nitpicks and stumbles do get noticed, and will detract from the quality of the end product. That's what makes the difference between a good hack and a great hack: Caring about the details and making the experience clean, smooth, and enjoyable.

 

Socket the Hedgeduck v0.2 is released today! You can find the download link in the updated OP.

It has been tested to work very well on real hardware (EDMD v3) and on Gens; should work on Fusion also. It has many bug fixes, improvements, and new features than the previous build, as well as a few more zones (EFZ, SAZ, and special stage support for HSZ).

Main changes since v0.1:

• ROM Size changed from a "Big ROM" (4MB+) to a 2MB ROM
  
• Available zones in demo
  • EFZ
  • TrCZ
  • OCZ
  • SAZ
  • HSZ1-4 (5-7 are placeholder levels)
  • BZF, BZC, BZLa, BZL
    
• Menu changes
  
  • Added ability to skip/continue passed Sega sound by pressing start
  • Added homepage URL to SSRG Screen
  • Updated Title Screen
    
    • Added copyright info and a placeholder title screen
      
    • Added ability to toggle socket vs. extended music playlist (Press B button)
    • Added ability to toggle Bonus Stages (Press C button)
      
• Audio Changes
  • Changed all ROM-bloating MegaPCM streamed Socket songs to standard SMPS songs using GRC2MID
    
  • Added proper looping to all songs, tweaked some instruments
  • Added and changed some song choices
    
  • Songs: $80-$9F, $E5-$FA
    
• Engine changes
  
  • Added special stage support
    • Big Rings take you to a standard platforming level (HSZ)
      
  • Modified Bonus Stages to not remove a life from the player if he dies
  • Various stability and bug fixes with the custom Big ROM Chunk support
  • S1 Spindash!
    
    
  • Object changes
    
    • Stability and bug fixes with the warp doors
      
    • Modified OOZ Ball objects in OCZ to rebound off walls
      
    • Fixed collision with custom/modified game objects
    • Spring Object
      • Added diagonal spring object subtypes to the spring object
      • Added S3K rebound off horizontal springs in the air
    • Added high-res GHZ Ball image
    • Disabled the bosses and their DLEs for now
    • Disabled animals in HSZ, BZF, and SAZ
      
  • Title Cards
    • Added support for showing a number for acts 1-7 where applicable
    • Added support for HSZ3 (actually OCZ4) to display "High Speed Zone Act 3")
    • Added "Q" and "V" letters to the title card mappings
      
  • Deform layers
    
    • Tweaked deform layers to be at sane speeds
    • Tweaked BZF deform layer so that the BG & FG layers are aligned (until a BZF hoop is hit)

Known issues:

• Screen tearing when door objects warp you elsewhere in levels
• Issue with SAZ Boss door. The door has been disabled, with a chunk pathway taking you to directly to the (incorrectly colored) boss area
• Bosses have been disabled
• Badnik graphical animal issues in HSZ, SAZ, and BZF. (Animals disabled in these zones)
  
• Attempting to go into the 7th special stage via a Big Ring crashes the game

 

At the SEGA screen, although you can skip it, but the screen stays there forever if you don't press the start button.

 

This hack has made such leaps and bounds since it was first released. There are still kinks to work out (the collision seems to have a lot to be desired) but I really enjoyed what I played so far.
Keep it up!

 

You should add slow down to your list of issues.
I'm not a fan of Treasure Castle's maze-like level design.
I twice fell in Olien Cavern Act 2 and got stuck between a spring and a wall.
You should make it so the collision in the sloped tracks in Olien Cavern only work if Sonic is riding the ball, not just if the ball is rolling.
The art for a lot of the objects needs work.
The title screen art gets messed up after a game over.
When doors are placed next to checkpoints, the bonus stages can be accessed as many times as you want.
The collision is wonky in some places. Sonic has a hard time going on 45° slopes next to flat ground although that is probably how a lot of the source material's slopes are.
I'm just not much of a fan of Socket's art in general.

However,
I enjoy the music. It's ported over very well.
The objects work well and as they should.
The art is implemented well including palette cycles, foreground animations, and parallax scrolling.
I admire the amount of effort that's been put into this.

I hope the OOZ balls eventually get replaced with minecarts. It would be cool to see Sonic riding in one in a Genesis game.

 

I have only played Socket's first level so I can not address major differences...

The game is called "Socket the Hedgeduck", hitting the signpost displays "SOCKET HAS PASSED", yet the HUD displays "SONIC" as a name. Title screen also reads Sonic still.
Some backgrounds in some zones do have parallax scrolling, but not on a few different acts (these that need the background to scroll vertically).
I have no idea what was I supossed to do in Fence Bonus.

I know there are many buggy things that have been "nulled out" to not be playable on this public build, but if these checks run constantly each frame, your lag increases if you have too many kludges. Further than you think. Same goes for decoration sprites, you really should learn and switch to animated art for this, which if well implemented is much friendly to both the CPU and VDP.
And remove the speed cap, please.

Still, it has improved a lot from what I seen on videos and one build I downloaded months ago. Definitely much more stable.
I don't mind the frame drop, Sonic CD does worse anyway.

Overall, what it mostly needs is cleanup.
Keep going.

 

I played the latest release last night and this morning so here is another pros and cons list

Pros:

1. I appreciate the small enhancements (adding a skip option to Sega screen, making it so that you don't lose a life in a bonus room, adding the spin dash etc).

2. The music has improved massively, because of these improvements I really enjoy Socket's soundtrack (Antiquity and Emerald Forest being favourites of mine).

3. I like the Special Stages, I prefer special stages that retain the standard gameplay rather than changing it up.

4. The parallax scrolling in the backgrounds look a lot better and I like how they scroll.

5. The new bonus stages are cool.

6. Your act newly made act 3s are decent, they work well as remakes of the original Socket stages.


Cons:

1. Lag almost everywhere, mainly with Act 1 and 2 since those original Socket stages are quite busy.

2. Spikes that pop in and out aren't placed properly, sometimes I am able to still get hit even when they pop back in.

3. I know that this is a port of Socket to Sonic 1 but some object placements may need to be altered, examples are the beginning of stages that don't have rings as well as having hazards, another example is in Stone Age Zone where there are swinging balls in areas where you roll across curved sections resulting in a lot of annoying hits.

4. The invincibility music runs out too soon resulting in silence, I know that is the result of the Socket invincibility music having an end to the song as apposed to Sonic 1's, the best solution to this problem I can think of is to make a remix of the invincibility theme so that is has a loop.

5. Collision detection is pain in the neck, sometimes Sonic falls through the floor resulting in annoying deaths.

6. There are quite a few jarring priority based object placements, Emerald Forest has those spikes I mentioned in con 2 which don't appear behind the foreground tiles when they pop back in, Stone Age has those volcano eruptions which pop in from out of nowhere.

7. It's kind of hard to tell what's a platform and what's not in the Lights Bonus room especially with all of that chaotic art.

8. Even though I toggled the music playlist to play only the Socket music whenever my invincibility ran out in Act 2 or 3 it played the track that was on the extended playlist for that respective act.

EDIT: I found another huge issue just now, when you complete a special stage and you enter a new level Sonic's starting position is altered which causes him to end up somewhere random in the stage

Just a small note, the monitors' collision is a bit weird, sometimes I bounce off of them like normal and other times I just go straight through them, I wonder if you can make it like Sonic Megamix where depending on the falling speed you will either bounce off of them or go straight through them. Overall a huge improvement over the last version, I look forward to seeing the rest of the stages implemented, hopefully the issues I pointed out will be fixed for the next version, now if you will excuse me I am going to play some Socket tunes.

 

Ok, I have played this new demo, and... what can I say? I've seen a huge improvement since the last beta you had released. Just a few nitpicks though, but those might be a bit too subjective, I guess.

- The Bonus stages seem to be forcefully cleared to beat one certain stage. I don't remember whether this happened in the original Socket or not (it's been a long time since I haven't played it, honestly), but a Bonus Stage in Sonic at least isn't mandatory to get through a zone. The fact that these little stages are pretty easy helps, though. If you are going to make these mandatory, I'd say not to call them bonus, but rather... I don't know, route? Perhaps you can find a good word for it.

- The level select looks a bit too pixelated. Don't worry, I'm working on an improved version of it, just like I did with the wrecking ball. No, I'm lying, I already made it, but I need to upload it somewhere so that you get it for your hack.

- I was going to say what everybody says about the collision and background scrolling/deformation, but that is obviously because it's a prototype, so nevermind.

- The Socket: Time Dominator ports now sound just fine, but the other music conversions leave a bit to be desired... in my opinion. Some of them sound a bit empty or don't have the most pleasant instruments, but again this is more subjective than anything. Besides, I'm not sure if Kirby music fits in the levels you inserted the franchise's BGM in (since, you know, Kirby music is too cheerful for this kind of stages, save Emerald Forest and Treasure Castle). I know that you are replacing some music, but it's just so that you have it in mind.

- The "V" in the title cards looks kind of... weird. It looks far too wide compared to the other letters... It's a small detail, and a stupid one, but hey, the more things we manage to find and fix, the better, don't you think?

What impressed me the most is how clean the game is compared to the last version and the efforts you made to fix the most important bugs that impeded the player to keep going in the game correctly. Mind you, I enjoyed the last version despite of everything, but this, was a genuine experience. Please, keep going. You are doing magnificiently!!!

 

Thanks for reporting those music bugs; I haven't tested the socket playlist option enough. I will work on fixing those collision issues, object placement issues in the next build, looking into applying a few object handling optimization guides and simplifying some level objpos, and other user-reported issues before working on the next levels. I thought I squashed that post-special stage position glitch with a few workarounds for this build, but I will definitely fix it for good in the next build.

So far with the current levels I have compared with the original Socket levels, none of the levels require the usage of a bonus stage door to finish them. (EFZ2 has a secret passage near the checkpoint on the right level boundary that can skip the usage of the bonus door, and SAZ2 has a dead end which needs the door to get out of.) But for the future levels, I can tweak the layout slightly with an alternate passageway if they do.

PM me about the level select screen (I also have the original art I used if you need it).


Thanks everybody for the C&CC so far!

 

Lastly, not to double post, but I am posting the hack's working build to the Sega Genesis & Mega Drive Classics collection on Steam (so that it could be used legally as an item on my video game dev & software engineering portfolio and résumé). From testing the hack locally offline, emulation is the same as with Gens and on real hardware, but with some annoying popping noises in a one of the sound channels with the music.

Will edit this post and the OP after I get the mod's link DONE: Link. If anybody from SSRG wants to add the hack to a collection, feel free to (thought I saw two collections for SonicRetro and SSRG with creator-approved hacks.)
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I am known by the alias MrTamk1s on Steam. Just so nobody falsely flags MrTamk1s (me) as uploading the hack without the original author's approval (me, GenesisDoes):

I, GenesisDoes on SSRG, do hearby grant (myself) MrTamk1s on Steam, permission to upload the Socket the Hedgeduck hack/mod to the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics Collection on Steam Workshop.

Official proof image

EDIT: Uploaded mod to Steam Workshop

 

Finished High Speed Zone 5, and Antiquity Zone 1 & 2 in the past week. High Speed Zone utilizes some vertical speed booster subtypes, and Antiquity Zone uses new platform subtypes for solid un/spiked platform types, and a torpedo enemy object. The game engine also now uses a S3K-like object handler with y-checking to load objects, in order to reduce most game lag in object-heavy areas (especially Treasure Castle Zone). Will be using the rest of the time between now and the SHC16 deadline to finish AZ3, and iron out bugs in the bug backlog for polishing until I think a v0.3 demo is ready as a SHC16 entry.

 

Ooh, a demo 3 of this hack, nice. I never played the 2nd demo as I played the 1st one not long before it, but seeming as I'm on the media panel for SHC16, this will be one of the hacks I look forward to trying. Keep up the good work!

 

I like how this is going!
The art looks well imported,the scrolling is spot-on and some of the music tracks are well ported!
However, the collision with some slopes is a bit off, like in some he stops and
has to regain momentum or use one of those speed boosters