Sonic 1 Contemporary (Early Demo)

Discussion in 'Showroom' started by Roxurface, Apr 24, 2018.

  1. Roxurface

    Roxurface Well-Known Member Member

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    BIG UPDATE COMING SOON!!!

    For films, most often you'll hear people say, "some of the sequels are great and some are terrible, but nothing compares to the original." For video games, you can't really say the same thing.

    Sonic 1 has a lot of charm, but not much else to help it compete with its sequels. Sonic 2 and 3 feature more abilities, more refined level design, and arguably even better art and music. While those games stand the test of time, Sonic 1 feels dated with some really slow levels and unrealized ideas. This hack is an attempt to bring Sonic 1. . .
    wait for it. . .

    Up to speed.

    Sonic 1 Contemporary adds some new abilities, and makes minor changes to the art and layouts.

    Palettes are made warmer and more vibrant. Sonic uses his Sonic 3 sprite (curtesy of hbrd), and he can spindash, peel-out, and wall-jump. The level layouts are kept faithful to the original, but with minor changes that make use of Sonic's new abilities (especially the wall-jump). For the most part, the additions come in the form of new secret areas and shortcuts, as well as some "flow optimizations" to the slower zones to finally end the stop-and-go platforming that plagues the first game in the series. Marble Zone received the most drastic edits, with a few new shortcuts and some forgiveness added to make the zone's difficulty closer to where it stands in the level order.

    Labyrinth, Star Light, and Scrap Brain have yet to be changed.

    Screenshots: Capture.PNG Capture2.PNG Capture3.PNG Capture4.PNG
    Features to come:
    Custom remixes for the second and third acts of each zone
    Possibly dynamic palettes for each act, though I may prefer to keep faithfulness to the original
    Layout changes for Labyrinth, Star Light, and Scrap Brain.

    Other credits go to Mercury for his ReadySonic project.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: May 8, 2018
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  2. Spanner

    Spanner The Tool Member

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    By any chance did you take some stuff from ReadySonic? Just curious.

    Nice to see the attracted ring shield and Special Stage timer though.
     
  3. Pacca

    Pacca Having an online identity crisis since 2019 Member

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    There are some issues, but I really like where this is going; all it needs is some fixing up, and I'd be happy with it. Here's some things that could be improved:

    • Many of Sonics' sprites are positioned incorrectly; his Peelout and running sprites are a few pixels above the ground, he looks odd when he hits certain angles, etc. I know manually tweaking and fixing each individual frame is a royal pain, but it pays off in the long run.
    • S3Ks' walk cycle was not designed for 6 frames, and it shows. Try comparing Sonics' animation routines between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2; they're mostly identical, but Sonic 2 changes it to work with more walking frames, like S3K does.
    • The Redish brown colors in GHZ are a bit too bright for my tastes; it gives off a neon feel, which doesn't quite fit for dirt/ground.
    • Sonics' peelout and wall jump sprites don't match the S3K ones. Also, his balancing animations are new, but don't match the S3K ones; that's kind of odd...
    • The wall jump paths in Marble Zone feel like cheating; there's no obstacles or enemies, and you skip huge portions of the levels; there should be something up here at least...

    Besides those things, its' looking pretty great! I love the Marble Zone palette, and I could barely even tell that Spring Yard Zones' colors had changed, but it still felt like an improvement. The layout changes feel justified too; I especially like how Spring Yard Zone saves its' infamous crusher sections for Act 3.

    EDIT: Also, a suggestion for Labyrinth Zone; perhaps a block should be placed by the shortcut in Act 1, so Sonic will have a harder time wall jumping to it. I'm really fond of the hidden moving platform here.
     
  4. Niko

    Niko All's well that ends well, right? Member

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    Either that, or just Mercury's wall jump assembly. Either way, if it holds up to par, then I'd be delighted to see a hack that utilizes wall-jumping in its level design, regardless of how it got there. Going off of what PacGuy said, making sure the sprites are positioned properly will be important in keeping the gameplay fluent. Also, I see a rather awkward mix of Sonic 3 and CD sprites, here, as well as Mercury's walljump frame. Maybe the person who made these sprites PotterAndMatrixFan would be willing to let you borrow some of their frames, if you're going for a S3-in-S1 feeling.

    Best of luck.

    EDIT: I was thinking of a different Sonic 3 mod than what I originally linked; just fixed it.

    EDIT 2: Specially looking at these frames.
    [​IMG]

    EDIT 3: Giving it a little playthrough, it has an odd resemblance of a certain other Sonic 3 mash-in I've seen..
    I'm not entirely sure this "courtesy of hbrd" is 100% correct?
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
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  5. Roxurface

    Roxurface Well-Known Member Member

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    Hey guys, thanks for the quick responses. Yes, this hack was made using ReadySonic, I could have sworn I credited it somewhere but I guess it got lost in like the three re-writes I did of the post, I'll make a quick edit. And yes, the Sonic 3 sprites are the very same used by S1 Hacking Studio. I may end up just going back to the Sonic 1/CD sprites, it would keep the hack coherent and keep the feel of the original as the rest of the package promises. Still, I just love the Sonic 3 look.
     
  6. Roxurface

    Roxurface Well-Known Member Member

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    • I wanted the walljump paths to be huge shortcuts, but be hidden enough to feel like a reward. I suppose the surprise is ruined when I put the shortcut in a screenshot :p still, I suppose those sections do feel a little empty, so some badniks and maybe some more spikes are justified.
    • I'm glad you like Marble's palette, I felt a little nervous changing it so drastically but I like the white marble so much. Spring Yard's palette is made a deeper red, as is the checker in GHZ, though I can see what you mean about it looking too neon. I wanted the colors to "pop" more than they did in the original, but if it's looking neon then I suppose there is a middle ground to be found (no pun intended)
    • Yes, I will be making significant edits to Labyrinth Zone, but you may not like that I intend to make it noticeably easier with the option/ability to avoid many water sections, closer to Sonic 2 & 3's design philosophies.