Sonic 5 - Improvement Vol.2 (Nes)

[capnkatie]

I actually prefer the final version, it just looks sharper. I don't mind that much though

[torridgristle]

Alternative telegraphs better, though Final looks sharper but doesn't quite seem to match in terms of style and also the frontward lighting rather than being lit from the side like the bounce pad.

Alternative is the way to go for this project in my opinion.

[#]

Alternative telegraphs better, though Final looks sharper but doesn't quite seem to match in terms of style and also the frontward lighting rather than being lit from the side like the bounce pad.

Alternative is the way to go for this project in my opinion.

I have to agree the alternative looks better. Though perhaps there is a better middle ground to be found.

[Googie]

PacManfan64
First I wanted to thank you for reporting the bug, although in fact I already had knowledge of it, now I have to complete several pending before seeing how I can solve the problems of that area, it is that over time I realized that the best way to avoid problems with this type of project is structured as best as possible, and although sometimes I think it would be practical to publish that list of pending/bugs, I fear that some do not understand that beyond my expectations everything I do depends on the time I have and the capacity that I am developing

The truth is that it is not a coin with an emerald skin, although I planned to improve its animation, but in view of the high expectations I think that saying this is a bit disappointing

My goal for the moment is to improve the animations that are part of the game, because as I said in the past if possible I would like to release as soon as possible a first version of the project or at least a sufficiently attractive version to be delivered in the form of a demo. Although in the final version I would like to use the animation of Sonic releasing the emeralds instead of the sequence in which it looks up

I do not think I can return the text "Sonic Team", without the help of someone more experienced, but if this goal were fulfilled I would like to replace it with the SEGA logo



Besides it would be great to repair the demos of the levels that in the TI version they left to work properly, although it seems to be all the elements necessary for them to work

Finally, in the capture of my previous publication, the graphics were remapped, some were updated with respect to previous versions, and replaced the palette used by the harpoons to avoid the areas where they camouflage with the background, but the disposition of the elements in that Capture in specific is the same

Googie
Thank you, it means a lot to me, you are one of the people that made me interested in this hobby, but anyway I never understood what that cookie means, whenever I see it I think about this subject:

You're welcome, you're really knocking this outta the park! I always thought the cookie emoji meant a treat.
Can't wait to see more when you're ready to show more screens.

[sics]

Cartridge_Rom, Gastronomicon, Torridgristle & Sharp?
Originally my intention was not to get too far away from the source material creating graphics that adapt well to the technology of the old tube monitors (CRT), but being realistic, it is more sensible to think that the audience that will play this hack will do so by means of more accessible devices, so I do not see badly adding graphics that indifferently from the medium can be interpreted correctly



On the other hand I must admit that when working alone it is easy to get stuck in a tunnel journey where I end up ignoring the possibilities that I did not think in the first place, that's why I appreciate the diverse opinions that are giving color to this project. So if someone has remained without saying something, I invite you to do it, because no matter how stupid you may think it may be, any idea always drifts into new ones

Googie



I do not understand how I did not think before, in retrospect it sounds very obvious, it's like when I finished understanding how the elevators work, my life will no longer be the same

If you are interested in knowing more about this hack, I have given a copy of the game to a Youtuber, this demo has all the features that were already complete in the project. I do not pass the name of the channel just because I was not clear if it was their main or secondary channel, but I fell very nice 



Small update:
▪ The shield and the stars of the invincibility state are now white.
▪ The harpoons are corrected to show the light source correctly.
▪ I did the first tests with the title screen.*
▪ The end of the level screen was updated.

Spoiler

*Although everything went as expected at first, neglect two sectors where it is not possible to properly apply a specific palette, probably postpone working on that problem until the end of the first stage of the project, for now I prefer to focus on the playable characteristics of the hack.

 

Clarifying that this decision is taken because hacking the title screen in this way is the biggest work load I have had, even though it is uncertain if I will manage all the necessary factors to reach the final version.

[close]

[capnkatie]

Is there any chance that after completing this one, you'll attempt your magic on The Jabu's version of Super Mario World for the NES? You've done an amazing job on this and maybe you could use your practice from this to make SMW just as good, and possibly better! I understand you probably don't have the same emotional attachment to it as with Somari, but you could try it at least

[sics]

LooneyDude is already working on it and in my opinion he's doing great, I think the most respectful thing is to wait for his project to finish, this kind of thing is not an easy task, and the people who do it do not get anything in return, that the best thing we can do is to take care of these people who dedicate love and time to their work so as not to lose them  

[capnkatie]

Well, not really. LooneyDude's hack is entirely separate to The Jabu's one, and while I prefer LooneyDude's one, it's actually only a demo. They finished the first world about a year ago (I think) and they made it explicitly clear that that was all they'd do. It's a shame really.

This is why I thought you could do what you're doing here, adding an addendum to either the Jabu's or LooneyDude's versions, fixing unfair enemies and optimising the tiles, etc. They would both require an equal amount of effort, J's one already has all worlds finished, but L's one has extra features and stuff.

I don't know. After all you've done here, you probably need a well-deserved break rather than instantly diving into another project!

[sics]

 They already sent me to sleep

Yes, I understand that they are two independent projects, but they have the same objective, for example it was back in 2009 when I started working to try to improve the Sonic of NES, but before I had everything ready, Jabu's project was published, the same thing happened to me with the game of Super Turrican for the NES, although in that case I just decided to give up.



This was the reason why the first version of this project had such poor quality, and although today I am stronger, I know that the motivations of artists can be very fragile

On the other hand they really canceled the project? It breaks my soul, I was waiting for it with much desire

Personally more than a break I would like the opposite, I would love to dedicate myself to this and make my own games, but with a team, God it is horrible to work alone, the conversations become boring



Merry Christmas!!!

[torridgristle]

Occurred to me that you might want these Sonic fonts.

Spoiler

Sonic Battle

Sonic Pinball Party

[close]

[sics]

 I was working recently to try to improve the final level screens, and although I confess that I would like to try using a different source, unfortunately the screen shares the graphics with the level selection screen.





(Where it says "Timer" should say "Time Bonus" but there was no space to write it, I've seen that in other versions of Sonic the word "Cool" is also used, but I do not think it's Cool )

[torridgristle]

Could say BONUS instead of TIMER or add a clock icon to the font if you're replacing the word CONTINUE which gives you some extra space.



Got plenty of room in the CHRs you've posted.

Also unrelated to this but the new font's "I" looks a little better nudged right one pixel in my opinion.

[#]

Could say BONUS instead of TIMER or add a clock icon to the font if you're replacing the word CONTINUE which gives you some extra space.



Got plenty of room in the CHRs you've posted.

For consistency sake I'd recommend also changing Ring Bonus to a ring icon if you're going for the icon alternative.

[capnkatie]

Also unrelated to this but the new font's "I" looks a little better nudged right one pixel in my opinion.

Oh no. Now my attention has been brought to this, I pretty much demand that you do it. There are no words for how much better that looks.
December 27, 2018, 06:36:59 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Actually, you could do the same to the I in SONIC as well, that looks a little rough too

[torridgristle]

Oh no. Now my attention has been brought to this, I pretty much demand that you do it. There are no words for how much better that looks.
December 27, 2018, 06:36:59 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Actually, you could do the same to the I in SONIC as well, that looks a little rough too

I tried that and nudging the N and I think the N edit looks more even. The N doesn't look that odd in the continue screen either, though there's room for additional letters in the CHR if it needs to be edited for better kerning.

For consistency sake I'd recommend also changing Ring Bonus to a ring icon if you're going for the icon alternative.

My ring kinda looks like a glazed doughnut.

[sics]

Torridgristle

^{Sorry, I could not resist, was very funny what you said xD}

Speaking more seriously, the goal I pursue in this project is to achieve the most professional finish possible, so being sincere does not convince me the ideas proposed to solve the problem of the legend Timer.

The first option because the use of the word bonus only seems somewhat imprecise, it could also be redundant.

On the other hand, although the second option has more possibilities, I feel that even if I managed to make the appropriate modifications, I would leave too much negative space on the screen.


Initial mockup

Changing the subject I think that the observation of the letter "I" is very successful, I also feel that people would demand it a lot if I do not, that's why I fixed it and I love the result

Torridgristle & Gastronomicon
Regarding the headlines, it is a somewhat complicated issue for me, personally I do not think it would be enough with a superficial edition, since for a long time I see more than one inconvenience in them, and although it is probably just a whim, I would like to achieve an optimization similar or better to the current one if it opted to work on its design.

For those who do not know what I speak, I mean in this to the fact that the disposition of the letters is designed to be able to reuse graphics from one letter to another.

Something similar happened to me when I decided how the Labyrinth tiles would be made, at that time I could not decide whether to force the insertion of the alternative graphics for the large blocks or reserve that space for future improvements.



I'm sure more than one will hate me for the final decision

Sharp (#)
I'm still intrigued as I should pronounce your nickname, should I think of you as "Sharp" or "Hashtag"? (This question is not a joke) Anyway thanks for participating

[torridgristle]

In case you ever want to edit the font, I found the titles at 030A0A with a width of 16 and the continue screen at 7EDF7 with a width of 12, though the word actually starts at 07EE07 and the last 2 bytes on each line might be important. Replacing the font and re-entering the letters with a new CHR is pretty simple with YY's PRG Editor. It takes the BMPs of CHRs that YY-CHR outputs.



I don't really like it with the 8x16 font I posted, but it's functional with a full alphabet at the very least.

[sics]

 I am not familiar with PRG Editor, currently for this kind of work I use:
  ● DjinnMapper v1.5.0.0
  ● YY-CHR 0.99 (Mod sics)

Spoiler

^{Capture of the old version of the project.}

[close]

About editing, I originally wanted to use the source of the Megadrive version, but I came across a flaw that forced me to limit myself to making 16x15 designs, which is really a sadness.



Failure occurs because of what I gather is a bad implementation of a graphic trick, since by intentionally crashing the screen you can see how the mask layer exceeds its space by taking a sector of the second line of text.



At the time I tried to see if I could do something, but I only discovered these locations in the Ram:

000002 X axis of Mascara (Green Hill)
00034d X axis of Mascara (Zona X)
000003 Y axis of the real text
001003 Y axis of the real text (Of the values ​​with which I substituted this sector, $FF made it look correctly)



Small update, I managed to unlink the graphics from the "end level" screen of the level selector, now I can start to try more accurate graphics for this sector



And in other news * now the game gives you the possibility to continue after the GameOver, this thanks to the discovery of Blast - Forever 2 and the great contribution of Torridgristle who made this feature work again, I also managed to restore the music of this sector, so I can not be happier

Spoiler

*I always wanted to say that

[close]

[Redd]

Looking pretty good, keep it up! I also have a soft spot for this game as it was my first Sonic game too, so I approve of any attempts at fixing and improving it.

[capnkatie]

Oh, a continue screen now?! This is getting better by the minute! I honestly can't wait for it to be finished.