Still SA 2 and RUSH 1&2

I will submit those graphic data to sonic retro to have further breakdown  i love sonic drama  thanks for the info.

a) You'll note that I didn't mention those.

b) Those images were posted by an oldbie from Sonic Retro.

It's all pretty annoying, really. I'll wait until the game's released to see if I have to be connected 24/7 even to play single-player. If that's the case I personally won't buy it.

Nah, although EA went that route with Command and Conquer 4. Blizzard has stated that you can play StarCraft 2 single player offline. You'll give up some stuff like syncing your saved games online and probably achievements, but that's not really a big deal.

The 3 'episodes' thing is gonna backfire on them hard.

Do tell. Instead of releasing just one standalone expansion, they're releasing two. With an entire game's worth of single player missions, several new multiplayer units, and so on and so forth!

The casuals will be pissed that they get 1/3 of the storyline

Not happening.

the hardcore couldn't care less and will only buy the 1st.

Hardcore players, by very definition, will purchase all three titles.

I see this whole "episode" business more as charging extra money for something that's really a natural development that's been happening as long as games have existed.

They haven't actually said what the price point for each installment will be, plus they're adding microtransactions to battle.net for mods and things. How do you know it'll cost more than a normal expansion?

[mindless speedfest]

Found a copy of the video



Just as I was about to say to myself "looks alright actually", sonic stuck to the wall like his shoes are covered in glue, just like in Sonic Rush. So while it's a shame about that, I'm happy to be able to complain about something.

Somewhat similar behavior can be found in the classic Sonic games. Although yes, it does look bad with the way they've got the sprite rotating now.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=13648873&postcount=1036
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=13648929&postcount=1039

Found a copy of the video

Whoever is playing that is a really horrible Sonic player, I cringed throughout the entire video.

That being said, the game actually looks pretty damn good, I think Sonic is suited best in 2D. Hopefully it plays as good as it looks, but I am sure it'll be good coming from the same team that made the Advance and Rush games, which were arguably the best mindless speedfest Sonic games of the last decade.

Fixed 

Sonic Advance 1 wasn't really a speedfest, nor was Advance 3.

RubyEclipse, the PR guy who makes the Sonic posts on SEGA's blog, has sated that the animation shown in the trailer was not Sonic's fastest speed. Expect the fastest speed to look more like something from Sonic 3 & Knuckles or Sonic CD.

source


(I suspect the reason it wasn't shown in the trailer was because (a) What was shown in the trailer looks a lot like a mockup, not actual gameplay, and (b) Sonic doesn't use the running with circle legs animation on corkscrews.)

What was "Charles Barkley: Shut Up and Jam, Gaiden" a fan game of? I was under the impression that it was original IP that just parodied everything.

The sonic cycle is not ending  
http://intheshadeofawave.blogspot.com/2010/02/sonic-4.html
 

That guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

- He claimed the game was Sonic Rivals. What he is basing this claim on is a mystery.

- He complained that SEGA showed classic art and level elements in 3D. Not that it's been 20 years since those graphics were first released. Not that other games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii don't get away with it and pull it off brilliantly.

- The game uses a modified Sonic Unleashed model (which was in itself a redesign, and more like classic Sonic than any model they've used since Sonic Adventure). The modifications made were to make the model look even more like classic Sonic; it's a darker blue than in Unleashed for starters.

- He complained that the badnicks were shown right next to each other, even though they wouldn't have been in the proper zone. I'm not even sure how to respond to that claim; it doesn't make sense. Those are two of the classic badnicks they've retained? Makes sense to show them next to the classic games and the renovated classic-like level?

- He claimed that because the first level looks like Green Hill Zone, the rest of the game will be creatively bankrupt. Never mind that the Zone is named "Splash Hill Zone", which indicates an environmental element neither of the first two games had in their starting zone.

All this is typically known as "missing the point." Every element of that trailer was crafted purposefully to convey the message that SEGA was going back to the old formula; that this was going to be an actual return to form after years of neglect.

The purpose of the first act is to get in the player's face and convince them that they're playing classic Sonic. Make no mistake, a lot of thought went into this.

Note that the older Sonic games could be buzzed through in an hour or two; notably shorter than most modern games. I'm guessing that's why SEGA went with the episodic format, people would complain that it was too short otherwise.

I mentioned the HL2 episodes because Valve has specifically stated that having that development model helped them a lot with figuring out what works. Note also how Left4Dead 2 was also notably better than the original. (Valve betrayed us, whine, etc.)

I don't care how long it takes SEGA between episodes. Sonic & Knuckles was released sixteen years ago. They don't to get it done now, they need to get it done right.

I did feel a bit of a pang of apprehension at the mention of "Episode 1", but... we'll see.

Episodic is good. Heck, Sonic 3 had two episodes. Having a delay between releases means that SEGA can listen to feedback and improve in subsequent episodes. It worked for Valve with the Half-Life 2 episodes.

The new PoP had great graphics and fundamentally solid gameplay that was marred by some seriously bad design decisions (namely utter lack of challenge).

I just beat the game and I wouldn't have minded the lack of challenge if they did it right. Meaning, if the combat was so flawed, I wouldn't mind being able to not die. With that said, I say that PoP has the best 3D platforming I've ever played.

I thought it was challenging. I mean, I died a lot. Almost all of those deaths were related to the horrible combat system in some way, but yeah...

I don't get why everyone says the platforming is so great. I mean, it's a lot of fun, but the character doesn't feel as responsive or the movement as visceral as in, say, Rayman 2 or a Mario game.

Hey, you just made IndieGames.com. Congrads!  

[Grid-based selection system]

I came up with a bunch of random one-button games and control schemes I wanted to try before settling on one to run with. I'm sure other people did too. I'm never going to get around to making most of mine, so I figured I'd dump a few here. Feel free to grab something and run with it, or post your own ideas. 

Some of this is might be obvious, but we've all been working in isolation (more or less), so I have no idea.

Grid-based selection system
I've been thinking about how an advance-wars style game would work with it. You'd basically have a 2x2 grid covering the screen, with one tap switching which quadrant is selected. Holding the button would bring up another 2x2 grid within the selected area of the larger grid. This smaller grid would be a 1:1 mapping to the on-screen tiles in that quadrant, tapping the button to switch between the four panes and a button hold to select a unit. Then the whole process would repeat to place the unit in a new location. For minimizing button presses, quadrants out of range of the unit would be grayed out and not selectable.

Puzzle cube game
Have a cube with a 3x3 (4x4? 5x5?) grid on each side. It rotates around the X-axis along a row of the grid. Button causes a colored marble to be put on the grid and for the cube to be rotated 90 degrees and move along the intersecting row on the grid. The colored marbles would be placed in sequence as shown in a "next piece" type thing on the side of the screen. The objective is to make matches of colors as large as possible. A match of three (four? five?) could be automatically removed from the grid and scored. Or a match could be scored when you drop another marble on top of an existing one.

If we really wanted to make things interesting, we could change the marbles to cubes and allow the player to stack them on top of each other.

If it's too hard to make matches of marbles, we could just have a dominant color per side of the cube and you'd get points for how many marbles of a color you got on a side. Maybe each side could have a "goal" color and the player has to get 20 marbles of that color per side.

Might need a max time limit before the marble would be automatically placed.

I guess the rotating cube idea is somewhat inspired by this: http://store.steampowered.com/app/37800/

I haven't played it. There's also a flash game where you're rotating a cube with stuff on it. I forget exactly what it was called or what the objective was.

Game: Spider Skydiver
Vertically scrolling game. There's a spider falling from the sky, leaving a trail of silk behind her. Pressing and holding the button causes the spider to stop letting out silk, causing her to swing back and forth. Releasing the button would cause the spider to use the momentum from the swing to move in the direction she was swinging. There would be a series of pegs placed randomly. If the silk touches a peg, it would stick to it. Some of the pegs would give points if you passed to the right or left of them. Miss enough of these pegs and you would get a game over.

We are going to have so many interesting new one button game mechanics and control schemes to iterate off. I've got like three one button games designed that I haven't even started developing yet, and everyone will no doubt get more ideas as they play through the entries.

His name is Thunder Dragon
He also made this game
http://www.mfgg.net/index.php?act=resdb&param=02&c=2&id=12431

People! People! Toad Strikes Back! Ignore the stupid name. Play this thing. Now! It's not very much like Super Mario at all, but that doesn't matter. Easily the best platformer I've played since RunMan: Race Around the World.

This bodes extremely well for Physco Waluigi.

Neat artstyle. Flying was kinda fun. But boosting was a bit of a pain. Echoing the people who would have liked some indication of the current direction aside from motion.

I didn't realize that I could catch rain until late in the game. I thought I was getting bonuses for killing a lot of cloud really quickly or something. (I think I was actually collecting newly formed raindrops before they fell out of the cloud.)

[Cyber Ninja Arena]

I have a name. Could ya'll take a look at it?

Cyber Ninja Arena

It's for a multiplayer arena shooter type game, like Geometry Wars. But with lightning swords mounted on the spacecraft and arcs of pure energy dancing from ship to ship, annihilating everything in their path!

It was originally about a ninja-based dungeon-crawling Zelda-clone. But then multiple rooms were removed, making it an arena. Then everything went all neon and wireframey, earning it the title of cyber.

How does?...

But what?...

Huh. I can think of a single possible control scheme which might work for that, a grid-based system. Either that or something sorta similar Herzog Zwei?

Very nice. Feels extremely visceral, despite limited interaction. If I'm only clicking once every twenty seconds or so, I want that click to mean something!

I had to restart the first tutorial screen a few times because I didn't notice the counter at the bottom. Might want to point that out with an arrow or something.

The third tutorial screen took me several restarts.

Five square was easy.

One for Each was reasonably challenging; probably the best level. It's all like "Hey, you thought the previous levels were neat? Tons more where they came from."

The one before that, with the explosives, also took me a while.

Got Now Try This in one move.

I didn't make it! Go on without me... You can make it... *cough* *cough*

*Dies dramatically*

(I'll take my time and finish Cyber Ninja Arena later. When it's more polished. And actually playable. )

Another question:

Per the rules, the entire session must be 5 minutes, including intro.  Originally I thought we could have the game reset to the title screen and start from when the button is pressed, but it sounds like the timer must always be going.

Doesn't this mean someone may want to play while the game is in the middle of its timer loop?  Or do we assume someone will reset it for them?

That doesn't sound like the same rules I read. Just start the timer when the button is pressed at the title screen.

Looks highly excellent. Amazing what one can do with a week. 

In a startling turn of events, I was abandoned by my partner. Deep within the technical workings of my game engine, I came to the realization that I could not complete both the game and the engine by the deadline. Oh, and classes have started. But I will submit something! By cutting a lot of corners! And using Game Maker(tm)!
It's rather depressing how quickly I was able to recreate what I had in Game Maker, actually. I probably should have switched before the last week.

Behold multimedia material! Although you cannot see it, there's almost actual gameplay there. The player controls rather nicely. Guard AI is about halfway functional. Were there a wall in the level, with the guard on one side and the player on another, the guard would be unable to see the player!

It needs to bake a lot more than a week to really live up to the "simple" concept we originally designed. I'll submit because it's still a nifty concept I've spent time on, but I look forward to getting shown up by everyone else.