Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in 3D)

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Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in 3D)

Post by Scullibundo »

Not perfect, but pretty interesting.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Deef »

Holy shiz that is gorgeous to look at. Like, that openness, the sky, the terrain.... *gush*

And just when everyone is full of GHZ to the point of it coming out their eyeballs, that vid is just amazing at how well it channels ... not just Green Hill zone, but literally Sonic 1 Megadrive Green Hill zone. In particular, how the surrounded land is literally the background pixelated mountains from 1991. Same with the bushes, and the water. Really brilliant.

And then that openness and that terrain. That is literally exactly what I want. The terrain and curves is just wow. So much space. Such little forced direction. Ahhhhhhh......

Sega just give this guy half a million dollars and go with this. Release Mania, release this, then watch the whole world get confused because Sonic games are supposed to be s***.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by unfnknblvbl »

mmmm.... I'm not liking it. I mean, the graphics are cool and as are the sounds, but it's a bit too open-world to be Sonic, IMO. There doesn't seem to be any path to be following or even a goal. I honestly don't think there's a "right" way to do Sonic in 3D beyond "2.5D" style stuff. Every time Sega tries something new in 3D, they get lambasted (and rightly so).
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Deef »

Ah I disagree with you there. The absence of forced paths and the massive space is really a huge part of what nails it for me. I picture the 3D landscape being explored, or overlooked, in the same way we'd explore or overlook big parts of Launch Base or Mushroom Hill or whatever. You go to parts just because you want to see what fun is to be had and what other places there are to discover.

Of course I don't see that video and think yep that's a level, but I do think that crazy openness and actual accommodation for genuine speed -- speed that means what it actually means in reality, passing huge chunks of world as opposed to just consuming corridors faster -- is pretty much the ultimate thing to achieve. Every 3D Sonic game ever hasn't done that; afraid to just accept that speed means devouring chunks of unexplored content, and it's kinda crappy and patronising.

... Because Sonic games are all about not being patronising.....
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by BOOMY »

Yep, I think its a clever approach and one I'm surprised no one saw before i.e. Sonic in 3d should be like a skating game - momentum and ''pulling things off'' are the order of the day.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Madmya »

Very Sonic Jam-ish. I 100% agree with unfunk here, 3D sonic just doesn't work. This would be a massive fail. Sonic is just too fast to meaningfully control in three dimensions.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by unfnknblvbl »

It'd need a massive rethink of what Sonic is. Like with Mario's transition from 2D to 3D; Mario 64 is nothing like any of the previous Mario games in the slightest.
"Let's do Sonic exploring around!" doesn't work too well (although I did like Sonic Adventure quite a bit). "Let's do Sonic running ahead really fast in 3D!" also doesn't seem to work too well. A 2.5D thing like that Sonic 2 HD remake that was going around a while ago would be as perfect as it needs to be.

Weirdly, Super Mario Land 3D is a lot like Sonic 3D Blast, but it seems to work better for Mario's mechanics than Sonic's.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GeneraL CyberFunK »

Yeah that was a bit meh imo.
Sonic just isn't very good in open world terms.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GameHED »

This is exactly what I'd like in open world platformer using sonic's speed to explore.
But it could allow you to go into slow motion when needed and use the gyro controls to swish the camera around like the bullet time effect in the matrix movies to guide the attack against enemies. In splatoon you have the gyro aiming for quick look when in squid form, and that would be useful to see where you are going faster.

There would also be a minimap like a gta game or rpg so you can tell the direction of the goal and level indicator.to determine if you are underground, at ground level, or on platforms floating in the sky. So that way you also have ways of getting through areas by choosing to break walls open or spring boarding to find new areas that were hidden off the map.
Certain parts of the floor would be able to be drilled through based on how high you got into the air and speed of descent so that way you could break ground block to see more of the game the higher and faster you moved through the level. It'd be like the wario games where sonic uses weight to smash things but combined with speed.

Since sonic moves so fast you'd need slomo button like in mad max when using grappling hook. Otherwise the camera can't keep up. The problem of putting sonic in 3d is lack of precision with jumps but if you just play with the sizes of things you won't need as much precision and can focus on doing stuff at high speed while having more situational awareness. The ability to pull the camera all the way back should also be an option. This way you get to see things a little bit behind you that you missed as you pass them.

I think a metroid game needs to be done like open world exploration thing but you manually have ship control to fast travel like in an elder scrolls game. They can keep the graphics cartoony to allow high frame rate ie. Toyetic look to characters and objects.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GameHED »

About linear stuff: You just have mini objectives that are optional in a level to encourage replayayability like all the Mario games. The path you take to get there however should be up to you so that you might enter from above, below, on one of eight directions, to reach the hidden thing. But you never feel like it told you which direction was the right one. You got there by playing around with the environment and physics and based on the skill level of the player.

Think of the area as a giant theme park ride where you can jump off at any time to change what ride you wanted to go on. The objective is still telling you where to go but since the world is 3d, you get to choose the path based on the placement of the springs, platforms, breakable walls and floors, and items. In GTA games you see stunt ramps in random areas and this gives you hints. But you got to read the area as you explore to figure out the mystery of what the level wants you to do before you can get to the place requiring the speed to reach it. If you fail you try again and keep looking around until you've explored everything. The days of just running from left to right are over. It's 2016. 3d means levels can be the size of islands. The shortcuts you see in Mario kart are good examples of stunts you can do to get to places quickly because although they require skill to use them if you don't get the right angle, the consistent use of them can shave off a lot of time to get better result. That's what a 3d platformer needs to do: Reward you for using the shortcut but make you practice a lot to avoid the danger of using it at high speed where your turn rate is compromised a bit going too fast.

There should be a delicate balance where if you go too fast and lose control, that you miss the shortcut and hit a spike or hazard or fall off the ledge to die, in order to add danger to reckless person, ...but if you knew about the danger ahead of time and planned how you approached the shortcut, you can save time while still maintaining full speed. How you do that is foreknowledge of the theme park area plus knowledge of the physics, and skill to actually pull it off without dying.

To teach the player to do things fast, you add a timer for each mini objective just like how missions in the old 2d gta games required you to get to the phone booth in time to receive them and complete them. This forces players to get to know the streets/area properly to be better at moving around quickly. If you miss the time limit that is ok you just get a new miniobjective and use that failure as a learning experience for the next time until you get good enough. ( similar idea is in monster hunter where you won't kill anything if you are slow but you might still suceed in gaining knowledge of the creature's attack patterns or manage to take its tail off or break armor and keep those bits still even if you took too long. These bits are like trophies to you showing you could at least survive an encounter despite failing to hunt it)
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Scullibundo »

I'm on the same page as Dan.

Sonic was always about exploring, but using the physics system to play around to get up to certain areas or maximise your speed.

This demo shows a sliver of the possibility. There's no goal in this demo, but there is most certainly promise once the actual levels/badniks etc are fleshed out.

PS: You can download the demo here: http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/PC0/Soni ... 016521.rar" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's apparently pretty raw, but I'm downloading it now. :)
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GameHED »

The demo could have used more sloped surfaces to demonstrate the effect of gravity when rolled into a ball. Mario is all about flat ground, sonic is about those uneven platforms and cancelling the momentum to avoid falling, change trajectory and stay on a platform that moved as you were trying to land. As long as levels are fun and we feel a sense of control over the action, then it's going in the right direction. Sonic Adventure on DC was too on-rails and unlike Mario 64 wasn't taking advantage of the fun of exploring the world you ran in to give you that sense of wonder you had as a little toddler trying all kinds of crazy shit to see what would happen. Open world level just needs more signposting to draw your eyes away from insignificant parts of the map to keep the player focused on the important thing and that can be done with natural barriers to give a linear feel to the game.
Being open world doesn't have to mean, you let the player go anywhere they wish. You can still block them in various ways without causing confusion. It's a myth that letting people walk in any direction means the game can't feel linear if it wants to.
Many non-linear stuff in Mario World on SNES involves solving puzzles by back tracking in the level, and that is a linear game in the sense that you do a level and move to another. Are you going to say in 2016 you can't make an open world title that feels linear? (ie do the reverse?)

I don't know if I believe that. It's all about design imo. Not whether technology itself allows it. Star Fox games had 3d graphics but as you can see, you were still linear and restricted to move in one line. Just because nintendo could have chose to let you fly in any direction as a game design decision, with mission objectives like a Desert Strike game, doesn't mean they had to simply because tech allowed for it. (ie like pilotwings)
The idea that you can change direction scares people for some reason. That is like getting scared that in Mario World you can backtrack to open secret areas to find places off the beaten path on the world map.
Old GTA games that had 2D worlds were open world but objectives had strict requirements to make it feel like the player had to keep to the best path to get to places on time even IF they could choose any direction they wanted. Just because you CAN go in whatever direction you want doesn't mean you will. Because as you get better you learn to take the path which leads the quickest through the area. Same with games like Project Silpheed where time limit forces you to stay focused even if you can fly anywhere in the battlefield. You aren't going to do it if you are trying to play properly. The design of the map (drawing attention to important things to direct the player) and signposting can guide you enough so that the game doesn't have to take control of the camera from you like in Sonic Adventure and remove you from the driver's seat. That was the annoying thing about sonic being in 3D. We don't need that anymore.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Deef »

I'm surprised you all write it off so readily. Sure you're not being influenced by all the bad examples we have, rather than it being a broken concept?

And does that mean then that you guys don't actually look forward to a good 3D Sonic? I'd actually be a bit bored of the franchise if that were the case.

I'd say there are plenty of reasons to feel that the concept is fine, Sonic Adventure being one of them. It had lots of problems but was on the right track. Sonic Jam was slow, didn't involve physics, but was nice. Metroid Prime has really nice control when in the morph ball. Lots of things like that already show the potential for old Sonic-esque play in 3D. Utopia only turns that up louder.

If speed has you worried I'd say that you're imagining too much of it, and would ask why you are. Sonic works best when speed decidedly isn't the focus. Challenges in some areas of design don't just delete potential imo. You can't match 2D ease of play of course; as with every 3D transition things get sacrificed, but to the point of "massively rethinking" what Sonic is? Bit extreme I reckon. I certainly don't get the assumption that the challenges are so large that good design can't be found and shouldn't be attempted. It's not like we've seen many good tries.

Where Boomy refers to Utopia as a clever approach, I'm more inclined to say wasn't it always the really obvious approach? I thought everyone had been looking forward to something like Utopia's level design; turns out I was wrong.

Random screens that I like:
Image

Image


As for the demo itself, it's very good but there definitely are issues. Control is certainly one of them, too sensitive sometimes, not sensitive enough at other times. I think he (the creator) needs to work towards the reduced sensitivity direction as speed picks up, and give the player more ways to understand and accept it. Drifting, for example, might be worth considering. Anyway I won't fill this up with any more back seat designing.

Also with the controls, the way he's done things it is more effective to steer with the camera than with Sonic. Bit derp and annoying.

Speaking of annoying, the camera itself has only the minimum intelligence built in and that gets in the way a lot. I assume this is just a demo thing, but the fact that you do often need to control the camera manually is a pain. Especially since it controls with the same thumb you jump and peel out with. I think mean thoughts about any developer who makes the right stick and the right button both main controls (looking at you console Minecraft). >:[ Could've at least put the camera on the triggers, unfortunately even Unity's options don't let you do that. -_-

The sad thing is that it works fine with the mouse. That is probably how the above video made it look so good. But playing Sonic with FPS controls just aint right.

One thing the camera does do nicely, and this is actually pretty good and visible in the Youtube clip, is immediately orient itself to any non-flat terrain. It gives a great effect; looks cool even when you're viewing Sonic side on.

Back to control, a particularly big downer is that there just isn't any form of natural acceleration down slopes. Now that definitely sounds worse than it turns out to be (but it is pretty damn bad to have missing) because it actually works fine while you're running or rolling and I didn't notice until explicitly checking. The problem is that you can stand still+ on pretty much anything that's not a wall, and there's just no gravity-only running/rolling/tumbling down sloped terrain. Really sad. As I mentioned, it works properly when you're running and rolling; acceleration due to sloped terrain does actually work properly. Just... not when you're not also pushing Sonic.

OH MY GOD HE SKIDS FIRE!! <--- Sorry this is just where the cursor was when I noticed. ^-^

More bagging out the controls.

Rolling is a mixed bag because basically it gets the buttons wrong. Actually it gets one thing totally right. DOWN is a button. You crouch with the button, you roll with it, you crouch then hammer jump to spin dash, the way things should be. Good. But when rolling, you break out of it automatically, and you have to push it instead of the motion taking over. Both of these things aren't what rolling's about, which is being trapped in this mode where nature has more control than you do. I'm guessing both of those issues are to hide the lack of natural motion down slopes. Real shame.

Now I said it's a mixed bag because the download comes with these cute tutorial PNGs that really talk like someone knows what to do with Sonic control. He explicitly points out the whole acceleration difference between running and rolling; use rolling to accelerate faster downhill. Wut. Nailed. That's such a big deal and literally no Sonic game bothers to get that right, but here it is. And suddenly rolling in Sonic Utopia is actually a thing. Suddenly you're keeping an eye out for good places to roll, and suddenly you're getting more speed than you were able to get before because physics, and just to reiterate... you're looking good for places to roll. Holy crap I'm playing a Sonic game. Oh my god. As soon as I realised this, done. Sold. It's interesting that some things are wrong and they sound pretty damn significant, but then this thing works and the experience suddenly turned completely legitimate for me. He just needs to find a solution to the sensitivity issues, and code some brains into the camera.

Oh and those random bits of terrain that wind like a horizontal 'S' (see pics below); I thought they were just for show. Nope, actually they're a fantastic way to offer the player a chance to build some speed, if they're skilled enough, while barely affecting the current path. They look cool, they give you speed but not for free, they're easy to ignore if you don't want to bother... really good idea and addition. In fact those bits of terrain alone really speak for the game. Other 3D Sonics haven't been tight enough to just drop some little pieces of twisty terrain in and go "There, gain some speed off it".

You also can roll for literally ever in a straight line for some reason -- it takes an age to calm down if you only push forward -- but that doesn't really strike me as good or bad.

Going back to the button controls for rolling, since it actually works and accelerates like it should, it's even more of a shame that rolling just unrolls whenever you want. Because it means that you can simply go snap off, snap on, snap off rolling as you switch from upwards to downwards to upwards terrain. Bit quicktime-event-ish, bit cheap, and yeah the whole thing about rolling is meant to be that in return for its perks you have to commit to it a bit.

More paragraphs...

Utopia gets speed right. You might feel it's a bit too slow at first; probably the first sign it's doing things right. But it gets faster, and it gets faster when you start playing in a way that actually looks after your speed. Then you get moments of "Awesome, I got this high". It's such a cliche when talking about Sonic but the whole speed as a reward thing... you forget how right that is and how nice it feels in a game until you're in something new, once again struggling to connect paths, forgetting to roll, feeling like everything is too slow. But then you get that high speed, and the resulting slightly deeper audio in Sonic's footsteps as he runs with the figure 8 animation... that's satisfying. And yep, if you're going real fast then hit the brakes, he skids fire instead of smoke. That was cool. :D

Yes the peel out is in, again feeling kind of underpowered and again probably a sign that it's Doing It Right. Let the peel out charge to its max and it will give you more speed than you were going to generate without it. It just doesn't grant you all that speed quickly. Wait for the audio cue to go a little higher than what initially sounds like it's max. There are a lot of things like that where fans have kind of been saying "Do it this way" for years, and now this guy has, and hey it works. The peel out is fine and good to have in.

Along those exact same lines, a nice thing about the peel out is that you can do it anywhere, be it land, sea, or air, running, rolling, standing, anywhere. That sounds exactly like something I'd criticise, but it's fine simply because the move itself isn't overpowered. And, it looks really cute and cool. You can jump off a cliff, turn around, begin the peel out, hit the ground, and Sonic will slide backwards a bit while doing the animation and it's just cool.

Level design-wise I could pick at things, but I don't look at Utopia as more than a tech demo anyway. There are maybe too many flat spaces, but at the same time, who knows what else could be put in them, or what game mechanics might be in play that make the player crave such spaces. That said, a few more small dips and bumps would have been nice, because the slope jumps do work fine and I find there to be a strangely high number of platforms that are just a liiiiittle too high to jump on. If it were a final demo I'd say that has to be fixed, because it just trolls the player. Whenever I came across one I would check the nearby terrain, but indeed, no sloped aids anywhere.

I have no idea how people find the openness off-putting. It is just so good. Speed actually has meaning. And the way you can just see forever, but none of it is out of bounds... it's literally a good long run away... really fun. It sounds so common to express wonderment at how huge a map is, but yeah, really, damn it's so huge! It's just hard to believe. It's not GTA, it's not Skyrim, this isn't an open world game, it's just one level. But it's like that whole problem of "How do I deal with Sonic's speed because it demands just too much content" has simply been completely ignored. No chunks of level floating in space because it's easier on the GPU. No long corridors of speed because it would demand too much level to be designed otherwise. None of that. Just a big, fat, massive level with playful terrain everywhere, and if you go flying past 90% of it then you go flying past 90% of and that's great. Come back and explore it later, meanwhile the zone just goes on and on and on. Sure GTA V et al have a bigger map of course, but it's not the same. This level just feels like it hasn't been done before, to me anyway. It's just one playground, but it's massive. It's so big that I plain assumed it didn't have a goal. I thought it was just a runaround.

What else is so great about that is that feeling when you look at a place and wonder how you get there. No such thing in any other 3D Sonic really; everything is so localised. But in Sonic Utopia there are plenty of "How do I cross that water?", "How do I get on the other side of this drop?", and "How do I get up there?"s. Speed might have something to do it with mabes. There's one path I've failed to get to a few times. I see it, I look for its origin, I can't see it; it's just miles away. ISo set off on this mini journey along the side of a path I can't get to, just to try to find where it starts. That is cool.

And mainly, I do love how you come back to play it again, and just get lost, again. There's an underground cave, sort of made of flat crystal. It echoes. No idea how I get there again. There's a bridge that leads to an area that rather dense with trees. Only seen it once. There's a place with underground corridors that go up and down underground hills, a few connecting together. Again, no clue. It's just another thing that surprises you in how it channels the originals when you didn't expect it. You play the level... it's not instantly memorised; there's too much of it. I like that I'm waiting for my memory to catch up.

I just love how soon after the start you don't even know which way is forward. Yes there are definitely issues with that; players need some direction and all, but if people are finding fault with this and not seeing how much cool is in there... just wow.

And yeah there is actually an ending. Once I figure out how to get there and can remember the while, I'll give it a rough time.

This has turned rather positive, sorry. So to finish off with a few more, the badniks are just great. They sound really cool, look great, and pretty much like the 2D classics they're just "around", being only a slight annoyance. It might look like they're too sparse, or too far away at all times, but actually they go for you to just the right degree it seems. It's fun to worry about a Buzz Bomber overhead, and Newtrons home in on you... that's pretty cool. It's unfortunate that the badniks appear to be so sparse, because honestly their balance is unexpectedly spot on. The badniks in Utopia's Green Hill are actually more fun than the badniks in Sonic 1's Green Hill.

And just because it's worth the repeat, their audio is actually fun.

The homing attack is in, but with no visual acknowledgement whatsoever. I like that, but at the same time the lack of the visual cue definitely does hurt control.

Overall, control needs work, camera needs work, hopefully Lange & Fox don't just lean on the mouse too much. It would be very nice if hands-free acceleration was put in like it should be, and if rolling stayed rolling so it actually made you commit.

But as imperfect as the controls and camera are, this definitely had more highs than lows, and the highs were very very right. The big take home highlights are that speed-as-a-reward is in there, and is totally legit and satisfying. Physics-with-rolling is in there, good. The terrain is playful like at least some fans have been hanging out for, and expansive like wtf r u 4 real. Such a big, satisfying Sonic playground.

Already I've gotten into its flow to an extent, controlling my direction to conserve speed, picking when to roll, looking far ahead for the next move, and being flung higher into the air than expected while noticing how much I enjoyed that. That's a big point here. It is played like a good Sonic level... you connect runs and attacks and keep the speed up, it works. It feels weird that you're inhaling such massive amounts of level as you fly past, but it actually handles it by delivering a level that way bigger than anyone would think it to be. It really does just take the Sonic problem of speed + non-linearity and say "Fine, here's a freaking big level".

So yeah, there's definitely a lot of good in there. It probably won't happen but with a few improvements to controls and level direction, and some more stuff to go in all that space, with a real team and budget this would easily be the 3D Sonic to put the franchise in a good place. But yes, unlikely. :(

Back to it. I want to find that place with all the trees again; hadn't finished exploring that bit.
Last edited by Deef on 29 Oct 2016 12:05 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

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I hope my ramble isn't as bad as ... other rambles.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Deef »

Oh man and the wall running is also so right, especially with the way the camera does that thing. When you're in a confined space, it opens the game up to make you look at the walls, wondering if you can find a way to connect. Once you do it's suddenly "Whoa look at all these other places I can go." It's so classic but has more potential than even the classics. It's not used enough in this already. It's a great way to hide secrets... just put a quarter pipe wayyyy back. So easy to miss all the places you can run from it.

And the music is really nice too.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by unfnknblvbl »

Wow, so much text, I thought it was a GameHED post.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

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There's a huge easter egg in there too, which I won't spoil (I saw it on Youtube). I don't know where it is, but you'll know it if you find it.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Deef »

If you can find this you're on the right track to it:

Image

I actually found the back way first, since it had been spoilt a bit for me so I thought I knew what to aim for. The back way involves a frustrating landing with the perspective and all, so it might be more unlikely to discover, but then again it's actually the more visible approach. You can see something you want to get to and explore until you find a way. The front way in is much easier to access, but way easier to miss also.

There is one place on the way that can soft block you, which is a bit of a shame considering the quality of the rest of the level. They said it's only a test level anyway.
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by Madmya »

TL;DR all of it.

I'm pretty sure we've all dreamed of a good and proper open world 3D Sonic, but over the years I've realised just how hard it is to accomplish. We're not hedgehogs, we just can't control Sonic the way you're supposed to in 3D space. For example, how can you meaningfully ever put him into a ball in 3D? Controlling him at that point is far too difficult. Sonic Adventure, whilst good, simply isn't as good as the 2D sonics and they implemented ways to try and incorporate controls over his speed (i.e. homing jump and scenes where you're barely in control of him). I lamented those controls (on his movement) in the past but I think they were for the best in hindsight.

The only other way I can see him working in a 3D space is to slow him right down and only allow speed after substantial momentum is gathered.
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GeneraL CyberFunK
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GeneraL CyberFunK »

Played it.. Felt sparse and hard to control. Wasn't as bad as I thought though.
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BOOMY
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by BOOMY »

Can't get onto the dropbox to get the demo myself. Does anyone have a direct link?
The only other way I can see him working in a 3D space is to slow him right down and only allow speed after substantial momentum is gathered.
This is similar to what I was trying to describe by saying it should play like a skating game. Experimentation, exploration and pushing the limits of physics using momentum.
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GameHED
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Re: Sonic Utopia fan game trailer (Classic Sonic gameplay in

Post by GameHED »

The slopes need to be more like 3d ones like mario kart 8 style. Where the inside of the turn is lower altitude and the outside is higher altitude, pulling you towards the inside through gravity if you go on an outisde lane.

This way if you go into a ball, you will turn towards the low part of the slope, unless you are going so fast you fall off the ledge.
This is where judging the speed comes into play: too much speed mean less chance of turning quick enough to stay on the platforms, but going too slow means you get less coins/rings. The rings go to places that require more risk of death.

Spikes on the bottom of ledges add danger so that it teaches you how to control him by going at just the right speed without falling out of the bounds. (just like in any sport where if you do something with too much force you might miss, and if you use too little force you miss. Knowing the physics = better control over where you end up.)

When you think of the 2d loop de loops in 2d games, you think of rollercoasters. 3D sonic should be like Nascar type thing where the faster you go, the increased chance you smash into walls, fall off the ledge and have to go back to try again, or die etc. But the speed if you can handle it, gets you better times. fans of snowboarding games will understand. A bump could ruin your trajectory and send you flying off course so how you approach that bump and the angle you bump off of it can mean the difference between death and getting better time. (gravity will always pull you down, but those bumps are 3d ramps that change where you will go as you fall down)
It's all about putting in just enough chaos and danger without affecting freedom. (getting higher lets you see stuff you can't see if you don't have the speed, but if you fail to get there the first attempt, you can run back to where you need to try again - in other words it should not be scripted in such a way like in previuos 3d games where it's one way trip and you can never go back. It should be like a Metroid game where if you have skill you can try to do something using skill and backtrack to that spot to keep retrying)
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." -Shigeru Miyamoto
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