SAGE 2023 - Demo Sonic Aether

No link under downloads, it lists a zip archive but there's nothing I can click on...

AortaPlatinum said:

No link under downloads, it lists a zip archive but there's nothing I can click on...

Click to expand...

Thanks, I added a google drive download link

few points of criticism:

squash and stretch is a little extreme, especially for landing. i'd make it snappier if you're including it.

i'd recommend having multiple sounds that are selected randomly for actions, think how in sa2 when you homing attack there are several voice clips that can play like a "hah!" or a "hu-!", it just gives a lot more variety instead of the same sound playing repeatedly.

sonic's air dash feels kind of useless? it should send you a bit further just a bit faster i think.

rail switching didn't seem to work for me at all, but i noticed in the video you didn't fix the issue where switching rails brings you to a complete stop, sonic should continue moving forward whilst switching rails.

when you glide into an enemy as knuckles, gravity returns to normal as if you aren't gliding which i assume isn't intentional.

love the game but i want to see knucks climbing abaity thats all

This was one of the fan games I was particularly excited to try, but... Well, I have a few problems. Rather than beating around the bush, let's get into my notes here:

- = Con
* = Neutral
+ = Pro

* Overall, presentation is decent for an early-dev game -- decent. I'd volunteer personally to help replace the odd-looking logos and UI elements, if you need a graphic designer's help.

- No real support for Xbox controllers. Hm. Thankfully this is able to be worked around somewhat by launching the game through Steam, but it's still bothersome as I don't own any PS4 controllers and don't wish to use Keyboard/Mouse controls.

- Options are a bit bare. From what I can tell there's not really any way to control whether or not the game is fullscreen, and you can't disable some of the more noisy visual effects. You also can't adjust the specific volumes of the game, eg. voice clips, music, etc.

- Voice Acting for the character select screen needs some work. The recording quality is far too low and the announcer sounds like he's shout-whispering. I'd advise the use of CastingCallClub if you need to find a voice actor or two and don't have a budget. Plenty of amateur voice actors would love to help.

* Alt costume choices are strange. This isn't a negative, really. I just found them odd.

- Physics are completely broken at framerates higher than 60fps. Not a single character jumps high enough to clear most obstacles and the movement speed seems wrong too. I couldn't even beat the first stage if I wanted to.

- Certain animations are also broken at higher than 60fps.
eg. Tails' tailswipe is too fast for the hitbox from what I can tell, and freezes for a few frames after the animation is complete before returning to regular animations.

+ Visuals are great. I prefer the Windy Hill background to the AI artwork you wanted to use, if I'm honest.

* Squash and stretch looks goofy. Too fast, maybe? Try using some ease frames.

It'd feel wrong to rate the demo considering I couldn't finish it, but if I had to, I'd rate it a solid 5/10. Foundations are there, but there are some oversights and bugs and outright bad choices being made here.

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