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Fan Game Sonic Totem V2 - @SAGE 2021!

fireW00ds

Green Hill Zone
Sep 28, 2018
4
3
13
32
Hey everyone! Around a year ago (Inspired by Sonic Mania, but mainly driven by my desire to code more), I decided to start learning C# through making a game in Unity. Sonic Mania was just about to launch, and I'd previously dreamed up ideas for my own Sonic games so I thought it was time to put them into action.

So I've taken a stab at my first attempt at designing a game demo. It's called Sonic Totem; Dr Eggman has learned of the Catastrophe Totems, devices of legend that are rumoured to have powers over the forces of nature. After hunting down the Control Totem in the game's opening zone, it's up to Sonic to find the other Totems before Eggman, prevent him building the Egg Totem and avert an environmental disaster.

The game has 2 zones as of the minute. The first, Firewood Forest, is pretty much finished and contains a Boss Fight. The second, Frozen Fjord, is still unfinished although has had a lot of work. I know it's not perfect - It's one of those age-old coding problems of "If I'd known what I know now, I would have approached it differently", and the other fact that for every one thing you manage to fix, you break five others.

This is a spare-time endeavour, but my main priorities if I get time is to tighten up the Physics before developing more stages etc. I'm not 100% happy with the spindash, and I'm aware that a years worth of trial-and-error coding in the character controller script has left many untidy obsolete variables and tidbits that should probably be removed. I've done all of the scripting independently, and all of the stage/concept art was created by me. This is my first time coding anything like this... so.. please be kind haha. If people think the project has potential, I'll be more encouraged to go back and work on it.

The trailer is here:


And full gameplay videos of the zones can also be found on my youtube channel. You can download the demo for mac or windows here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gqzv4wwf751sv10/AAAX28wCxhf-TKmOF4nDzHD0a?dl=0

I look forward to hearing your opinions!
 
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Prancer

some guy
Jan 29, 2018
26
16
23
20
somewhere
This looks really good, and although I can't get the demo at this moment, I feel like this would be the next Sonic Before/After the Sequel.
 
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WizToad

Marble Zone
Apr 13, 2018
35
24
88
UK
Hey dude! Your fangame looks really cool so far but I'm having a bit of trouble getting the demo working. Whenever I try to open the .exe file, it comes up with an error saying it's missing UnityPlayer.dll or something like that. I tried running the game using a different version of the .dll file that I found from another Unity game that's working for me. But even then the game still comes up with an error. Is there any way to fix this?
 

fireW00ds

Green Hill Zone
Sep 28, 2018
4
3
13
32
Hey dude! Your fangame looks really cool so far but I'm having a bit of trouble getting the demo working. Whenever I try to open the .exe file, it comes up with an error saying it's missing UnityPlayer.dll or something like that. I tried running the game using a different version of the .dll file that I found from another Unity game that's working for me. But even then the game still comes up with an error. Is there any way to fix this?
Oh! I wasn't aware of this - thanks for bringing it to my attention! Building it in Windows must create a neccessary .dll file that I bet is sitting on my desktop right now and I must have forgotten it during the upload. Im currently away from my main PC but I've rebuilt the demo where I currently am and as of now the WINDOWS directory should have the relevant .dll file needed to run the game.

If you could try redownloading the package I'm confident that it should work now - but if not please let me know! :)
And above all else, thanks for downloading the demo either way :)
 

PM13

Shameless Recolor
Feb 25, 2018
80
79
128
Just gave this a playthrough. Overall I like it! The artwork is gorgeous. I found myself stopping often to admire the movement of the trees in the first zone. The physics felt a bit... odd to me, but they weren't awful. I was getting several "development console" error messages, but the game ran just fine. I put the "output_log.txt" here if you wanted to take a look.

A work in progress, but an absolute joy to play! Keep it up!
 
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fireW00ds

Green Hill Zone
Sep 28, 2018
4
3
13
32
Just gave this a playthrough. Overall I like it! The artwork is gorgeous. I found myself stopping often to admire the movement of the trees in the first zone. The physics felt a bit... odd to me, but they weren't awful. I was getting several "development console" error messages, but the game ran just fine. I put the "output_log.txt" here if you wanted to take a look.

A work in progress, but an absolute joy to play! Keep it up!
Thank you so much for the kind feedback! For sure the Physics is one of the first things I'm going to try and refine when I go back to it, and cheers for the output log - I've got a fair bit of untidy code that needs cleaned up :emoji_disappointed_relieved:. Really glad to hear that you like the aesthetics!
 

Twins'R'Awesome

Green Hill Zone
Aug 23, 2018
20
11
18
23
>looks really good
>looks nice

ACTUALLY IT LOOKS LIKE TRASH

Lemme explain...

First off, You need to know some BASIC pixel art stuff.
There's no sensible light source
No parallax
EVERYTHING IS DITHERED TO DEATH AND IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD
pillow shading, horrible contours, banding,
it just looks way too busy
and it doesn't look good.

And the physics are JUST. TRASH. It either feels too heavy, or too janky, it wasn't fun to play, and the fact I had trouble going up something that should've been easier to do in a regular classic sonic game is a problem.

In fact, there's already a GOOD Sonic Engine for Unity out there that would've facilitated development a lot better than just making your own engine from scratch. Granted, you were pretty bold to make your own engine in the first place, but bottom line, this wasn't very good to look at, nor fun to play.

Tips:

Look up some pixel art tutorials to fix the art with
Try using the current Sonic engine for Unity (Sonic Realms) or go use the Sonic Physics Guide for your engine http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Physics_Guide

That is all.
 

fireW00ds

Green Hill Zone
Sep 28, 2018
4
3
13
32
>looks really good
>looks nice

ACTUALLY IT LOOKS LIKE TRASH

Lemme explain...

First off, You need to know some BASIC pixel art stuff.
There's no sensible light source
No parallax
EVERYTHING IS DITHERED TO DEATH AND IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD
pillow shading, horrible contours, banding,
it just looks way too busy
and it doesn't look good.

And the physics are JUST. TRASH. It either feels too heavy, or too janky, it wasn't fun to play, and the fact I had trouble going up something that should've been easier to do in a regular classic sonic game is a problem.

In fact, there's already a GOOD Sonic Engine for Unity out there that would've facilitated development a lot better than just making your own engine from scratch. Granted, you were pretty bold to make your own engine in the first place, but bottom line, this wasn't very good to look at, nor fun to play.

Tips:

Look up some pixel art tutorials to fix the art with
Try using the current Sonic engine for Unity (Sonic Realms) or go use the Sonic Physics Guide for your engine http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Physics_Guide

That is all.
Uh, I'll try to improve on my pixel art but to flat out call it trash is a bit.. heavy handed tbh.

I'm also currently working on redesigning the Physics engine, and I've already alleviated 90% of the problems with the one I've published. It'll take time for me to reconfigure the rest of the world around it though, so it may be a few months before an updated version goes online.
 
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Sslaxx

Marble Zone
Sep 8, 2017
27
25
58
46
Malvern, UK
Physics is... not the easiest thing to replicate. Don't worry about the SPG, far too many people treat it as an absolute. More important that the game's fun to play, "accuracy" to the guide be damned.

I'll be interested to see how this progresses; if you can make a Linux build that'd be great. Wrestling with physics implementation with Godot, don't think I'm doing a good job of it though (in terms of fun, accurate, or anything else), so got a lot to learn.

That said, I have noticed something: changing graphics quality (and, most likely, resolution too) changes the speed of everything in-game. Look into delta-time functionality in Unity.
 
Last edited:
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Twins'R'Awesome

Green Hill Zone
Aug 23, 2018
20
11
18
23
Uh, I'll try to improve on my pixel art but to flat out call it trash is a bit.. heavy handed tbh.
wow i was a bit harsh tbh, i must've been tired lmao

I was trying to say that it looks way too busy, the dithering creates a lot of noise, and It doesn't look good for the time being.
I do like the effort put in the animations tho if that's something

I'm also glad you're improving the engine! This game has potential, and I'm glad you're improving!
 

fireWoods

Green Hill Zone
Jun 20, 2021
2
8
23
32
Scotland
Hey guys! Sorry for the change in costume - totally forgot I'd posted something here before setting up my account for the showcase :emoji_sweat_smile:. Just a lil note to say that this project is very much still a-go! Over the last year and a bit I've been working away at overhauling the engine, physics and gameplay in general (let's face it - it needed it!). Still very much a WIP in some regards, but the First Part of Version 2 of this game will be showcasing at SAGE this year :emoji_smile:. There's engine improvements, a 2-Act structure to each zone (with bosses!), and a brand new zone that didn't appear in the first version!

I'll be dropping the Full Trailer for V2 soon enough (depends when the SAGE trailer hits!), but hopefully you all enjoy having a fresh look at this project. I appreciate that there's plenty more that I want to do regarding it, and that there are tweaks that still need to be done, but once SAGE hits I'm going to need to go "tools down" for a bit. There are a lot of other projects and interests that have fallen by the wayside recently to accomodate this project and I need to strike a healthier balance for a bit.

Hope y'all give our booth a look at SAGE - For now, I would really appreciate it if you give our Twitter a follow as I'll be more active there in posting updates :emoji_slight_smile:.

Here's a screenie of that new zone!:


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