Devlog #1

Howdy everyone, Randomocity Gaming here! I’ve been thinking for a while about a way to keep you guys better up-to-date about the development of Sonic Colors Demastered and after careful consideration, I decided that doing periodical devlogs would be a fun way to do so! I’ll be posting these logs every once in a while to let you guys know the state of the game’s development! Without further ado, let’s go over the updates for this devlog!

Welcome Aboard Mr_Shoemonster!!!

To kick things off, I’m excited to announce that we have a brand new composer joining our game’s sound team. Everyone give a warm welcome to Mr_Shoemonster!

Mr_Shoemonster specializes in making SEGA Genesis style music and will be providing the remixes for Sweet Mountain Zone. If you’d like to sample some of their work, you can check out their YouTube channel here: Mr_Shoemonster - YouTube

We’re really excited to have Mr_Shoemonster as a part of the team and the music they’ve already sent us has sounded great so far! Look forward to hearing their full tracks in a future demo and, eventually, in the full game!

Progress Update

New Download Page:

Previously, the only place to download our game was on the Sonic Fangame HQ website. This was mostly due to the fact that the game needed to be there for the SAGE Expo, but now that the expo is over I wanted to make the game more easily accessible in other places. To aid this, I’ve created a download page for the game on Game Jolt and Itch.io!

I’ve heard from other developers that Game Jolt is pretty popular when it comes to Sonic Fangames and know that many of the biggest Sonic fangames, such as Sonic Time Twisted and Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, have released there. I’m also personally a fan of itch.io and have been using it for years. For that reason, I think both of these places will be great second homes for Sonic Colors Demastered! I’ll continue updating the game on SFGHQ as well.

New HUD:

The game's HUD has been replaced and now sports a look more similar to the HUD from the original Sonic Colors on the Wii. You can see a side-by-side comparison of the old HUD and new HUD below. The artwork for the new HUD is courtesy of FieryExplosion from DeviantArt.

Mission Stages:

If you played the SAGE demo, you’ll likely remember that the locked stages in Tropical Resort and Starlight Carnival had “Act 3, Act 4, and Act 5” listed above them. These acts are actually intended to be mission stages. For sake of clarity, these stages have been renamed to “Mission 1, Mission 2, and Mission 3”.

So what’s the difference? Mission stages are shorter than normal stages and revolve around a singular mechanic. One of my favorites that I’ve designed so far is Mission 1 of Tropical Resort, which requires you to find 5 hidden wisps to clear the stage. It was a lot of fun to design so please look forward to playing it in a future demo!

Trick Ramps and Trick Rings:

In the prior demo for Sonic Colors Demastered, certain dash ramps would trigger a Sonic Unleashed style quicktime event that, if cleared, would give Sonic a slight vertical boost. To be completely honest with you, I never really liked these. For starters, when first hitting the pad Sonic would slowly float into the air. If you didn’t press any of the QTE buttons, he could actually float incredibly high and it looked REALLY goofy.

Another issue was that these ramps required you to perform too many QTEs back-to-back (every ramp made you do five in a row). The system that handled the button input for these events was also ENTIRELY separate from the system that handled input for the rest of the game. This meant there was a bug where if you remapped your controls, the QTEs would still operate based on the defaults.

I was dissatisfied with all of these issues and decided to scrap these ramps entirely as a result. To replace them, say hello to the brand-new trick ramps and trick rings!

Inspired by Sonic Generations, these bad boys function entirely differently. When Sonic touches them, he’ll be launched into the air and a trail of after-images will display behind him. If you mash the jump button, Sonic will begin performing tricks. Once you’re done showing off your style, press the boost button to finish your combo! The higher your combo count, the more boost energy you’ll get! I’ve done some testing and this system works MUCH better than the previous one and, in my opinion, is a lot more fun. You’ll be able to try it yourself when the next demo drops!

For those of you that don't know, I'm actually a full-time college student and have both my final assignments and final exams coming up very soon. I'm going to need to shift focus onto those so I can finish strong (and graduate, the two classes I'm in are the last ones I need and then I'm done!) Work will start back up on the game in mid-Decemeber but I just wanted to keep you guys updated! Wish me luck on my exams!

That does it for this devlog; and remember, don't fall apart, speak with your heart!

- Randomocity Gaming