Hey all! Welcome to another devlog for Sonic Colors Demastered! In today’s devlog, we’re going to be talking about some of the progress the game has made and the exciting road to version 0.1.0 of the game!

Improvements to the Level Design Pipeline

Starting things off, I’m excited to say that the game has seen numerous improvements to its level design pipeline! 

Level design involves three steps: designing the level, which is where I come up with design ideas in my notebook and whiteboard; “greyboxing” the level, where the terrain, items, and enemies are placed within the actual engine so that the level can be tested; and tiling the level, where the final art assets are added on top of the terrain to give it the final look you all see when playing the game!

1. Sketch

2. Greybox

3. Tiled

Previously, the default size for all terrain objects differed from the default size for all the tile objects; meaning that after I finished greyboxing a level, the pixel grid used for tiling the level didn’t properly line up with the terrain. 

I came up with a “hacky” solution for this by cutting the tilesets into smaller chunks and this temporarily resolved the issue. The only problem is that the tiles were REALLY small, so tiling levels became a meticulous pain. It also didn’t fully fix the issue because stuff still wouldn’t properly line up sometimes.

It wasn’t until just recently that I realized that instead of reducing the tile size to fit my terrain objects, I instead should have sized my terrain objects with tile sizes in mind in the first place. I’ve gone into the engine and made entirely new terrain objects that are shaped and sized according to the tilesets instead of the other way around. This means that when I greybox levels with these objects, it’s ALWAYS guaranteed the tiles will line up due to the fact that the terrain objects and tiles are sized identically. This is going to save me a lot of headaches going forward and also means that I’ll be able to design levels faster without having to go back and make revisions as often!

v0.1.0 Release Details

I’m currently hard at work getting things up to snuff within the engine to prepare for the exciting release of v0.1.0 of the game! I’m sure you guys are excited to get your hands on a new demo release so I wanted to clue you in to some of the new features that are going to be present within the new demo! Below are some of the changes for v0.1.0. (please note that this is just a tentative list of changes. The patch notes released when the actual demo drops may contain more (or less) changes than what’s below):

• New Stages
  • v0.1.0 will feature six new stages:
    • Tropical Resort Mission 1
    • Tropical Resort Mission 2
    • Tropical Resort Mission 3
    • Starlight Carnival Mission 1
    • Starlight Carnival Mission 2
    • Starlight Carnival Mission 3

• Originally I had also hoped to get Sweet Mountain Acts 1 & 2 done for this demo as well but level design is a complicated and lengthy process and it's unfortunately taking me longer than I anticipated so please be patient with me!

• Palette Shop
  • In addition the the skill shop, Sonic Colors Demastered will feature a palette shop where players can purchase and equip alternate color palettes for Sonic. Visual customization is a feature that always makes game more fun (at least in my opinion) so I was very gung ho about getting this feature completed and implemented. Below you can see a teaser of some the palette ideas I've already cooked up but when the full game releases there will definitely be more, stay tuned!

• General Bug Fixes and Gameplay Changes
  • This one's kinda self-explanatory, lol.

v0.1.0 Release Window

I’m working hard to get v0.1.0 ready for the public and need a bit more time. To put things in perspective, all three mission stages for Tropical Resort have been greyboxed but still need to be tiled. These stages were also made using the game’s old terrain objects, meaning they don’t line up with the new tiling system properly, so I need some extra time to rebuild parts of them to match with the new system (or just bite the bullet and tile them using the old system 😛). Mission 1 of Starlight Carnival is fully finished and tiled but Missions 2 and 3 haven’t even been designed yet. While the basic skeleton for the palette shop has been added to the game, I also haven’t had the chance to actually program the UI for it into the engine yet either, so that also needs to be done.

With that in mind, I’m currently shooting for a tentative release window of the fourth week of April, so somewhere between April 23rd and April 29th. If anything happens and this release window needs to be adjusted I’ll let you guys know but that’s currently the date I’m working towards.

Well, that’s all the news I’ve got for you guys today! Look forward to the release of v0.1.0 late next month and remember: don’t fall apart, speak with your heart!