Sonic the hedgehog?

[Rebel-CD32]

I whipped up a quick concept demo of a Sonic game in Backbone a while ago. The game was actually playable, and using a few tricks I managed to make it seem a little more like Sonic than what Backbone typically allows, but of course it still wasn't anywhere near as good as the real thing. There's more info about it here: http://sonicamiga.blogspot.com/

The links don't work anymore, but if anyone is interested I can re-upload everything, including the compiled 2-level concept demo I put together and the Backbone project files so someone can continue to work on the game themselves if they want.

It runs on most Amigas with a hard drive, but runs better with a faster CPU. For anyone who doesn't know, Backbone is a platform/shooter game making program, available for free on Aminet. With Backbone, anyone can produce a pretty decent quality game without any programming knowledge and it's very easy to use.

[Rebel-CD32]

I have to warn you not to get your hopes up, this game wasn't coded by a programmer, I made it in a game maker with limited capabilities. I did the whole thing over a day or two, so it's not very extensive, just a proof of concept if anything, to see if I could make a similar game to Sonic with Backbone.

Here is a version I compiled for 030s and higher:
http://home.exetel.com.au/~amiga/Sonic030.lha

And here is the full package, so if you install Backbone (from Aminet) you can edit and continue the game yourself:
http://home.exetel.com.au/~amiga/SonicBackbone.lha

And for anyone wishing to do that, here are the links to Backbone (install it first, then install the update and copy over the keyfile):
http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Full
http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Upd
http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Key

Even if you're not interested in Sonic it's still worth trying Backbone if you haven't already, and wish to have a go at making your own games easily with no coding required. You could just as easily make a Turrican, Super Mario Bros or Alien Breed style game with it if you want.

[Rebel-CD32]

I'm very interested in still working on a Sonic clone, and have been hoping for years we could use the Mr. Beanbag engine. Back when I was working on the graphics for my Backbone version I tried to make the graphics conform to what I thought was possible with the OCS Mr. Nutz engine, so the foreground tiles are all in 7 colours, with the main character using sprites to give him more colours. I cheated a bit and used those colours for the enemies too, but if it were using the Mr. Nutz engine they'd have to be BOBs using the foreground playfield colours. I still think it'd be possible to pull off a decent Sonic game on OCS with enough tweaking.

Anyway, sorry about rambling, I'd like to whip up some graphics for a Sonic game using the Mr. Beanbag engine. From playing the game it kind of looks like you're using 32x32 tiles, is that right? Is it a limitation of the engine, or could it be used with 16x16 tiles also? Is there a limit to how many tiles are in each level or map? And the character and enemies, are they all sprites and do they have their own palette or use the same one the tiles use? Once I know what I can work with I can hopefully get something together.

I'd like to offer you any help I can to get Mr. Beanbag finished, polished and presentable too if you'd like. I think it's a great game worthy of a commercial release, and I'm sure we can work out a good digital distribution method for it, even if the game is free with a donation button. A few of us have been working on plans for a new publishing method with a web-based "app store/software centre" which will be free for developers to use rather than charging them to host their software on the site, but if the software is sold then a percentage of each sale can go back to site maintenance. Together with online distribution we'd like to offer optional physical publishing and packaging with active promotion around the web to appeal to collectors.

[Rebel-CD32]

Hey mate, it should work fine on that system, I'd be interested to see how it performs actually.

You need to be running RexxMast, which is in your System drawer. Drop it in the WBStartup drawer so it's always running because it's essential to a lot of Amiga software.

[Rebel-CD32]

Not sure what the problem could be with the Minimig, but you don't have turbo-fire switched on on your joystick do you?

Nice to know it scrolls as well as the 060. It's a shame Backbone's scrolling is a bit choppy no matter what.

I'm going to update this Sonic Backbone pack so it works properly and upload it again soon.

[Rebel-CD32]

Cool, glad you got that problem sorted out. I've gone through and fixed up the SonicBackbone package, I've removed a lot of crap that didn't need to be in there and made sure all the components it's looking for are contained in the main drawers, so anyone can simply extract this archive onto their hard drive and begin editing their own Sonic game. I've only converted some of the graphics from Green Hill Zone so far, but it's not too hard to do the other levels using Personal Paint.

I also included a SoundTracker version of that Green Hill Zone mod, along with one from Spring Yard Zone, so maybe someone can take the instruments from the Spring Yard mod and replace them in the Green Hill mod.

Anyway, here's the new package, feel free to download and build your own Sonic levels to play: http://home.exetel.com.au/~amiga/SonicBackbone.lha

[Rebel-CD32]

Sorry everyone!

I have re-uploaded a new archive for you to download again. This time it includes the Libs/ drawer which has the Libraries required to finish compiling the game. I used SnoopDOS to suss out the problem. If you had installed Backbone from the original package before extracting and trying this pack it would have worked, which is why I didn't notice the problem myself since I already had Backbone installed properly with the Libs/.

Anyway, download this new one and try to compile. I'm not sure if you'll need to copy the Libraries over to your SYS:Libs/ drawer or if they'll work from PROGDIR:Libs/ but you can try it yourself the way you like.

http://home.exetel.com.au/~amiga/SonicBackbone.lha

Mrs. Beanbag, sorry about that mod, I didn't even listen to the result before uploading the pack, and only discovered what a poor job OctaMED did of converting it after I had tried it in the first level. I suppose someone with more experience with music software will have to do the conversion, I've barely used them before.

I think you're right about Sonic using 32x32 tiles, I made my version use 16x16 because Backbone doesn't support slopes and hills, so the smaller tiles let me have a smoother pseudo-hill than the larger tiles would. Your Beanbag engine obviously handles slopes properly so that'll make it easier for me to convert the graphics. I'll have to create a new 16 colour palette combining the two 16 colour palettes from the foreground tiles and enemy sprites and remapping the graphics to suit, so it won't match the Mega Drive's colour count and the graphics will have to be compromised a bit, but I'll do my best. It may end up looking similar to what I've already done with the Backbone game though, which also combines the foreground tiles and enemy sprites (and player sprite) palettes into a single 16 colour palette. Thankfully I won't have to include Sonic's own colours, so the tile colours will have priority over the enemy sprites, which may be recoloured to work.

Since the Beanbag engine isn't identical to Sonic, I don't think we need to try and duplicate any of the original levels accurately, and think it would be nicer to have a completely original Sonic game for the Amiga, using our own custom graphics for new stages and enemies. Take the PC fangame Sonic XG for example, for a completely original Sonic game I think it's extremely impressive. Check out the pics and gameplay video here: http://www.williamg.plus.com/SXGWEBSITE/

Something like that would be incredible, our own unique Sonic game. Of course after you've made Mr. Beanbag 2 and completed your new engine perhaps we can have a go at reproducing a more accurate clone of one of the original Mega Drive games.

[Rebel-CD32]

I think it's doable on an A500, might need two floppy disks though... :p

[Rebel-CD32]

I think Mr. Nutz does a great job of OCS dual-playfield mode without resorting to using brown as a base colour in the graphics, in my opinion it's closer to how I imagine Sonic on the Amiga to look than Kid Chaos, even though that game shares the same awesome control and spinning attack method.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yYM9aFnpwjM#t=2322s

[Rebel-CD32]

You can get the original Mega Drive sprite rips for Sonic and some of the other objects in the game from this site: http://sdb.drshnaps.com/system.php?sys=3
More Mega Drive sprite rips here: http://www.spriters-resource.com/genesis/sonicth1/index.html
You can get level layout rips from here: http://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm
Here's a full study of Green Hill Zone: http://soniczone0.com/games/sonic1/greenhill/
A page explaining the use of shapes throughout Sonic levels: https://sites.google.com/site/sonicgraphicsguide/sonic-graphics-guide
And some Sonic Fangame forums: http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/index.php and http://forums.sonicretro.org/