At first I thought it spawned at random positions within a predetermined range, so that's how I implemented it in #Sonic8BitAdvance. But it's clearly not that, its starting position is always the same. And there doesn't seem to be a randomly set timer anywhere in the memory. (3/6)
Small updates on the pause menus for #Sonic8BitAdvance:
For the Sonic 1 version, I was given advice to use the pink from the act intro screen. While I did originally try that, I also used darker versions of it for inactive buttons, and that didn't work at all. But pink+dark gray works.
Well, hopefully these pause menu designs for #Sonic8BitAdvance will work.
Both are inspired by the respective act introduction screens. In Sonic 2 however I couldn't keep the buttons rounded like the blue oval under the "act X" label and make them look good, so I tried losanges instead.
I've been procrastinating on debugging and polishing the Sonic 2 part by adding localization in #sonic8BitAdvance, but now this excuse is gone.
So yeah, this will be much less interesting, but it needs to be done.
Translating screens I've known for almost my entire life for #Sonic8BitAdvance was fun and I really like the result.
The translation system I've put together works like a charm and is much more flexible than anything that could've been done with romhacking.
See the result in French.
Not showing off the translations in #Sonic8BitAdvance yet, but here is something related.
The name of Sonic 2's Gimmick Mountain Zone does not fit on the screen and is abbreviated. Since I needed to add an optional third row to the title cards anyway, I thought I might as well fix this injustice.
After correcting a few bugs and inaccuracies in #Sonic8BitAdvance, I decided to do something a bit more fun.
Here are WIP main menu and options screen :) .
I'm now thinking about efficient ways to do I18N.
It's a "stuff gets real" moment for me on #Sonic8BitAdvance as I'm deleting this image from the code.
I made it very early on, with everything but Green Hill greyed out. Every time I moved on to the next zone or act, I colored their name and/or number in white.
As you can see, it's all white now.
While converting the OSTs for #Sonic8BitAdvance, my biggest problem is the vibrato in some tracks (especially in Sonic 1 IIRC): if I copy-paste all of their notes in OpenMPT, I clearly hear the note restarting several times instead of the already playing one changing its frequency back and forth.
Now that the content of both games in #Sonic8BitAdvance is done, I won't have as many screenshots to show for quite some time.
Before I get to fixing the Sonic 2 engine, I decided to completely change the subject and re-remaster the soundtracks. My first attempt was serviceable, but lacking.
Ironically, the absolute last piece of content I made for the Sonic 2 part of #Sonic8BitAdvance was the intro screen. Both versions :)
Now on to polishing and debugging.
The final boss for the Sonic 2 part of #Sonic8BitAdvance is done!
The end credits now, LET'S GOOOO!!!
I think I'm done with the analysis of the final boss in Sonic 2 8-bit, I might just go ahead and program it. I've already implemented all of its attacks, but not the logic or sequence in which they're performed.
There's not much randomess involved in its behavior, so that's cool.
#Sonic8BitAdvance
Just like with Sky Base Zone Act 1, Crystal Egg Zone Act 3 has a smoother flashing animation in #Sonic8BitAdvance for obvious reasons.
This one looks worse. Since I wanted to remain faithful to the colors the original uses, I mostly stuck to light blue, black and everything in between.
I just recorded several attempts at defeating the final boss in Sonic 2 8-bit and the entirety of the good ending to analyze for #Sonic8BitAdvance in screenshot form so I could OCR various values from the RAM and everything.
My screenshot directory has 38938 files.
This can't be good for my SSD 😅
A good decision I made early in the development of #Sonic8BitAdvance is to display Rings with a tile layer and not sprites.
The Game Boy Advance being able to handle 128 sprites at once at most, I would've probably been screwed in Sonic 1's Special Stage 4/8 and Sonic 2's Scrambled Egg Zone Act 2.
I've been playing Sonic 2 8-bit since the '90s and I only learned you could do this to the Gimmick Mountain Zone boss this week while reverse-engineering it for #Sonic8BitAdvance.
I don't know what makes less sense: making rocks fall by hitting Sonic or by hitting the edge of the screen 😅
I'm think this is the first time I'm noticing this and I'm fixing this in #Sonic8BitAdvance:
In Sonic 2 8-bit's Gimmick Mountain Zone all treadmills are animated as if they were going right, even those that go left.
With limited VRAM and inability to mirror tiles, I guess they did what they could.
Green Hills Zone was indeed a breeze. I was putting the finishing touches on the third boss two days ago and tonight I'm already starting work on the fourth. That's what happens when a Zone has no new gimmicks or badniks.
On this the content of part 2 of #Sonic8BitAdvance is more than halfway done.
I think this is the first time I feel like I'm wasting my time on #Sonic8BitAdvance.
This boss is a pushover: wait until it starts inflating a balloon, jump on it, repeat 5 times, done. It can throw stuff and juggle Sonic like a ball too, but I bet most players never give it the chance to even try.
With my two and a half break from work nearing this end, I'm happy it happened just when I had the most stuff to figure out for the second half of #Sonic8BitAdvance.
Barring some water physics quirks and the infamous tubes, most of the gimmicks I was dreading to implement are in.
(1/2)
As I was saying....
Effect reused. After I spent months trying to figure it out (and, frankly, struggling with low motivation for figuring it out) for Labyrinth Zone, I managed to port the water "shader" effect to Aqua Lake Zone in one evening.
#Sonic8BitAdvance
Loops were one of the first things I implemented when laying the basics for what would eventually become #Sonic8BitAdvance. As my random project evolved into a double remake, I put accuracy ahead of following the Sonic Physics Guide, not to mention not used loops at all in the Sonic 1 part... (1/4)
Whlie working on the Sky High boss, I realized the end of its neck was visible, even though it's supposed to be cloaked in clouds. I thought I was messing up its Y movements, so I checked with the original game and...huh
Guess I was too busy dodging its attacks to pay attention.
#Sonic8BitAdvance
Absolutely nobody's favorite gimmick is implemented in #Sonic8BitAdvance. It wasn't as complex as I thought it would be, but two things took a lot of looking at screenshots and tracing values in RAM:
-the Y speed at which the hang glider ascends on pressing left
-the X speed after letting go
Took a break from polishing the Sonic 2 8-bit engine for #Sonic8BitAdvance by working on the content. But now the first zone (Under Ground Zone) is done, and I have to work on a mechanic I kinda dreaded: scattered rings when Sonic gets hurt. I have to figure out how they're supposed to move.
