hcstealth

[hcstealth]

The playable #Vertebreaker “Technical Preview” is here! You can download it at http://www.headcannon.com !

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This has far too few likes

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It's friday the 13th, time for something spOooOoOoky

How about some #Vertebreaker?

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Yep, it’s back

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First Video Game I Ever Made

When I was 7, my parents upgraded from a TI94/A to a then-mid-range Apple//c. Keen to learn how to develop software, I spent some time reading the ProDOS and Applesoft BASIC User Manuals from cover to cover before trying to program some really simple things. I started with an interest in applications and ended up doing a little with database management, but eventually, I found myself wanting to get into video games. With no other tools or information available to me at the time, I started from scratch in Applesoft BASIC

This is the first thing I ever created that can in any way be considered a "video game". Apparently, the last time I modified the original file for whatever reason was my 12th birthday, August 11 1991. It's messy, it's short, but it's a start! It has lose and win conditions. Basically, white lines are up elevators, blue lines are down elevators, and the T's are supposed to be "pipes". Pipes lead to other screens, and the flashing lights are switches that change some pipes' destination. Pressing button 1 teleports the player a few pixels ahead, and button two teleports a few pixels back, for navigating around elevators, pipes, and hazards without touching them. The red and yellow striped block is the goal. The brown boxes seem to be both bonuses and hazards (I can't remember, but it's kind of arbitrary which ones do what for whatever reason), and there are two green bars in one area that I know were "money", although they don't actually do anything. As for the title screen... ...I have no excuse

As of this writing, it's been around 24 years since I last saw this. I was able to hold on to the disk I used when my parents got rid of the Apple that long ago, but until now, I had absolutely no way to access the content. My wife and I just bought an Apple IIgs for fun, and I was surprised to find that this disk still works!

I couldn't have known then that I'd actually be where I am now, but I know I sure did want it

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Patreon

Now that I can get back to working on my own stuff for a bit, I'll mention my Patreon. Its purpose is to allow me to make the stuff I do "my job" so that I get to do it all the time and more things get done. Note that although I may take a contract now and then if it looks good, those tend to generate "milestone" payments, one-time payments for reaching development milestones. I do not receive recurring "royalties"/"commission"/etc, and therefore, no matter how popular the product is, my income from it is still very finite

If you like the stuff I do, please consider pledging so that I can stick with it and provide more content! Want to send a one-time tip through PayPal? Use my AOL email address "MStealthA"!

Can't do it right now? That's ok, just sharing the link can help!

Somewhat related- I've also created a Discord server whose public channels I'll probably link to sometime next week or so. If you were a Patron (with access to the private channel), you could be there now though :P

[hcstealth]

Back In Action

Introduction Sonic Mania! What's Up With Me HCGE Status Other Projects Closing

Introduction

Wow, it's been a while since I've done this! I've got a lot to talk about today, so hang in there...

Sonic Mania!

It's been a crazy ride, and the response has just been fantastic! I'm glad that so many people like this game so much! If it has to be said, I certainly would like to do another if the opportunity arises :P

There's some standard stuff.. although I worked on this game for Sega, that doesn't mean they're involved with or endorse anything else I do, anything I say or do here is something I'm saying or doing personally and not Sega, blah blah blah

It's out there, too - people have opened it up and had a look inside already. NDA is a thing so I can't get super-specific on some things, but I would like to talk a bit about some stuff people have already found

First up is the "Egg Janken" boss. Two words, probably confused by the lack of spaces in any filenames. Without getting too detailed, it was one of a number of concepts we had very early-on, and as things do, its design, function, and place in the game sort of evolved over the course of nailing down the project design. Its name "Janken" is indeed as some know, the name of the Japanese form of "Rock Paper Scissors", which is the game it plays with you to determine who gets hurt. Some people have commented that "you always get hit", but actually the object was meant to be placed higher than in any demonstration to-date. Specifically, around 16 pixels higher than the most recent video demonstration as of this writing. It's also been speculated that the pattern is random, but this is only true on the final hit as a "panic" maneuver - the patterns for the first two hits are indeed very predictable (although different from each other). As I've mentioned in an interview somewhere, the very first level we created was actually an early version of Studiopolis Zone Act 2, which is what we initially showed to Sega, and how some of its elements ended up in the reveal trailer. I implemented this boss for demonstration in that act - the first boss ever implemented in this game. Not bad for just-then learning to use a new version of the engine, eh? :P

Next, there are the "SP500" printer objects, fictional upgraded relatives of the Sega SP400 "plotter printer" for early SC computers. Incidentally, I also implemented one of those - the ink-using version. That version, in particular, has some additional functionality that I don't think anyone has worked out yet.. It's a little complicated, but I'll tell you this - it involves another one of the tile planes. To a lesser degree, there's also the "Acetone" object which I don't think anyone has connected with this group..

Also in a recent interview, I mentioned that the functionality of some bosses had evolved throughout development. It's a bit of a tricky setup, but you might just be able to find an earlier incarnation of one of them that didn't quite pan out. You've already found the original arena!

Well, I've had my fun.. anything else remains a mystery :P

At least until, I dunno, a week from next Tuesday? Maybe not.. could be confusing

What's Up With Me

Life-wise, the biggest thing is that my wife and I are preparing to move- We've bought a house! It's well-known that we currently live in LA. The new house is in Riverside, but that's still relatively close. We're set to move in by Oct31, so we'll still be dealing with a bit of prep-work until then, and then the actual move. There's also my elderly mother-in-law who will be staying with us, so we'll be handling her transition as well. If anyone wants to help us furnish the place and/or ensure our stability, I'll be talking about that in a follow-up post :P

Otherwise, now that Sonic Mania has been released, I can start looking into my own projects again. I already have, actually!

HCGE Status

When I put it aside for Sonic Mania, I was in the middle of a big restructuring of the file system that had a few perks - it's more modular, more-easily rearranged, more things can be integrated into the editing interface as it evolves, and more things can be tracked and named with the "alias" system. I'm not sure if I've actually mentioned this before, but the structure of the data files is pretty far along. I was hoping to finish that up before making another release, but I might go a slightly different route

The new, more versatile editors I showed off a while back are already much better than the original fixed-size ones integrated directly into the game window, but are lacking polish. I could probably tidy them up for release quicker than I could do anything else, so I may attempt that first just to get the ball rolling with improvements

As previously mentioned, I'll be moving relatively soon, so my other platforms are already packed away and therefore I can not test updated builds for release. If I'm able to release anything before that time, it will be Win/Lin/Mac, and other platforms will follow after I've settled in. For all I know, it'll take that long to prepare a decent set of release builds anyway...

I've added a few other new features as well, but I won't talk much about them right now (maybe you can pick a few out in upcoming videos). I can say, though, that I think people will be very pleased for them to finally be included. I just need to solidify how these features are manipulated by the end-user...

Beyond that, I still plan to develop tutorial text/video and more examples once a few of the usage overhauls are complete. Most of what you would learn now will still be carried over, though, and I will be providing support to help anyone eager enough get started right away. There's just no sense in postponing those things to create tutorials when, after they're complete, the presentation will be off anyway

Meanwhile, there are still plans to complete Fantastic Franklin, though this will happen a bit later. If you remember hearing of "Vertebreaker"/"SpineLash"/"Bone Rattle", there were some unfortunate circumstances that caused us to have to put the game on hold, though the core team still wants to complete it. For now, we've re-grouped on a new title that I personally think is going to be pretty fun. It's currently in very early development and using a lot of placeholder material, but I'll let you peek at it just so you can see some progress-

Other Projects

Certain "fan projects" and the like are still under consideration. My previous post discussed the status of Sonic Megamix. This is still the case - I would still like to clean up the existing game for presentation and complete and release my engine restructure for the SegaCD/MegaCD's SUB-CPU if time and ability permit. Again, though, because of my upcoming move, my hardware is already packed away and I will not have access to it until after we're settled in at our new house. I will probably push for some kind of HCGE release first anyway, but I do intend to push this toward completion over time

Closing

That was quite an info-dump! You might have noticed that this post has an index of links at the top. I've been sectioning off my longer posts in hopes of making them easier to take in, so I figured the index should help even more if anyone wanted to break it up or was looking for specific information. I'll probably be doing that from now on when I have so much to say at once

Anyway, thanks for reading!

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State of the Mix Address

Introduction

Well, it’s that time, I guess. I’ve got some news to share, and it seems most appropriate to do it now. Sort of a good news/bad news thing, so, I’m going to do the bad news first

Hang in with me until the end; it’s not all disappointing

Semper Expunctus

Putting aside my non-fluency in Latin (and Google Translate’s singular inappropriate English translation of the phrase), if you’re interested in Sonic Megamix, then you probably know about one of the most-”recent” videos I posted about it, which was titled “Never Cancelled”. I chose that name due to my frustration with repeated false assumptions that led to actions by members of the public that caused problems for myself, the team, and the project itself, but in the end, it seems to have implied a promise that couldn’t be delivered on. Contrary to popular belief and long stretches of no public updates, and disregarding one extremely-short-lived mishap, the project never was cancelled, until now. There is no “I knew this was going to happen”/”I saw this coming”/etc; there was no possible way for the public to actually know what the project’s fate would be because there was no truly solid information to indicate one thing or the other. We intended to see it through, we tried, and, incidentally, it eventually became unworkable

Over time, the whole team seemed to just move apart. Lots of stuff has been happening in the lives of each individual member, and the game project Sonic Megamix as it came to be envisioned just sort of crumbled under its own weight. To make the point directly, the team no longer has active graphic artists, level designers, additional programmers, nothing; there’s just me. The unfortunate truth is that there is no longer a “Team Megamix”

I won’t be looking for any other “members”. The essence of what would have been “Sonic Megamix” can’t be completely replaced, so to be perfectly honest, I just can’t justify holding on to it any longer. That’s why the “new game” will never be finished. As much as I would have wanted for it to be, completion of the project was never under my personal control, and it was never a promise that I could keep by myself

From the Ashes

It’s not all going to waste. I do, in fact, have plans of my own for what’s already been done, provided I have the time to devote to it

First of all, I plan to stick with the cleanup of the original “Sonic 1 Megamix” for a final and not-so-sloppy release. It’s not a light task, but it does seem like something I can do by myself

Second, I plan to attempt to make existing new content “presentable” in any way that I can. Some sprites will most likely still be missing, for one, but you should end up with a little something to play with. I don’t know in what form this will come, whether some/all of it will be used to augment “Sonic 1 Megamix”, presented as bonus content, or released separately altogether

Third, and biggest of all, I plan to continue the engine modification that I described a while back, which restructures the code to run primarily from the SegaCD/MegaCD’s SUB-CPU to take better advantage of the platform by using it to improve primary gameplay performance. I will freely release the source code for this engine to the public. This includes some enhanced Megamix core engine code, all Megamix-specific character abilities, and all related debugging and hardware transfer utilities. Anyone who wants to create a game functionally-similar to Megamix will be able to use this to do it. This, however, will not happen until I am prepared to present the engine and its code to the public in its then-current state. It’s a project that I have chosen for myself and that I intend to attempt alone until I’m satisfied with what I’ve done; everyone will have the opportunity to “continue”/expand/modify/use/research it after that point

When is that?

Unfortunately, it’s going to be a while. As I’ve said several times previously, I’m currently occupied with a contract project that’s still going to take a good bit of time to complete. None of my personal projects are currently moving ahead, and even if there were still a “Team Megamix”, I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the project for now anyway

What about Patreon?

As far as my Patreon goes, I need to reiterate that I’ve clearly stated that I couldn’t make any specific guarantees regarding any particular project listed on the campaign page. I hope that no-one was confused about that because, having provided the warning, I can’t hold myself responsible for any specific reason that anyone chooses to become a patron. I am sorry that “Sonic Megamix” couldn’t be completed as it was envisioned, but I will continue on with my new plans for its material, and I’m still developing HCGE, the project for which the campaign was primarily launched (Sonic Megamix having been noted only as one of a couple of side-projects)

While I’m not actually able to work on any of those projects at the moment, I want to thank those who are still currently contributing to the campaign. Your continued support helps provide me with stability for future progress with my personal projects and creating/acquiring other potential opportunities

Closing

Again, I felt it appropriate to share this information now rather than later, but it’s still going to be a while before any of what I have planned surfaces. For now, I’ll still be hard at work on the contract project. It’s looking like I’ll actually be able to reveal (not release) it in the near future, and I feel like many people will be pretty pleased with it if all goes well. Naturally, I’m biased, but I hope you’ll agree that it’s time well-spent :P

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You can actually do pretty much that already using the ROMulan functionality. It will allow you to use scripts (included with SonED2) to automate extracting data from whole ROM images and reintegrating it in a useful way instead of using pre-made split disassemblies. The included file(s) “inopts.txt” have a section where you can rearrange the level order (using a text editor and named labels)

“We’ve got some more details about the recently-announced SEGA Mega Drive Classics Hub straight from the show floor at PAX East. According to SEGA Europe’s Dan Sheridan, the initiative came from a desire to improve the user’s experience playing these games on the PC platform, which led to the creation of the project’s living room-like look and feel. This also led to a more expanded feature set, which includes save states, graphical filters, and dramatically-improved emulation. In addition, Sheridan also discussed the initiative’s most talked-about new feature: the sharing of game mods via Steam Workshop. He clarified that Classics Hub will not come with any first-party modding tools from SEGA itself; however, any fan-made tools that currently exist or will exist in the future are fair game.”

In spite of my skepticism, Sega really is just straight up allowing rom hacks for their games to get posted on the Steam Workshop. That’s amazing.

What I want now is a version of SonED2 or something that’s more geared towards making one-off levels instead of being a whole entire game editor. I don’t want it to continue on to a completely unmodified Chemical Plant Zone after somebody finishes my custom level. I want my self-contained level to stay self-contained, without having to fiddle in a hex editor and poke around with assembly.

Gosh, though. Wow. They’re actually doing this. This is historical.

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Genesis/MD game Mods - Steam Workshop and Utilities

Introduction

Well, that was certainly unexpected. I mean, I saw the announcement and all when it was first posted, but it was just too weird

Here we are, today, where SEGA has overtly implemented a means of sharing Genesis game mods with their blessing through a major commercial game service. Of course, you do have to have bought the original game through that service to be able to play them (which is reasonable and expected), but still

SonED2 Update?

Apparently it’s been nearly five years since I’ve posted a public update for SonED2. A lot has been going on since then, and I just haven’t gotten around to completing (or in some cases, starting) all of the features I’d still like for it to have. It’s taken a back-seat to several other projects, most notably some big contract jobs I had been able to get. Even now I’m still working on the project I mentioned back when I said that I’d have to let my Patreon content slip

On the other side, though, I know that there are still some fans of SonED2 who are still using the five-year-old public release, so I just couldn’t pass up what seemed to be the perfect excuse to wedge in just a little “me time” and make the program just a little better. Yesterday, I did just that-

SonED2 is now at version 16.04.28 Q&D! It’s..not a whole lot, really, but I think some people are going to be pleased with what I’ve managed to do with it. In short, usability has been improved with multiple resizable windows and level/object editor zoom, and a new quick collision editing feature

The “Q&D” stands for “Quick and Dirty”. Although I tried my best to tie/cut off loose ends and run tests with what time I had, it wasn’t very much, and I really can’t dedicate any more time to this since I’m supposed to be spending the greater majority of my time with that other project. Please excuse any new bugs that may have been introduced as a result of the new features and/or me having to clean up and remove experimentation, as I only wanted to get this out in celebration of the Steam Workshop support for the old Genesis games

That said, I hope you enjoy it!

Remember ROMulan?

No? I’m not surprised. It didn’t get very popular from what little exposure I gave it. As noted on its webpage, “ROMulan is a tool designed to automate the process of extracting data from program files for manipulation by an external utility and then re-integrating the modified data in a useful way even if its new size requires it to be relocated.”

What that means is that it’s meant for breaking down “ROM images” or other files into individual pieces that can be edited and put back together into something playable. Usually, if you were working with a whole file instead of source code or something like it, you’d have to deal with a hex editor and manually move data around and change address pointers if you were to make big changes to it. For a major major modification, that could become a major headache. Those who know where all of that data is, though, can write scripts for ROMulan to automate extraction and “injection”, and share them with others to make some games more accessible for modding

I mention this because of the multitude of games that are available for SEGA’s “Mega Drive/Genesis Hub” on Steam, many of which, to my knowledge, haven’t been broken down to the level of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. In the right hands, ROMulan could help open the door for some pretty interesting stuff, and I’d love to see that happen

Don’t get the wrong idea, though. It’s not Genesis-only; it should be useful for any other console, or even some PC games. For example, it’s already being used for the old 90s version of Sonic CD for Windows (and long before the 2011 re-release :P)

Give it a look, and be sure to let me know if you come up with anything for it!

Closing

With that, I’m back onto the contract project. It’s getting nearer to time that I’ll know whether or not this is actually going to work out. If it does, it’ll still take a while to deal with, but my understanding is that I’ll be able to say what it is in the near future

Until then, I’ll probably be pretty quiet again, and it’s a certainty that I won’t be able to move my own personal projects any more for a while, given my workload vs where those projects are right now. I apologize for that, but hopefully, it’ll all be worth it

[hcstealth]

Pff. I’ve seen hedgehogs already doing it

Human Loop

We’ve seen people on skateboards and motorcycles loop the loop many times. Damian Walter is the first human to do it on foot. To run it without falling, you need to reach the right speed; then, centrifugal forces will keep you locked on the track. Note how his shoulder line stays dead center of the loop. For this particular one, Damian needed to accelerate up to 8.65 mph in the highest point to be able to gain enough inertia as to rotate his body and legs around his head fast enough, so when gravity finally wins, he’s already feet down on the track. (Source)

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Going on Contract

It’s not Sonic 3 (& Knuckles)!

Um.. had to get that out of the way first. I know what’s bound to happen if I just go around saying “I have a contract” after everything that’s happened. I couldn’t say that it was if it was, but if it was, I couldn’t say that it wasn’t, either

Anyway, just to let everyone know, particularly since I’m running crowdfunding campaigns, I’ll be starting today on a contract job that will have to be my primary focus for the next few months. This means that you’ll probably see little-to-none of the things I’ve been working on until that’s over. I like working on those things, and making the kind of progress that I have been, but, it’s kind of hard to turn down a job like this when you’re otherwise unemployed and drawing less than $50 a month on Patreon :P

That said, my Patreon still isn’t very popular at the moment, so, what I’m going to do is let it run, and let my patrons decide what they want to do for the duration of this contract. As I said, I can’t guarantee anything as far as my personal projects go during that time, but if you’d like to keep (or even start) contributing to the stockpile for when I’m out of work again, that’d be great! It’ll always be that the amount I have will improve how much I can do for how long

Sort of sad to cut off on some of that stuff for now, but I’m kind of looking forward to what I’m about to get into. It’s actually sort of a “let’s see where this goes” thing right now, so, let’s see where this goes!

[hcstealth]

November Wheelings and Dealings

Intro

Another month has gone by, and some more stuff has been done. I’ll sum up some of it here

What do I think of the Pi?

You may have noticed the image in my previous post. For those to whom it’s unclear, it’s a screenshot of my Raspbian desktop with six instances of HCGE open, each running a different one of my currently-existing games

I decided to finally pick up a Raspberry Pi last month, and went with a Version 2 Model B. Naturally, the first thing I did was get HCGE up and running on it. Since it’s possible to use a mouse and keyboard on the Pi, I’m considering setting up an editing version for it as well if I can manage it, but as of right now the editing stuff doesn’t work. All current games run fine and perform well already, though. At the very least, I’ll try tidying it up and releasing a playable build when I can get back to it

In the long-run, I think I’d like to create a native build for RetroPie too, but so far I haven’t come across much information on how to do that. It’d be pretty neat to have portable Pi builds as another option for playing HCGE games

HCGE Examples

Some of my time was spent cleaning up and updating parts of several script packages I intend to eventually release as examples. You may have already seen some of them in action before - Mega Man, Super Mario Bros, and an extremely basic isometric platformer example. The Sonic the Hedgehog example was already released, but it also needs to be brought up-to-date with and made to conform to new HCGE features and formats that I’ve been developing over the last few months. At this point, none of them are entirely up-to-date, and some even have portions that haven’t been updated for years, and thus use an extremely outdated script style

On a related note, there was an error that had been present in the isometric example for years, which was partially responsible for it having never been released. When playing around with some of the new editor features with that example open, the issue became immediately clear - 

Within the level editor, you can now see collision boxes for objects. They’re color-coded blue for “Main”, red for “Hurt”, and green for “attack”. This video shows the invisible tile plane used to define collision for the isometric play area along with its objects, and the small blue horizontal and vertical rectangles are collision boxes for objects that serve as priority swappers. These objects are strategically placed so that as the player moves through the level, his draw priority will be updated so that he’s drawn either above or below certain tile planes to simulate a 3D effect. As you can see, some of them are rapidly flickering between horizontal and vertical... that isn’t supposed to be happening. If the player were fast enough to slide through one of these sections while the collision was horizontal, his draw priority wouldn’t be changed and he’d be inappropriately drawn above/below certain tile planes (Ex: he’s beside a taller structure that should be masking him as a “wall”, but he appears to be on top of it because he’s incorrectly drawn last)

Having seen this, I was finally able to track down the cause (interestingly, the objects had no valid animation assigned to them) and fix it. As a result, the draw priority problem on the isometric playfield seems to have vanished. The enhanced editors are going to be very useful

Spinelash

Spinelash has been progressing well. Recently, Markey has touced-up the whip mechanic and implemented damage to enemies, Rick has created new animations for whipping in all ten directions and getting hurt, I’ve done implementation for the new animations and player hurt state, laid out a basis for health and lives system, tweaked physics such as jumping and whipping input leniency and adding a turn-around whip move for whipping in mid-air, and added a complex line scroll effect to the graveyard level, as well as continuing to provide HCGE support for the rest of the team

Check out how the perspective of the shadows cast by the gravestones changes as you pass by. Aside from the code, it also took some skillful drawing, courtesy of Ossiferous Rex

Closing

That’s pretty much it for last month. I’ll be making a follow-up with something that I didn’t want to get lost in the middle of this, so be sure that you don’t miss it!

[hcstealth]

Mmm, Pi...

[hcstealth]

Help a Stealth Out

I don’t mean to sound dire, or anything, but the fact of the matter is that my current funding level is way below any liveable income, which means that I won’t be able to keep up even my current pace on my projects forever

To all of my most recent followers, hello! You might not have noticed, but a while back, I started some crowdfunding campaigns in an attempt to go full-time with my own personal projects. The idea is that if the campaigns provide me with enough income, I won’t have to take on other jobs that divert my attention away from things like further developing my Headcannon Game Engine, games made with it, and other “fan” type projects I’ve started. For details, check out one or more of the following links which describe the campaign and the projects I’m hoping to produce with the time afforded me by your contributions:

Patreon GoFundMe IndieGoGo

If you can’t contribute, please share these links and information about this campaign through your own blog/twitter/etc. The added exposure could help immensely

For those who do, who plan to contribute, or who are already contributing, thank you very much! Every little bit adds up