#TreesThinks

[unlimitedtrees]

making character sprites as a one-person indie game developer

(huh. turns out this post on cohost didnt have a “read me” section”. o well. i will put the read me section Here,  before any of da actual text. click it if u dare !!)

so, i've been meaning on making a Big post talkin all about how i actually Make my games and my processes n such ,but also ive been procrastinating on making it for so long that i thought i might as well just make One part of that post now .. and its about making the Character Sprites for my games .

So. these images are the (mostly) full sprite sheets of the three characters from my game UNITRES Dreams, taken directly from the big giant 'charactersprites.png' image that i used for nearly every sprite for Most of the game's development. some quick things to make note of: First off, Trees (the first one) was one of the earliest things i made for the game, and had their sprite sheet redone Twice since then.. this first picture doesnt contain the latest sprite sheet as the new sprites were done on aesprite and im too lazy to make a sprite sheet out of them right now.

Secondly, the Second character (the pink one), had two different designs, being completely redesigned as i didnt like their first design all too much. their redesign's animations was done in aesprite, but i made a sprite sheet out of em before so i was able to just put them here. Lastly, the Third character (the blue one with the big silly hat) remained mostly unchanged as their original sprites and design were pretty good, but they needed to be cleaned up and given better colors so i ended up polishing all of their sprites.

Anyways. it's going to be hard for me to explain my actual process, as i am Bad With Words, but i will try my best.. So. for Most of my time as a game dev, I've used Paint.NET for Everything. This includes backgrounds, tilesets, and every animation ever in all of my games. For my character sprites specifically, i usually start with making the color palette (which is a whole different process where i mess around with the RGB values until i get a specific color that i think looks pretty ... its hard to describe). When making a new character, i usaully start with an Idle animation, just so i have a good base to make all the other sprites on. I just make a sketch of the character, then i do the flat colors (as my games dont have line art), and once i have the colors i start doing the rendering , where i try to pull off a sort of Sonic CD-esque , celshaded style while Also including a bit of anti-aliasing and other modern pixel art techniques to give the sprites more Depth and make them look Sharp. Idk. it's hard to describe my process in words ... i Did make a video Years ago showing off my process, but its old and my editing in that video isnt the Greatest.

So., that's my process Lol . the only thing thats really changed is that Now i use Aesprite for making the Actual Animations , as making animations with Paint.NET is Really Difficult and Annoying , as i have No Idea how the animation will Look until it actually appears ingame .. which results in the early versions of each character's animations looking a little weird (such as Trees' first two versions, the first version of the Pink character, and the Blue character's animations.. .though the blue character isnt as bad as the other two and i kept their animations mostly the same in the final game LOL).

Something that people have kind of criticized about UNITRES Dreams' animations is that some of em dont exactly ... Look Good. a lot of animations are pretty Inconsistent , with characters like Trees having inconsistent sizes in some animations and the movement in animations such as the Pink character's walking animation and various other animations (Especially the ones made in Paint.NET) looking Unnatural.

And Well .. here's the thing about making animations and sprites for something like this. When you're the Main person making an indie game, you have Tons of different parts of the game that need to be worked on while having Very little time to work on others. On Top of making every single animation for UNITRES , i had to make every single Tileset and background for every single level, On Top of making the Level Layouts , Programming , and even making sprites for things like the UI. And you have to constantly Test the game to make sure everything works and things Look good.

So. i had very little time to work on the sprites, and i Knew this. Something you have to consider is that, not only are you making the animations for the main character , you Also have to make Tons of animations and sprites for Literally Every Other Aspect of The Game . this includes Enemies , Level Gimmicks , NPCs, And the UI .. so you end up having to work on Thousands of sprites by yourself in such a short time.

I ain't the best animator , nor the best sprite artist . But , for this game I chose an art style which is Kinda simple and comfortable for me, which made making things like tilesets and backgrounds so much easier for me. The character sprites specificially only use a few amount of colors ,but also i tried my best to give them as much depth and make them as Colorful looking as i could. Also , something you might notice is that all of the playable characters dont actually have a whole lot of animations .. each of the characters only have the Exact amount of frames and animations necessary for them to Look Good moving around the levels. Aside from a few Gimmick Specific animations that arent in the sprite sheets i posted , there arent many Extra animations or animations with Tons of Frames that i wish i could have added .. and it Kind Of Sucks . Having to split my time across Three Different Characters , i had no time to make any animations Too Crazy or Too Smooth , and i couldnt include any extra animations that could add a bit of personality to the characters ... In Fact ,the Idle "animation" isnt an animation , its just a still frame. I didnt have time to even make a simple waiting animation !!

It Is What It Is. For what its worth , Ithink Im pretty proud of the animations i did for UNITRES Dreams. while i think ive become a much better artist and animator since then, i still think some animations and some of the frames look really good ..just looking at some of the still frames is really nice .. so i think i did a good job, especially for a game that was made in 2 years and is Free. And Hey, while the animations in UNITRES Dreams may not be the best or have the most smooth animations , i Did get to experiment with making more smooth animations for TREES' ADVENTURE. while ,now, i think some stuff could use some work, i am Really Proud of how some of the animations look .. ididnt get to make Too Many extra animations (there still isnt even an Idle animation), i Did get to make some cool extra animations , such as individual animations for your Jump that are based on how fast you're moving . (the original post on cohost had a buncha gifs of da animations but im Too Fuckin Tired 2 post em here LOL !!!)

So Yea . the moral of the story: making video games is kind of hard and time consuming , Especially when you're like , the Only one working on them. just make sure to plan ahead and try not to overwork urself .. make what you can and do it when you can. Thats what i think , anyways.

[unlimitedtrees]

the level design of the Sonic Overture '95 demo

been wantin 2 show da level design idid 4 sonic overture .. startin with granite act 2. altho some tiny tiny bits were referenced from sly's level design concepts , and lake did his own edits and added decorations , idid everything else

this level is oneof the largest levels ive ever made , andit was really fun makin it and playtesting it .. i like making HugeAss levels , but with this one i tried 2 make sure to make it have both engaging ,difficult platforming and high speed sections. i wanted 2 make it Feel like marble zone without bein as tedious , and i like how it came out (even if i didnt intend on makin it as huge as it was ... in fact it was actually goin to be Even Larger ,but cus of clickteam limitations and also the level being nearly 5 minutes long , it had 2 be cut down , LOL ! its probably 4 the best tho , cus the level already has tons of very intricate stuff goin on (especialy with the stuff it does with the marble and the pillars)

next is granite act 1 , which is mostly based off sly's level design concepts , but is heavily changed and expanded both to flow more how iwanted it to and to make it more complex .. i had a lot of fun with da later half of da level , makin all sorts of silly challengez...

something i did for fun was hide a bunch of hidden Silly Areas.. these are at the Very , Very top of the level , and require you to be very precise to even Access them , so they dont get in the way of the rest of the level ... but i did it cus i Love making silly dumb kaizo stuff

lake added decorations to granite act 1 as well ,but he also added his own silly secret areas at the very very top of the level that are difficult to get to , which i really like LOL !!! i think more video games need silly parts of the level skilled players can discover

last thing 2 talk about is sunrise gate zone , which is just based off the original demo. act 1 combines the 2014 demo's act 1 and act 2 , only addin a few tiny extra routes and little changes to make it flow a little more

act 2 has a bit more done to it , with it being based off act 3 from the original demo , but has a few new routes at the very top of the level , including ones that make heavy use of the totem pole mechanic. somethin we decided to do is to make the blocks on the walls into top-solid platforms , so i specifcally designed the level so that , if youre clever , you can use the blocks on the walls to get upto places or find secrets...

anywayz thats all 4 this post. i like sonic cd and i hope thats apparent in my level design , LOL !! sonic overture is a game that inspired myart forYearz and its been rlly fun workin on this so far .. this game is pretty and pixys art is gorgeous ohmy lord

[unlimitedtrees]

nearly all of the character designs from 'UNITRES Dreams'

(once again, this post didnt have a “read more” part in da original cohost post, so im putting it here... click more if U Dare !!)

so, trying to get back into making art again, i decided to draw brand new references of all the character designs from my game, UNITRES Dreams. cus why not. anyways these references arent Perfect.. some of em ive made better reference sheets before (while for this i just wanted to draw em all together with a sort of consistent color style and their current, up-to-date designs) and also i didnt get to draw Every character as it is Too Much and i am Too Lazy to draw all of the enemies and boss designs ... so ive just included the enemy and boss sprites for now.. but ill probably draw new art for them sometime.

Anyways. let me tell ya a bit about making Character Designs for this game. as ive talked a bit about in my post about making Character Sprites , making stuff for the game is hard because i am pretty much the Only person working on the game and i have to split my time working on the sprites between working on Every Other Aspect Of The Game , meaning i dont get to spend as much time making the artwork as detailed and polished as id want to.

and the same thing goes for making the Character Designs. sadly, i didnt get to make as many Actual Characters as i wanted (you can tell which are the Actual Characters as theyre the ones i Actually Redrew Here). when the project started, i only really had the Main Three Playable Characters in mind.. in fact most of the other Actual Characters didnt even Exist until the Very Very End of development.. which is the part im sad about. i just didnt have enough time to think about adding any complex new characters or figure out how i would Make a new character design . Which leads me to the Other Characters... which includes Most (but not All) of the Bosses and Enemies. Their designs are well , Basic . their designs werent really thoughtout ;they were created to serve a single purpose: to be made quickly so that the game could Have enemies and bosses. if i were remaking this game now, id probably remove or even completely Redo a Ton of the enemy designs (except the post-UNITRES Dreams enemies ... im kind of proud of them Lol !!)

thats just how things were. i didnt have enough time to focus on making character designs, so i didnt get to make a Ton of them and i had to make them Fast . in fact, early on in development, i hadnt really had much experience making character designs (as , before UNITRES, i didnt really make too many Original Characters for my games before), so i struggled experimenting and making characters for a lot of its development. And The Designs themselves .. a lot of them (even the ones i like) are pretty simple. Most characters are comprised of simple shapes and details , making them easy to draw and animate. and a lot of the early designs used Very Few Colors , which made drawing them quicker.

Despite All Of This , However, i am actually pretty proud of a lot of the designs ive made for this game (Especially the ones with the fancy new drawings i made here ..). while theyre simple, and while i wish i couldve made More characters with more unique designs , i really like the designs i got to make for this game ,with some of em being my favorite to draw even when im bored .. and i just felt like id talk about em.

And Well , Im Gonna Talk About Em !! click da 'read more' thingy if u want to Read More ..

the Main three characterz

"trees"

so first off , let me talk about "trees". before i can get into their Actual Design , let me tell u a bit of history so u can understand why theyre designed the way they are.

So . around November 6, 2018 , before UNITRES was really a thing , i designed the very first version of Trees that u can see above. while i didnt know what the game was going to Be , i had a Basic idea of what i wanted the Character to be from the very beginning. you see, Trees (the character) ,while having the same name as me , is Technically Not a self insert , Kind Of . I designed this character near the beginning of when i started entering a Very Low Point mentally in my life (which involves some personal stuff im not going to get into , Aswell as this point happening Around when Among the Others released) and i thought Very Negatively of myself . And So , this character is sort of an exaggerated version of the negative thoughts i had about myself at the time .

the main characteristics of the character was they Did Not Show Their True Emotions , instead bottling up their feelings and showing a very Fake , happy version of themself. theyre also kind of Fucked Up in the head and try to hide it . anyways theres more stuff going on with them that you can probably extract from both the games and the old descriptions in this concept art , but i wanna leave that as a surprise for when i get to make my next game. There Are some outdated things from the descriptions in the concept art , such as an idea where Trees would be Always Facing Forward , hiding away their backside. And Also , you may notice theyre referred to as "it" and "his" in this , which has well. Changed . teehee.

as for The Design Itself , i wasnt really sure what i wanted to go for at first. this character was actually one of the Few first Actual Character Designs i made at that point , so i didnt really have any idea on what to do. One day , i thought up of a Little Bear Looking character , and i tried drawing that character .. only for it to Sort Of look like a little fox-like character. and i imagined this character emoting mainly by very subtle details , such as the Hat and Ears changing shapes based on their emotions ..

Anyways , later that month , i drew the very first sprite of Trees , which ended up being used as the Idle sprite for the UNITRES tech demo. i wont be sharing What that sprite was originally for , as im saving it for Something , but i Will show you Trees' sprite evolution:

from left-to-right , it starts with the very first Trees sprite. Then there's the first revision, which was done when UNITRES Dreams started development. Then there's the second revision , done for the Newgrounds update in 2021. And finally, there's the TREES' ADVENTURE version, which is the current version of the sprite.

with the first version, the sprite is Pretty Close to the first concept art. However , iremoved the blue part in the tail as i couldnt get it to look good in sprite form (or i just forgot to include it.. idont remember). I also removed some details , such as the little hair and the red blush, as i couldnt really include them on such a small sprite.

Anyways , so how did the design mutate into the current design ? Well , over time , i ended up drawing their ears and tail Longer , and ended up giving them longer and longer limbs (as it was Hard to animate them with the tiny limbs they had). Eventually , it got to the point where i decided to just redo the sprites to make em consistent with how i was drawing them , and thats how i got the second revision.

But Then , i started consuming media Other Than Sonic ! i think the main thing that infected my brain was Spinel from Steven Universe ... while Trees' design Did have a bit of the sort of rubberhose , silly limbs before (along with a Bit of contorting their form , as u can see with the expressions in the original concept) , when i saw the steven universe movie , i saw spinel and was Immediately like " Oh My Goodness Gracious . I Need To Make My Character As Silly As Her". And so , I leaned more into the silly , stretchy limbs . You can see this in the following sprites:

Anyways , as i kept drawing them and consuming more Non Sonic media , i ended up experimenting more with their design and adding some small elements from my inspirations .. one of the other main inspirations was Wander Over Yonder ,where i decided to draw Trees' hat to be more Silly and Big , like Wander's hat. i also ended up perfecting how i drew Trees , giving them more Sharp lines , Bigger and Sillier "hands" and "feet" , making their tail Huge , and just giving them a nice silhouette that i like . By the time of the Newgrounds update , i realized Trees' sprites were kind of Outdated , so i ended up redrawing Most of their sprites , and ended up with the version you can see in the current version of UNITRES Dreams ..

And well , Im Really Really proud of how their designed turned out . I Like to draw them a lot. and i think the way their design evolved has ended up fitting with their Actual Character really well .. the sort of Round , Soft elements such as their Big , Blobby hands/feet and their cute , silly face make them look , on the surface , cute and Silly . But then you have the more Sharp lines and elements , such as with their head and tail which i think makes their character have a bit of depth .. if that makes sense .

Idk . im not good at words or describing things . i just think their design now works really well with what i want to go for . and hey , a lot of my friends have drawn them and have drawn them Really Really Well .. i particularly like how people interpret their design .. with some people leaning into the more Soft , cute elements of their design , while some have drawn them Really Really accurately .. its really cool and im thankful for everyone whos drawn them before ..

Last Thing ill mention about their design (and i guess this goes for Most of the other designs) : Most of the characters in UNITRES aren't really supposed to be any Specific Species . Theyre all just sort of weird , ailen-like characters who do not abide to any sort of rules or reality or whatever. Trees is just Trees ; they're not supposed to be a Fox or any sort of Real animal or species or whatever, and that goes for every other character.

??????

so here's the very first designs of ?????? , who for now ill unofficially refer to as The Pink Character. When i first started development on UNITRES , i Knew i wanted there to be Three main characters: Trees, and two mysterious characters. and when i started work on UNITRES Dreams (back when it was known as UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition) , i needed to create designs for them .. However , at this point i was still learning how to Properly Make Character Designs , and so i created the first sketch above ,and then created their first sprites , which . Well. I Ended Up Not Liking Their Design Very Much !

So . The whole point of this character is that they dont really know their own identity , with them not even having a Real Name . Their design was Supposed to be sort of Ambiguous .. However i was Not Sure what to do for their design . i wanted to make it so you couldnt really tell what their gender was (as originally , they were a girl ... but they do not have No Gender anymore) . However , when people first started testing the game , they just . thought they were a guy.

anyways . i just Did Not Like This Design . they didnt really have a Clear Silhouette .. they just didnt look like an appealing or memorable design to me. and i also i didnt like their color palette. So . when the game became UNITRES Dreams , i decided to completely redo their design . And Well ..

This is the first drawing of the new design. At First , i wasnt sure about their design , with things such as them being Pink and Having A Skirt, i was worried about Some People immediately being like "Oh , Theyre A Girl !".. but you know what ? Ive grown Very Very Attached to this design .. i think theyre both Cute and Recognizable , while still fitting the sort of character i was going for . Their sillouette , while not as Recognizable as the other characters , has enough goin on to where i think it is a bit recogniable and easy to read while still giving them a sort of Mystery regarding their identity .. if that makes sense . And their more monochrome palette compared to every other character helps sell that , i think .

i think theres probably some people out there who see this character as a girl , but i think theyre a good Non Gender Having character design . just cus theyre pink doesnt mean they gotta have Gender ! anyways , i love them. theyre my silly little strange creature. i hope you love them too .. there is so much i want to explore with this character in a future game .. and i think their new design has really stuck with me.

???

So , ??? , who i will refer to unofficially as The Blue Character, is supposed to Sort Of be the opposite of Trees (the character). they're Very Tired and Chill , not really too crazy or anythin. and i wanted their design to illustrate that, and well , out of every design ive made , theirs was pretty much perfect from the very moment i created them.

I dont know if i have any old concept of them on hand, but i Do have both the original sprites ,aswell as the newer ones which are pretty much the same as the old sprites , but more polished and with redone colors..

And, well. Yea . they didnt really change much ! The only aspects that changed was that i removed like , Two details that i felt cluttered up the sprites too much , that being the little Tired Eyebag/ whatever its called line beneath their eyes, along with the little Red Dot that was on their boots. Other than that , their design was pretty much Perfect. they were also pretty easy to make , as , with them being a sort of Opposite version of Trees , theyre pretty much based off Trees' design , except with a bunch of differences to make them feel like their own character (such as different body/head shape , a big silly hat , and Actual Boots).

there's nothing much for me to say about them. they're perfect.

the really gay ones

suzy, wavey, and their little Shine Catcher

Alright . so before i can explain These characters , u need a little bit of History .

So. when UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition was "finished" , i went on to help with RRThiel and his game, MEGA MAN PERFECT BLUE. as you can see here, i worked on various backgrounds and tilesets for the game. Anyways , at one point , ithought itd be cool to remake the Intro Stage in UNITRES , as a sort of tribute to the game and also as a little extra thing for the new update i was planning on making (which ended up becoming UNITRES Dreams).

at first, this was Just going to be two levels based off the Intro Stage from Perfect Blue , However , later in MMPB's development , one of the backgrounds I did for one of the levels ended up being Completely Redone by other people on the team ,as my background didnt really fit the game's style .. However , i still really liked this background .. so I decided to reuse it for a new level in UNITRES , with it also being a tribute to the level in MMPB (though its a lot more loose compared to the Intro Stage level , Lol).

This level ended up becoming Greenhouse Frenzy in UNITRES , and i ended up turning what once was just going to be a two level bonus into an entirely new campaign with its own story in UNITRES Dreams. and with it being a whole new campaign , i wanted there to be New Bosses and New Enemies ..

So , for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1 , I was planning on a new boss ... and this boss was going to be ... Mr. Sauceman !

You See , for UNITRES Dreams i wanted to go Hard with including all sorts of little tributes to my friends and the people who helped with the game . Mr. Sauceman , being one of the composers of the game , let me use his character from the game hes working on as a boss in the game , and i thought itd be nice to have him be in Greenhouse Frenzy ,since that level is pretty much a big tribute anywayz.

So , Originally , i wanted the Sauceman boss to start out with a little Fake Out . You See, the MMPB level that Greenhouse Frenzy is based off has a robot master that i asked RRThiel if i could use for the level , but he said no. So , I decided for this boss that i would create a silly character Inspired by the robot master from the MMPB as a silly little joke , but then Mr. Sauceman shows up and that character explodes . And So , I Designed Suzy , a character who , while inspired a bit by the character MMPB , was made to be a bit different and also to be used for a silly little fake-out intro and to die in 5 seconds . You can see this on the reference sheet , where she didnt even have a name and is just referred to as "GF2 Fakeboss".

However . Two Things Happened : 1) I Grew Kind Of Attached To This Little character I Designed , And 2) I Ran Out Of Time. i couldnt implement the fakeout that i had planned ... and i didnt have a boss fight for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1.... So. I decided to just. Make her the boss fight of GF1. it just made sense ! i Originally had planned a boss fight based on the Magik Master boss from Chaotic Carnival , but reusing the character design for the silly fakeout ended up being quicker , and so she ended up being an Actual Character in the game.

And Then There's Wavey . she is a robot. i originally designed her as an enemy for the Intro Stage tribute level (a.k.a , Perfect City) , as i wanted it to have its own enemy. Her design is also Some What inspired by one of the robot masters from MMPB , though not as much as Suzy's is.

Anyways , despite Suzy and Wavey being inspired by characters from MMPB , i wanted them to be different and have their own sort of Character . And well .. their actual Personalities are different to the ones from MMPB , at least . In UNITRES Dreams , there is a hidden "Storybook" mode , which contains various stories which add a bit of Worldbuilding into the game .. and one of the stories details Suzy and Wavey . Basically , Suzy is a lonely gardener , who lives alone on her own strange little planet , who then travels across the galaxy to the Perfect City , where she ends up meeting Wavey , a military robot who Suzy becomes fascinated with ..

Anyways . my writing aint exactly the best , and i Refuse to go and reread the stuff i wrote for the storybook mode in unitres . but i tried my best to make suzy and wavey their Own sort of characters , having their own identity compared to the characters theyre based on. Oh , and by the way , suzy and wavey are gay LOL !! and they have a little baby plant that they raise . this is also told in the storybook but i unfortuately didnt get to explore this Much outside of that in the game... though there Is a secret you can find in one of the levels.

So. what do i think of these characters and their designs ? Well. Honestly. Im Not Sure . when i designed them both , i still wasnt Totally comfortable with character designs as i am now , and honestly . theyre not my Favorite designs . Wavey in particular is just . Well . Shes Just Metal Sonic in A Hat . she has her own little differences , but i cant lie . i probably coulda done better with her design . and suzy i think hasnt aged as well either . Idk. Also. In Case You Cant Tell , I am BAD with coming up with names . I Genuinely cant do it. i came up with both of their names on a Whim . i justdidnt know what to call them and i was running out of time LOL !!

anyways. last things ill mention are : the plant is a species known as Shine Catchers, which appear as enemies in Greenhouse Frenzy. Oh , and also , here's some concept art of them Lol !!

(oh , and i also forgot to mention: originally , suzy had green dots on her "hair", but i didnt know how to properly draw them on the sprites , so i left it out)

the Silly ones (a.k.a my favorite ones)

Millie

So . Millie is the most self-indulgent design Ive created .

Here's how it went: one December day in 2020 , I was sitting around bored as hell , when all of a sudden , the Silly Brained part of me Saw an idea pop up: A Tall , Hot , Cute Clown Man . And Instantly , I KNEW I had to draw him . But I Was in the middle of a Zoom call ... So . I opened up IbisPaint on my old Android phone , and drew the First sketch with my fingers that you can see above . And Instantly I Knew : I Had Done It . I Made Perfection .

More ideas grew , and i realized : I Could Do Something With This ! So , later , I came up with a whole reference sheet for him , and started planning on something: I was going to make More characters for UNITRES Dreams . You see , at the time , I was working on the v3.0.0 update for the game. This was Very Very late in development , before i even Planned there being a Newgrounds version (and before ninjamuffin convinced me to Make the newgrounds version LOL !!). Anyways. for so long , iwas disappointed that i didnt get to make a whole lot of original characters for the game .Most of the characters were either Enemies or Bosses. there was Barely any NPCs (aside from the guest character apperances).

i Also Realized: Chaotic Carnival , one of the most Important levels in the game , needed More love . So. I decided i was going to make new NPCs just for it , so that the level could feel even More alive and lived in. And that's when i created the Silly Trio , which started with Millie.

As for Millie's design , there isn't much for me to say. he is perfect. i love him and he is one of my favorite things ive designed. Yes , it Is self indulgent . Yes , i Do Want Him Carnally . teehee. Anyways , after designing Millie , i knew i had to design more characters .. which leads me to..

Goldian and Ellie

Goldian is a tall , polygonal magician man. He is in love with Millie. They are canonically dating.

Ellie is a bunny-like clown girl. She likes to entertain people with magic. I think she might be asexual , but i wasnt very sure when i created her.

Anyways. there isnt much for me to say. i Could get into some of the Character Lore perhaps . Millie , Goldian , and Ellie are all characters with troubled pasts.. they all had to run away from their homes due to circumstances , and they managed to find the mythical Chaotic Carnival, where they all met and decided to become entertainers. It gives them purpose , to see people happy. And they work under the Magik Master , a strange magician who has the ability to bend reality at will. They're all like a sort of Found Family .

that's all ill say about them. theres so much more i want to do with them in the future... i love these characters so much. theyre my favorite designs ever.

Oh ! Iforgot to mention . these characters (including millie) names also suck LOL ! Im not good with coming up with names !! all their names i came up with at the last minute

All The Other Characters I Forgot To Mention

the magik master

nothing much to say about them. theyre one of the first bosses i created, and i Kind Of like their design still , though i might consider redoing it so it fits with the rest of The Silly Ones ..

vie

nothing much to say about Vie . she's a flower girl, who spreads flowers to every level in the game. she got the flowers from the Suzy's Greenhouse ..

Misc. Concept Art

[unlimitedtrees]

talkin' about the largest level from my game, 'UNITRES Dreams' , called ~DREAMSCAPE DISTANCE - SECTION 2~

hello. today i want to talk about the level 'Dreamscape Distance - Section 2' from the game i made, 'UNITRES Dreams'. this level is one of the largest levels i've ever made in any of my games, and it's something i'm really proud of and want to talk a little bit about. so click the read more thingy if you wish to learn more about it,,

also , By The Way, play da on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io too if you want

the version of this level in the final version of the game is one of the most ambitious things ive ever done and is something im Really proud of. to sum it up... it is the largest level in the entire game, with tons of paths and secrets, with there being things you can only find once in the level in Very Specific places. it was one of the last levels to be completed, and it's one of my favorites. but before i can get into the specifics... i want to first talk about its history.

when development of unitres dreams began, it was a much slower paced game, with the controls being a lot more simplistic and level design being more focused on linear platforming against enemies that constantly shoot bullets at you. both 'sections' of dreamscape distance were completely different early in development, having a different tileset and level layouts.

dreamscape distance - section 2 at this time was a lot more basic than the one in the current version of the game. it was linear and didnt have a whole lot of stuff going on. in fact, when i first invisioned it, it wasn't supposed to be anything. it was kind of just another city level where at the end you fight against the spaghetti monster you just created in a cutscene in the last level. there was One other thing i had in mind when i first created the level, but unforunately it was cut from the final game. i was planning on having there be puzzles in this level which youd solve using the party swapping mechanic. each character would have separate traits which would be used in the puzzle. i dont remember fully what the puzzles would have been like, but i think you wouldve had to the '??????' character to punch the 'trees' character across the room. sadly, at that time of development i originally gave myself a deadline of having the entire game come out on may 9, which was like less than 3 months from when i started development on the game. So, with me having little time to come up with the planning and programming and artwork for an entire puzzle section in One level, i decided to just remove it. this meant that the party swapping mechanic in the final game had a lot less purpose than what i hoped it would have... but oh well.

one idea i Tried to implement from the very beginning of the level's conception was the flying car gimmick... i wanted to have a set piece where you're flying through buildings and ships, shooting enemies with bullets and having the spaghetti boss fight be a bullet hell fight... but Well...

not only was the car itself kind of messy, but the spaghetti boss ended up being really disappointing for me. since the screen's size was really small, there wasnt a whole lot of room for you to move around in. not only that, but i couldnt really do any complex attacks from the boss, as all the bullets took up a lot of space on screen and you couldnt really see things coming ahead. so, all of the boss's moves are very basic and either incredibly easy to dodge or incredibly annoying to dodge.

so yea. i was really disappointed overall with the game back then. so, i then decided to completely change the gameplay to be more fast paced, have more movement abilities, and have more open levels with things to do. i also decided on completely remaking most of the old levels, with both of the Dreamscape Distance sections being entirely remade with new art, level design, and gimmicks. i wanted the new levels to be prettier, more fun to go through, and to leave a really good first impression. Dreamscape Distance - Section 1 was one of the first levels i remade (and i might have a lot to talk about it later... we'll see!), but Dreamscape Distance - Section 2 was one of the last levels to be finished, as at first i wasnt sure what i wanted to do with it yet.

But Then, i finally realized what i wanted to do with it, and i spent like a whole entire month dedicated to making it the most largest level ive Ever made... i wanted it to be a sort of magnum opus for me. i wanted this level to leave a lasting impression on you at the very beginning of the game. I spent Days working on just the level collision Alone, and took even longer putting in all the artwork and objects. the level even got updated multiple times to add even More stuff to it after the game came out...

and well, im not sure if other people feel the same about it, but for me it is one of my favorite levels in the whole game. im gonna talk about it now.

first off, i wanna talk about the inspirations for the level. i wanted to turn it from a simple "city area" into a whole mall area. i wanted it to feel Huge and dreamlike, so a lot of it is inspired by my own personal memories of an old mall i used to go to when i was young. one Specific thing i can bring up is the air balloons area that appears at the beginning of the level...

you see, the mall i used to go to had this sort of sculpture thing of a cartoony air balloon in the clouds... i dont remember much of it but i wanted to include something like it in the level. it's something you can Easily miss, but just before you encounter the first POLYCAR section, you can find a bunch of large air balloons floating above, and you can even bounce on the balloons like large bumpers.. it is such a specific set piece that only appears at this specific part of the level that i love so much. my only wish is that i spent more time on the art for the balloons themselves,, theyre kind of just a repeating tile set, but it is what it is.

that area is actually full with even More specific things you can only find there. just below where the balloons are, there is an entire part of the level where you can find two hidden NPCs if you go down far enough... i wont say who one of them are, but i Will tell you about the 'Vie' character...

when you first talk to her, she will give trees all of her flowers so that they can spread them all across the levels. every level from then on will have flowers placed All Over. it is such a small detail that i loved implementing, and it's something you can Only find in one incredibly easy to miss area. That is kind of what the whole spirit of the game is for me and what i want to implement in my future works,, the idea of there always being something new to find,, i wanted it so you can just get Lost in this level and find something weird to do. i may not have been able to accomplish a Whole lot with this (due to me being the Only developer working on this in my spare time), but i am really proud of what i managed to accomplish with this game...

Anyways, speaking of NPCs, this level has the Most NPCs out of every level in the game, and some of them are in Incredibly Specific places. a lot of the NPCs are actually cameos from my close friend's OCs, and im really happy they let me include their characters as little secrets in my silly little game. my Only regret is that i didnt get to create as many original characters as i wanted (as making the NPC sprites along with dialogue portraits and writing takes Longer Than You Think), but i at least was able to implement the clown trio in Chaotic Carnival... which is a story for another day...

So , after the room with the balloons, you enter the first area with the 'POLYCAR'. the design is a Lot simpler... just a diamond that moves around, but i like it a lot more than the old design, and it even controls better too. one of the important changes i made to the new version of the car is that the screen actually zooms out when you enter it, this allowed me to make the car sections more larger and for the spaghetti boss to actually be Good and like an actual bullet hell. But Anyways...

after the first POLYCAR section, you are dropped into an area with two SAVE points, along with a sign in the middle that tells you that that there's a left and right path you can take. these signs were something added later on in an update as a sort of easier way of adding more NPCs into the level without actually designing a new character, and i really like them. i managed to add a lot of these in a bunch of random spots, and while i am not proud of most of my writing, i Really like some of the stuff i wrote for these signs. they're Interesting.

so, something that only this level does is there's a left and right path which takes you to entirely different parts of the level. the left path has a few level gimmicks that dont appear at any other part in the level and is also a faster path to take, while the right path is Large and has tons of NPCs and set pieces that you skip by taking the left path. this is something ive Always wanted to, from even as far back as my old fangames, but always been afraid of doing as in a lot of cases, players will just get Lost when you make the level go in a direction that Isn't just a straight path forwards. Luckily, i think this kind of level design worked here, as the left path is a Little more linear and easy to get through compared to the right path. the left path is also more crazier, with you having to go Down, then right and then left again. so it's probably a bit more confusing, but the few playthroughs ive seen of it seem to understand it after a bit, so i think it worked out.

the left path i wont get into too much, as i think it's better for you to experience for yourself. i Will say that there's a window sprite you can find there that doesnt appear anywhere else in the level. i wanted that part of the level to feel more like a City than the rest of the level, but i didnt get to do as much with it due to time. it's still pretty neat, though. the left path is generally focused on straight Gameplay, while the right path (which is the one most people take) has a lot more Things to do.

for one, the right path is very Vertical, with tons of little areas you can find. i wanted to make the right path look like a bunch of shops, but while i didnt get to make too much art for it, you can find things such as tiny cash registers and shelves, along with scrolling walls with hearts, stars, and diamonds on them. there are, of course, Tons of NPCs and signs you can find here.

one specific NPC i'll tell you about is the 'Stealth' NPC, who is based off my friend stealth's squirrel character. just to the right of him, you can find a swimming pool which appears Nowhere Else in the level, along with a polygonal palmtree. something else you can find which only appears on the right path are escalators which move you upwards... these are also inspired by the old mall, and while i wish i couldve designed better artwork for them, i just like that theyre there.

there's a lot of specific gimmicks and areas in the right path that you can just Miss by only going one way. i dont think i will reveal every single NPC and secret in this level as i think it's best to find it yourself, but i Will say that at the very bottom of the right path you can find a hidden area with a hidden sign and NPC..

last specific little thingy about the level ill get into is that, at the end of the level you exit the mall and the background turns into a bright night sky with an ocean full of little flowers. i have nothing much to say about this other than it's pretty. also at the end of the level i tried doing a little thing where you have to go right and then left and the up and right again to get to the end, which is something i tried carrying over from the old level. idk if it worked out well but i like it anyways LOL!

so. now that ive talked about all the specific parts of the level that make me love it a lot, let me get into the Issues with this level. you see, it being large is a Curse. with it being the largest level in the game with the most objects in it, it lags like Hell. at least for me, anyways. on both of my computers it runs at like, 40 fps during most of the level, and at like 30 fps and the very end of the level. Now, i have seen people run the level at 60 fps... id imagine youd need a good pc to actually run it at full speed. but it isnt too slow for me that it's Unplayable.. and my computers arent exactly Powerful.. so i cant imagine how this level plays on a computer that is Worse. there's nothing i can really do about it. the lag is kind of the only thing that prevents me from replaying this level a billion times, especially since it Also takes awhile to load the level. it's a small price to pay for ambition...

my last real problem with the level is that i wish i could do even More with it. theres so much i wish i could add to it to make it feel even more alive,, such as making the "shops" feel like Actual Shops. i designed the level collision first before anything, so there are a lot of things i had in mind that i never got to fully detail with the artwork. my biggest fear with adding more art is that id make the level lag even More.. which is something i dont want to do. i think the big culprit for the lag is the scrolling walls with the hearts and stars on them... You See, i am Stupid and dont know how to make proper effects in construct 2... and the tiled background object type which is good for the sort of repeated texture that is used in the game can Not be animated.. so in order to pull off the scrolling animation, i made a 32x32 object with a bunch of frames for the animation and just. Copied that object a billion times. so there are Thousands of instances of this object all across the level. so yeah, that is very bad and dumb of me and i probably couldve done something way better. idk.

overall, even if i didnt manage to fully go all the way with the level, im still really proud of what i managed to do with it and the level is really important to me. i think the only time ive managed to Somewhat surpass it so far was with the level in the demo for my game 'TREES' ADVENTURE', which i tried making just as large and open as this level, along with having tons of secrets. That level i will probably have to talk about another time, but for now i'll say that while it is probably one of my most polished and prettiest levels ive Ever made, i still wish i couldve done more with it and also it just doesn't have as much going on as Dreamscape Distance - Section 2 does.

so yea. dreamscape distance - section 2 is one of the most prettiest levels ive ever made and is absolutely massive. if you're a freak for Sonic CD like me, i dare you to play it and spend as much time as you want in it, exploring for all the secrets. it may not be a Whole lot, but you might find something really neat. i hope someday someone could appreciate the weird stuff ive made the same way i have, but also i'm just fine with having this level even exist. there isn't anything like it.

that's All, play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com EHEHHEEHE !!

[unlimitedtrees]

so the game i made, 'UNITRES Dreams', is open source on github now

https://github.com/UnlimitedTrees/UNITRES-Dreams

hello. earlier i made my game 'UNITRES Dreams' open source on github. i want to talk about it. click the little 'read more' thingy to read da rest of this post. i had a lot of things i wanted to say about it and why i think open sourcing games is kind of awesome Lol !!!

also , By The Way, play da on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io too if you want

so. let me start off by saying that, although i was planning on releasing the source code for unitres for a long while, i was Not prepared to release it now. in fact, it kind of happened on accident.

in case you didnt know, earlier on twitter i was talking about how i wished there was a good way to release my archive of old builds for the game. i have a google drive full of old builds but i also i dont like using google drive. i sent a link to the drive in a reply to someones tweet, but there is one big thing i forgot: the game's project file is also in that drive.

anyways, instead of just deleting the reply or removing the file from the drive, i decided to just release the source code on github now, since i might as well. a part of me feels like i shouldnt have released it so suddenly... but also a part of me feels relieved.

you see, the unitres dreams source code is Bad. tons of messy code with almost no comments... a bunch of hackish solutions to tons of problems... everything is just incomprehensible unless youre me. considering ive been the only person working on the game for years, i understand most of the code and never needed to make comments (especially since making comments in construct 2 is Annoying).

my original plan for releasing the source code was to go back and clean everything up; improving tons of messy systems and adding comments explaining how everything worked. i also was planning on adding new content for a new update to the game aswell.. such as an options menu and maybe new levels and characters or something. i have Tried going back a few times to clean some little things up and work on a keybinding system... but i havent had the time to focus on it and do what ive wanted to do with it.

so, yeah. im kind of glad the source code is just Out now. it probably wouldve taken me Years just to do what i planned... and i think its best to just get it out now instead of just waiting years for something that might never happen, even if the source code right now is incredibly insane and unusable.

which leads me to something most people might be wondering: Why even release the source code in the first place? honestly, i doubt a lot of people will get use out of it, especially with the bad code and it being made in an old, dead engine that you cant even Buy anymore. but despite this... i think its good to release the source code for your games for a few reasons...

for one, its good for archival reasons. ive had a huge anxiety over losing all the source code for my games... its happened to me before and it really hurts. not only can you not use it in the future, but you lose a lot of work youve done, and for me ive lost a ton of games which were important to my journey as a game dev. nowadays, i try to hold onto all of my projects and have saved them to multiple computers and hard drives, but releasing them on stuff like github and google drive at least makes me feel a little better.. and hopefully with the unitres source code being public and the google drive for the old builds being out, it means that i wont have to worry about losing either of them.

another big reason is that, even if no one uses the source code for anything like mods or whatever, i think games having their source code out is good for learning game dev and understanding how games are made, even if the code is a big mess. even if i did get to go with my plan of cleaning up the source code... i feel like thatd be kind of dishonest, cus Most games Never have perfect code when theyre made. its good if you use the most messy code in existence just to get the game done... you can't always spend forever perfecting something, and at the end of the day the game eventually has to come out at some point. even big triple A projects will have weird code in some places... thats just a fact of life. i think having the source code out lets people see the kinds of crazy stuff that goes into a game, and maybe seeing my crazy code will influence others to do things a lot better in their own things. that's what i think, anyways.

and hey, even if My game never gets any sort of modding community, that doesnt mean Your game wont. there are a lot of communities out there who make some crazy things with mods.. and things such as open source games or decompilations can lead to some incredible stuff. with decompilations, youve got things such as mario 64 or the retro engine sonic games being ported to pretty much Everything, and then youve got open source games like Doom and friday night funkin which are being pretty much kept alive Because theyre open source and have a huge modding community. even if a game never gets as much interest as those.. it doesnt mean it never will, and having a game be open source can help a community grow so much more.

anyways umm yea. i think making games open source is awesome. there is a little part of me that feels weird about making unitres dreams specifically open source and the possibility that people might make fangames and mods out of it, as its something thats really personal to me (especially since the main character is named after me), but if people do make fangames and stuff with it i dont think ill mind, especially since a lot of my early work was fan games and unitres dreams takes a lot of inspiration from the media i love. all that i ask is that people include the original credits from the game in their thing, especially if you reuse any of the music from the original soundtrack.

i think, at the end of the day, my goal with this is to inspire more people to open source their games. a lot of good things can come out of it. that's all i have to say i think. play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com ehehehe !!

[unlimitedtrees]

the most fun evil thing ive ever made: Sonic Labyrinth 2

download this crazy ass rom hack

so. 'Sonic Labyrinth 2' was a joke rom hack i originally made in 2016. it was for the sonic hacking contest that year, and i made it mainly because i was let into this team called "Team Overload" whos whole gimmick was that there were a Ton of people in it who were going to submit a Ton of rom hacks at once at that year's contest. of course , this led to a bunch of people (myself included) making a Ton of low effort hacks just so they could submit something, and Sonic Labyrinth 2 was one of those hacks.

basically, Sonic Labyrinth 2 was Sonic 2 but inspired by Sonic Labyrinth. sonic's acceleration was reduced Greatly , making it so he moved like a snail. while you Can get speed by doing a spindash, i made it so you can't jump while rolling , which means you have to be much more Careful and Deliberate when rolling At All... as you become nearly uncontrollable when rolling (and it's even difficult to Stop Rolling, due to the low acceleration)

because of these few changes, the game becomes Completely Different. simple challenges such as Jumping Over Spikes or Going Up A Slope become increasingly difficult. however, the game isn't Mindlessly Dumb, as you could still gain speed from things such as speed shoes, going down slopes, and even going underwater (as you have different physics underwater). the game becomes almost like a puzzle platformer , as you have to figure out how to use everything available to you to make progress in the levels (and without getting stuck in some places)

however, even though i liked the unique challenge the rom hack had, i was disappointed with it as the game wasn't really designed around the new controls all too much, and there were too many dumb soft locks all over the place. and also basically No One liked the rom hack beyond it being a Silly Joke.

So , in 2018 , i started working on Sonic Labyrinth 2 Encore. it was mainly inspired by sonic mania's encore mode , with all of the levels having new palettes and the layouts are slightly changed to accommodate the slow controls , along with being more of a challenge. i was actually really proud of the stuff i did for it.... However .... i am Bad at rom hacking. sonic 2 rom hacking specifically is Really Frustrating for me ... theres just lots of things i didnt know how to do , and when i ran into 2 crashes in some of the levels which i had No Idea how to solve .... i decided to give up on the hack. this was also around the time Among the Others came out and i gave up on rom hacking entirely , so . yeah.

ive always been really sad about not being able to finish this rom hack, because there's just Nothing else like it ! the different controls bring up such an Interesting challenge that requires you to be more precise and more knowledgeable on the physics from the original sonic 2... and i wish i couldve done way more with the levels to make them much more of a difficult puzzle. oh and also i really liked the color palettes i made for all the levels.

Idk. this rom hack was Really Evil. but it was Really Fun. if you wish to give it a try, you can download it on github. the source code is on github aswell, but for some reason theres errors when building it and i have No Idea Why. at one point i tried adding one of those error handler thingys but i think something broken and it made me forever sad.

thats all i think. i just wanted everyone to know about this silly rom hack i made

[unlimitedtrees]

u ever heard of Pepsi in Sonic 1

(alternative title for this post: the weird rom hack i made 6 years ago)

hello. at the time of me writing this opening paragraph, it is november 7th, and my old rom hack 'Pepsi in Sonic 1' turns six years old today.

you probably have not have heard of it. if you have, you probably either watched somecallmejohnny play it once, or you ran into it while looking up sonic rom hacks on youtube, or you got a random DM from me asking "u ever heard of pepsi in sonic 1" for no reason other than because its funny.

if you already know me, you know i am bad with words and conversation and stuff. but if you dont, i hope that helps a bit of understanding in why i might randomly ask u if u heard of this weird little rom hack. i am bad with starting a conversation ! and my dumb little sense of humor thinks it's funny to bring up a rom hack that doesnt even represent any of the things i currently do !

anyways, even though i joke a lot about this rom hack now and for a few years even Hated its very existence... i also have a deep love for it, as it was one of the few fangames ive made that i feel were made of pure, unrestrained passion. and i dont think i would be the same person i am now if not for this dumb little hack existing.

so, if u wish.. you can click the little 'read more' thingy to learn a bit about this crazy sonic hack i made when i was like, 13.

Alright, so Pepsi in Sonic 1 is a rom hack of (you guessed it) Sonic 1 that i made in 2016 for the sonic hacking contest. at that point, i had only been making games for 2 years and this was one of my first rom hacks ive ever made...

On the Surface, it looks like just a simple joke hack that replaces Sonic with a can of Pepsi. there's also a ton of other sprites that get changed into random little jokes, with some of the more notable changes being Big the Cat replacing Eggman, Jimmy Neutron replacing the Newtron badniks, and the wrecking ball sprite being replaced by a sprite based off Somecallmejohnny's "amiibo face". The game also has a ton of other silly little jokes, such as changing every level's names to something dumb or changing the level art slightly. And the people who played it pretty much wrote it off as just that... just a weird little joke hack that you may or may not have found funny.

but let me tell u.. there is more to this dumb little rom hack than u think ! one of the most major changes to the original game is that every level has been edited to have almost completely new level design.. and honestly a lot of the levels hold up pretty well. the Are some problems which come from the way they were designed.. for u see, i still didnt know a whole lot so a lot of the levels are built on top of the original Sonic 1 layouts, with some sections in some levels being kept the same, as well as all of the levels being forced within the original size limits of the levels (on Top of me having to deal with all the hardcoded bullshit from certain levels like Labyrinth and Scrap Brain).

So, some levels like 'Not Green Hill Zone', 'Dimps Place Zone', and 'Pepsi City Zone' have some really huge changes to the level layouts, while the rest of the game is still a little recognizable from the original Sonic 1 levels.. but i managed to make enough changes to where the whole game feels wildly different from vanilla Sonic 1. Not Only are all the levels different.. but all of them have a hidden "emerald monitor" which u can find to unlock one of the emeralds. they're in pretty difficult to find places, and when u collect all 6 emeralds they give you extra lives when destroyed. The only problem with them is that you can keep collecting the same emerald monitor in a level by dying... so you could cheat and get all 6 emeralds in one level. Still, it's a nice little thing that i put a lot of effort into making.

another one of the main big things in the hack is the Playable Characters. the main character is just a Pepsi Can who is basically just a sprite replacement of Sonic, However there are three other characters in the game that you can play. there is Pepsiman, who's main gimmick is that he can't actually do Damage while spinning. he's basically the game's hard mode, and you actually have to explore the third act of each level to find an invincibility monitor, as he also can't do damage to the bosses. he is the Running Hero, after all ! his only desire is to quench your thirst.. oh and also he can destroy eggman monitors without taking damage from them so. Yea.

You can also play as Classic Sonic, who is his own separate character and uses sprites from the 8-bit games. unlike the other characters, he actually has his own special move: The Drop Dash. You See, in the middle of the hack's development, Sonic Mania was revealed. So, as soon as i saw the drop dash in that game i just Had to implement it in this game. And Well, with it being one of the first instances of the drop dash in a fangame, it is implemented Very Poorly. But It Exists ! and there's actually secret paths you can take using it in the levels (something i wish Sonic Mania did but oh well..). Something that Classic Sonic doesnt have that the Pepsi Can and Pepsiman have is that they can perform the 'Shield Double Jump', in which you are given the ability to double jump while having a Shield. the double jump is pretty powerful, but it stops your speed. i didnt give it to Classic Sonic for Balancing reasons (AKA: i wanted there to be a reason to actually play as the other characters)

the only other character is actually a very hidden secret character: a Very Broken version of Knuckles. all of his sprites are broken and also i think it plays loud music while u play as him. thats all there is to him LOL!

Anyways. Um Yea. i put a lot of work into this rom hack back then. i was still pretty new to ROM hacking, with this being my first time using a disassembly. so i had to both learn basic ASM aswell as figure out how a ton of tools worked just for this game.. and i didn't even understand how most of the stuff worked by the end of it ! and i spent pretty much every weekend Exclusively on working on the hack. also, i had pretty much No Help with this game, with me having to rely on the Very Old and Outdated sonic retro wiki aswell as old forum posts just to implement the things i wanted (and there's still a ton of ideas i didnt get to implement)

when the game finally released at the hacking contest, i was very proud of it but also very Burnt Out. there was still a Ton of issues with this game... for One, all of the pixel art was pretty Bad. not only that, but my method for implementing artwork was very Confusing and Time consuming, with the different playable characters being a huge hassel as i did not know how to make them have different "mappings", which made making the different characters very restricting. there's also little problems with the level design, such as certain "chunks" being misused at some points and also Labyrinth Zone being not as edited as the other zones

i think one of the biggest mistakes i made with this game is with the jimmy neutron sprite... You See, in the original Sonic 1, the Newton badnik has two variants with different behaviors. one uses the first palette line, which contains the colors used for Sonic and most of the objects in the game. the Other varient uses a separate palette line specific to Green Hill Zone, which gives it a more green color scheme. You See.. the jimmy neutron sprite wasnt implemented until the Very End of the game's development... and i never bothered to check the other variant of the jimmy neutron sprite to see if it worked with the new palette and Um..

Yeah . it is not supposed to look like that. this is something that i didnt realize until awhile ago when i replayed the hack for this post. i feel pretty stupid for not noticing it sooner.

anyways. part of what made me hate this game for awhile is The Humor. you see, when it came out, a lot of the people in the hacking community thought it was Unfunny and Dumb. So, by extension, i also started Hating it for being a Dumb and Unfunny rom hack. And well... i made this hack when i was 13, so there Are a lot of dumb unfunny stuff in this hack, like replacing the Points sprite with 'GAY', or having one of the sprites be of ken penders' face.

a lot of things in this hack havent aged well, but i think ive grown to accept this hack's existence. its one of the first things ive made that got Some sort of public knowledge, even if still very few people have played it. And i think, if it werent for me making this hack and joining the hacking community, i wouldnt have ended up in the crazy situation i am in today..

i may joke about askin people if theyve heard of pepsi in sonic 1, and although i would prefer if people checked out my newer stuff, i also hope at least Some One, Some Where, can appreciate the dumb little hack i made. this hack was very important to me when i made it, it was made before i even fully interacted with the hacking community. it has all sorts of dumb little ideas that i tried to do despite all the restrictions i had.. and it was a little soul crushing back then when no one payed much attention to the game i spent Months working on. nowadays, i think ive come to accept being a niche little game dev.. but also i cant help but wonder if there are people out there who like my strange little creations as much as i do...

anyways. Idont know. i probably am missing out a lot of things that i wanted to say. this whole thing is probably incomprehensible (i am currently writing this paragraph at 1 am on November 13). it has been Very Hard for me to Do Things or to even Write Down my thoughts on things. but i hope you appreciate this little thing i wrote about the thing i made.

Oh, And By the Way, pepsi in sonic 1 is open source on github. mostly for archival reasons but if for some reason you wish to mess around with it... it is there for u to do whatever u want with it. Lol.

that is all. goopbye

[unlimitedtrees]

thinkin about 'Evil Mode' from 'Among the Others' , my last rom hack

so, after beating sylvie lime yesterday ,it got me thinkin about silly precision platformers and kaizo stuff ... U see , despite me being a Sonic CD-loving freak , i do like to play trial and error crazy platformers , such as N++ and celeste some other games im too lazy to think about right now . i just. like a fun and silly challenge sometimes. However , as i established in me last post , i am a Picky Bitch when it comes to platformers and i tend to prefer the controls and movement of the classic sonic games compared to every other platformer out there . i just Love the unique movement and interactions u have with environment in stuff like Sonic CD ... its something that no other game feels like and is something ive always wanted to see be experimented with in something like a kaizo sort of game .. but it hasnt really been done much before aside from a kaizo sonic rom hack that i thought handled the level design Very Poorly ..

there is also a rom hack named Sonic VR which i Really Really like ... but im probably gonna save that for its own post , teehee !!

Anyways. along with Sonic VR being a Huge Inspiration for me , and also seeing all those crazy kaizo mario hacks over the years , its something i wanted to try making myself for a Long, Long time . and well ... i finally got the chance in 2018, with my rom hack named 'Among the Others'.

so. Among the Others was a rom hack of Sonic 1 that i made. there is a Lot of history behind it that i wont get into for this post , but basically it was supposed to be my final, ambitious rom hack that eventually got cancelled and then i put a wall of text at the very end complaining about the rom hacking community. i then released it to the sonic hacking contest and then left the community .. but a few months before the contest begun, i still had a bunch of free time and the main game was already complete, so i decided to just add a bunch of random extra stuff just because .. and in the end there ended up being a Lot More content for a game that Was Technically unfinished...

one of the thing i added into the game was the secret 'Evil Mode' , something which not many people have played and is what im gonna get into in this post ... click da Read More thingy if u Dare !!!

So , in the level select (which u can just access by using the normal Sonic 1 level select code) , there are 3 evil mode levels in the game. these are basically extra levels based off the normal levels in the game, except these are completely redesigned to be Very Difficult and Evil. i wanted to make a sort of kaizo like thing ,where u have to get past all sorts of Deranged challenges that take advantage of the unique controls and movement of this game (which, btw, in case u dont know, this game has special abilities unique to it that make the movement Very Crazy , Lol !!).

There Is One Big Problem However... and it has to deal with the limitations of Making A Sonic ROM Hack When You Are Just A Dumb Little Creature Who Does Not Understand Assembly Programming.

You See, designing kaizo levels for a sonic rom hack is way more difficult than you may think. there comes a lot of Limitations to making sonic rom hacks that, combined with my limited skill, made making these levels very Annoying and Difficult to Create.

First Off, the game can only handle so many objects on screen. Which, well, i Suppose is fine. after all, im sure that's the case with mario world rom hacks. But In The Case Of A Sonic ROM Hack ... Well . Not only are you limited by having few sprites on screen, but you Also are limited by how many Types of objects can be in a level. You See.. all of the artwork for the objects are loaded in by 'pattern load cues'. each zone in the game has their own table which lists all the artwork thats loaded in ,including the level art and all the art for all the objects . not only was i limited by how Much art could be loaded in a single zone .. but Also i was limited by My Ability To Program. i could Not understand how the pattern load cues worked At All. getting objects from One Zone to work in Another Zone was Nearly Impossible for me ... idont know how to describe this fully. Basically , Most of the time , i could Not bring over another object from another zone Unless it used the same amount of tiles as an object from the current zone .. if that makes sense. idont know. All I Know Is ... I Was Greatly Limited by What objects i could use , and that's on Top of worrying about having too many objects on screen .

But That's Not The End Of It. you also have to worry about objects just. Disappearing in the game. sometimes , an object will just Not Load In and i have No Idea Why. i dont understand how any of it works .. all i know is that i was Unable to fully rely on building the level out of objects ,as id constantly have to worry if an important object would Unload , making progressing in the levels difficult.

because of all this , i was Severely Limited by how i could design the levels and what hazards i could even make . i couldnt even have too many spikes anywhere like a kaizo mario level ... it was very Limiting . and thats not even getting into the Level Chunks . you see, the levels themselves are also built out of Chunks of 128x128 pixels ,which have all the level art and collision. but i was also limited by How Many Chunks a zone could have , and these zones already were using the chunks from the normal levels which already used most of the chunks .... so i couldnt design much unique areas for these levels ...

despite it all , i tried my best to make levels that would be an interesting challenge ... and u know what. i am Kind Of proud of what i managed to accomplish , especially considering all the limitations i had to deal with. there's Definitely a ton of stuff i wish i couldve done with these levels, and theres stuff i probably couldve done better ,but Damn. playing through these dickish levels is kind of fun sometimes. Lol. i tried my best to make these levels use the physics and unique abilities to their fullest potential ... i just wish i coulda done More with em.

something i am pretty proud of that i think No One has done is playing the evil levels in Encore Mode. you see, in the game there is a secret encore mode that can be accessed by entering '81, 82, 80, 80' in the sound test ... and aside from letting you play as Pepsiman it also gives every level entirely different object layouts, along with new palettes and music. The Evil Mode levels in particular were fun to make Even More Evil , with The Core Zone specifically being made to be Actually Deranged , with its palette being Pitch Black and the evil mode level being Longer than the original one . and ,while i was also a bit limited with making these encore versions as i could only edit the object layouts , they were still fun to make and i am pretty proud of Encore Mode as a whole .

anyways. if you want something insane to go through, try the Evil Mode in Among the Others if you wish. you can download the game and its source code on github, if you wish.

anywayz thats all. there is so much about Among the Others ive ought to talk about .,,,, so much about this game that people dont even know about . maybe someday i can share more about it with you all ....

[unlimitedtrees]

'spark the electric jester 3' is The 3d platformer of All Time. and im tired of pretending its not .

first off, two things: one. Please look at this video by Tukepuikko Immediately . it is the most sick video of All Time. Second Off... im putting this in my little #TreesThinks tag cus this is a big post that i want people to See !

So . i have become a heavy shill for spark 3. i have put nearly 60 hours into this game (at the time of me reposting this on tumblr, over 100 hours). it is the most Fun 3d game ive ever played in My Life. there is Nothing Like It. i love it a lot and i want more of it to exist, and i want more people to play it so that more of it can exist.

before i get into me whole thoughts about it, iwill just say that is The Best Controlling 3D Platformer Ever , Has Combat With Actual Depth , The Best Levels Of All Time , And Has A REALLY Silly Story That Is Worth Experiencing Blind. okay. if youre interested click da 'read more' thingy. i DARE YOU !!!

so. if u dont know, spark 3 is created by a guy named lake. he made a bunch of old sonic fangames and then made two entire games almost entirely by himself. im not that big a fan of Most of his earlier games, but they have a lot of aspects of them that no other game does ... but This Game in particular does just the specific kind of things i like that makes me Love It Alot. Also , keep in mind the fact that this game is Mostly made by one(1) guy . it will make sense for some of its Issues which i will get into.

So. first off , the controls. It is The Best Controlling Thing Ever. Of Course, being one of those Sonic Inspired thingys, it has really nice Physics and you can interact with slopes and the terrain really nicely... u can do silly tricks off slopes to reach crazy heights or gain tons of speed. it feels really nice and is something i wish was in every game because its my favorite thing ever. And the base movement (as in, running and jumping) feels Really Good... ur turning while running at high speeds feels Good and just Jumping Around the world feels Nice and Responsive. but that is not the Whole Reason why this game's movement is the best.

its the best because of your Options and Abilities... and that u can actually Recover and do Cool Things with ur abilities. you not only have a double jump, homing attack, and a dash, but u have a 'charged jester dash' and a down dash and a Wall Run which feels Really Well and a wall jump, along with special abilities you can buy in the shop with 'bits', such as an Energy Dash (a powerful dash which spends energy), a 'Jester Swipe' (basically the light speed dash but it Adds to ur speed when u use it), and separate characters with their own movement abilities (such as a character who can float and a character who has Two air dashes). all of these moves (and more) combined can be used for Crazy movement in the levels.. as u can see in the video i posted above. not only can u go Really Fast in this game (which controls Really Good), but you can use it to move around the world and reach crazy heights AND safely recover in case u make a mistake... u have tons of Options and they all feel Really Good and i Love it. moving around the levels in this game feels So Good and i wish more games had Good Movement that lets u Explore the levels nicely.....

Which, Brings me onto the Levels. the levels in this game are Huge. playing them casually and just goin from start to finish will last from 3 to 4 minutes in Most of the main stages... but if u like to spend time exploring levels and messing around doing dumb tricks and stuff, then this game is for you because a ton of the levels in this game are Massive. i have spent from 30 minutes to Over An Hour on some stages just Exploring them and there are Still things i have yet to find... and theyre actually Fun to move around and explore and theres actually cool things to find in the levels (such as exploration medals which help later in the game and also various other collectibles and even Enemies u can find. its great). even in the smaller side stages there is still a lot to find and mess around in. Basically , if you see something in any level, you can Get There and find something there. nearly everything has collision in most of these levels. and there are hardly any kill planes. anyways um yea. these levels are huge and fun to play in and have a ton of stuff in them and are nice and i like them. i want more games with levels that are Fun to explore !!!

anyways. next up i want to talkabout the combat. there are two types of enemies: weak enemies which u can just take out with a homing attack or a shot from ur finger gun (something which u equip in da shop). these weak enemies are pretty alright, u cant just mindlessly homing attack some of them as some of them have moves u have to avoid. but then there are Stronger enemies, such as the ones scattered in the levels or the ones in the boss fights. These enemies have health bars and more attacks than the weak enemies. In this game , uhave a heavy attack and a light attack, along with a ton of combo moves (some of which u can buy in da shop, as well as other playable characters having their own combos). you also have a bunch of extra powers u can equip which are really useful in combat, such as a powerful gun and an explosion move. Strong enemies have attacks which u can parry (along with ones that u cant), and if u perform a perfect parry u can stun the enemy and are given a little bit of energy which is Useful (u can also just. Hold the parry button to just block certain attacks, which makes things a bit easier).

Now , if u were like me in my first playthrough, u can just Ignore all of that and just spam the attack buttons and just play on easy difficulty and clear through the entire game. In Fact, a lot of the 'mandatory' fights in the levels can be Skipped in various ways (just look up the speedruns of this game and youll see what i mean). However, theres actually a Lot of depth to the combat in this game and its actually pretty fun , and when u actually Try in the combat you can actually kill enemies Quicker than just spamming attacks.

first off, the actual Fights in this game arent as brain dead as spark 2 where u can basically just Hold parry and spam the attacks to win... even when u spam attacks in this game u actually have to Dodge certain attacks (as , as i mentioned earlier, some moves cant be parried). Secondly.. this game has a Combo Meter which, when filled up by doing unique combos, adds a Damage Multiplier which can be used to end fights a Lot Quickly. also.. the combos u can actually pull off in this game are pretty Sick. its not as crazy as something like devil may cry... but the game was Inspired by it and u can actually Juggle enemies by launching them in the air with certain moves.. and u cant just keep an enemy juggled in the air forever... u have to actually put Effort into pulling off cool stuff.. and people have done cool stuff... just see the Skill Contest that was done for this game.. people have done some Crazy shit ! one last thing ill mention about da combat (For Now) is that pulling off the perfect parry is really satisfying... thats all Lol.

last of da positive things i will get into is da Presentation and Story . this game is Pretty. it is a Huge step up from spark 2... the characters look Good and the animation looks Good and the levels look Good. the music is Really Good with some cool tracks... though personally it isnt as good as the Literal Perfect Soundtracks that are the Spark 1 and 2 osts along with the Sonic Before and After the Sequel soundtracks......

Oh Wait , one more little thing i should mention... the speed run of this game is Crazy . this game has Insane Tech that is fun to pull off while not being totally easy or game breaking. just watch some of the any% speedruns to see what i mean.... this game is crazy.

Anyways , for the Story ... i will not get into spoilers as i think its best experienced blind. during most of the game, there isnt a whole lot of cutscenes or interesting stuff going on unfortunately .... the only thing going on is the backstory infodumps that happen after a few bosses which. arent that great and go on for Way too long. HOWEVER . at the very last level , the game DUMPS a TON of cutscenes on you and all sorts of INSANE and crazy ass shit happens in it. it is one of the most Passionate endings to a game ive ever seen... it does So Much. you will either Really Really Love it or kind of hate it. and i think its perfect because of that. it is a funny little ride and its worth going through i think.

so. all of those reasons are why i think the game is one of my favorites right now. there is just nothing else like it. However, the game Does have quite a bit of problems that you might not like. after beating the game, its easy to ignore all of them when replaying, but on ur first playthrough u might either Really Really Love this game or Not Like it by the end of it.

First Off, there is a mechanic which doesnt really become a problem until the last two levels. this game has Fall Damage. now. You Might Love It or Really Really Hate It. personally ... i Like it but wish it had more going on. you see... after reaching a certain fall speed and hitting the ground, u take a bit of damage. But Also , if u Fall For Too Long a little timer will appear. when this timer is out, you Die. the reason this is done is so that you cant just fall straight down in the more vertical levels in this game (particularly the last two). you actually have to work around the level in order to reach the bottom of the final levels ... But you can also cancel ur fall speed by using your moves such as the double jump and dash in mid-air. Now, Conceptually, i think its Kind Of Interesting... as all of your moves become a resource which u have to manage in order to get down in the vertical levels. and i think if there was more going on in these vertical levels (such as things in the air you have to avoid), it could lead to some very interesting and complex gameplay. In Fact , the speedruns of this game are very interesting in that speedrunners have to Abuse the falling timer in order to get as far down as you can in the last two levels. it leads to interesting routing, and with how massive these levels are there are Tons of possibilities for routes u can take.

However, the last two levels have some Problems. the second to last one, Deep Descent, is a Huge vertical level where u have to descend down a massive, challenging level. and it is a really fun level to explore and the actual parts where ur Running on normal ground is nice and challenging... but when u enter the parts where u need to Fall.... there isnt a whole lot going on. there are weird loop thingys which slow ur fall speed, but aside from that there is Nothing else going on in the air. no enemies, no obstacles to dodge in the air... nothing. i understand most of the level not being full of things in the air, as this level is Huge and this game being developed by One Guy means there is only So Much you can do... but i wish there were like floating spikeballs or something that u have to avoid when ur falling in this level... cus aside from that there isnt much challenge when ur playing the level casually. the only challenge is to Not Let The Timer Run Out... which i can see why people dont like it. But, when going thru this level and abusing the falling mechanics to Skip most of the level and successfully falling to a place without dying is Pretty Fun to me, i just wish the falling mechanic was Used more. other than that... Deep Descent is pretty fine, however casually it goes on for nearly 11 minutes.. and there are some points where even the main parts of the level dont have a whole lot going on.

And That Leads me to the Final Level...... Utopia Shelter. and ill tell you: You Will Either Really Love It.... Or Really Really REALLY Hate it. First Off , this level has a Lives system. u gain more lives from collecting medals and beating more stages. the point of the lives system is so that you actually have to get good at the game in order to get to the ending. And well ... i am Unsure how to feel about it. i think the Idea of it is kind of alright ... it's supposed to encourage u to get good at the game in order to take on the final ultimate challenge that this level is supposed to be. it's supposed to add Weight to the final level... making every death meaningful and encouraging you to be more careful. But In Practice... not only is it a really cheap way of doing that, but its execution doesnt really Add anything to the game. if youre pretty Good or Decent at the game, youre only going to die a few times at most (i dont even think ive seen the game over screen myself before). but if youre Bad at the game and didnt get enough medals, this stage is going to be very Frustrating and a Huge roadblock. it doesnt help that at the very beginning you have to fight the hardest boss in the entire game.

and then there's the actual level itself. where do i even begin. So, it is The longest level in the game. it is supposed to be a massive journey that will last you almost 30 minutes when playing casually (and not game overing) just to Beat the Level itself. and you have lives on top of it. Now , with the way the game hypes up this level as being The Hardest and Longest challenge in the game, i was really looking forward to this being some sort of Eggmanland from Unleashed type level, where it tests all your skills and does all sorts of Insane bullshit. and well... it Kind of does that? there's defintely some challenge here (especially if you arent, u know, good at the game). but for Me.. there really wasnt a whole lot of interesting challenges here, and i was able to overcome the level pretty easily. i think what hurts this level the most is that it's totally Linear, and then at about like 2/3rds into the level it just becomes a bunch of straight roads you have to run across. Idk.. the level itself for most of it just doesnt feel as Grand as Spark 1 and 2's final levels. at least for me. i just wish the obstacles were more Crazy and Interesting. i dont Hate the level (and in fact its one of my favorite levels to Break and go Out of bounds. LOL), i just wish it did so much more with its concept. without getting into spoilers, about halfway into the level it starts introducing some Interesting visual things which i will not get into. but theyre pretty neat and i wish it expanded upon it more. also its pretty cool how its all just. one level. and there's no loading screens or anything inbetween so if you go out of bounds you can just. Fall to the final area. Lol. this level is defintely one of the most 'You Either Love it or Really Hate It' parts of the game.. but i think its worth going through just to see the ending.

anyways , ithink the only other negative ill getinto in this post is the Fights. as Good as i think the combat is, i feel like the actual enemies you fight are kind of ... basic. there are some Really Good and challenging bosses, but with the rest of the bosses and enemies in the game you'll notice that they dont really put up a fight.. in fact some bosses will just Stand Still and wait for awhile before they even perform another attack.. it makes fighting them very Easy and boring, Especially if you arent actively trying to be Good at the combat. it especially gets worse at the end of the game, where the same enemy types start reappearing (especially in the final level where you have to fight them in certain places... which u can skip but Lol). i get Why theyre the way they are... this game is Generally made to be a lot more easier than the previous spark games so that people new to the series can get adjusted to it more... but even in the hardest difficulties a lot of the enemies dont really change much, and there isnt really a whole lot of noticable differences in the harder difficulties aside from having Less Health. idk. i just wish there were more harder stuff that fully tested your skills in this game.. but it is what it is i suppose.

there's a few other problems i could probably mention (or i just forgot about), but i dont feel like bringing them up , cus despite the problems this game has, i think the positives Greatly outway the negatives. and also it is important to consider this entire game, which is like 4 hours long casually and is pretty ambitious, is made primarily by like. One Guy. i feel like it's important to keep that in mind.. cus it makes this game so much more Impressive, especially with how much of a huge step up it is from Spark 2 (which only came out in like, 2017). i think, even if some people might not like certain parts of the game, everyone Needs to play this game... it is only like, 25 dollars on steam, and can be bought in a bundle with the rest of the series for Less than 40 dollars... And both it and the bundle go on sale often. You can get So much out of all three of the games for like, nearly half of the cost of sonic frontiers. And also Spark 3 has a demo you can try...

So yea. i want to see this game succeed because i want More of it. the game just got DLC awhile ago with new abilities and The Entirety of Spark 2's Levels in Spark 3.... so even if u dont want to get the bundle you are getting Two Games Worth of Content from like. less than 30 dollars. please buy this game and check it out on steam and hopefully some day itll come to consoles and hopefully some day we can see more of this game. there's already one more DLC planned... and also there's now a Spark plush on makeship that already hit its minimum funding goal. please give this game a chance. it is The 3D Video Game of All Time. thats all. hehe

[unlimitedtrees]

talkin' about ~BRAND NEW WORLD - SECTION 1 and 2~ from 'UNITRES Dreams'

today i feel like talking a bit about my game, UNITRES Dreams. specifically, the levels 'Brand New World - Section 1' and 'Brand New World - Section 2'. ive been meaning to talk about this level for a Long while, but couldnt figure out how to put my words together... i hope this is an interesting little read for you...

play da Game on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io

these two levels were the first levels ever created for the game. for a little backstory.. UNITRES Dreams started as just a small tech demo made in 4 days for a little game jam. at the time, it was just called 'UNITRES - Tech Demo' and was just made to explore some concepts i had. things were a Lot simpler in this demo... the controls and overall movement was simpler, the art design and level design was rlly simple as i didnt know what i wanted to go for with this game yet. one key difference in this early version of the game is the Music.

the demo used a few placeholder tracks from other people, such as the track for the first section being a megaman remix. but the second section uses a song called 'Fuwa Fuwa Brand New' by Halcali.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA0KyE70sSc

this song is actually really important to me... i first heard it in a video in the Sonic 2 Special Edition series and it Immediately entranced me. I ain't good with words or describing music, but to me the song is very upbeat but melancholic in some way if that makes sense. i was in a really bad place mentally when i first heard it but it really inspired me to make something new... it wasnt Entirely responsible for the creation of UNITRES but it was a really big part of it and its still one of my favorite songs to listen to...

Anyways. the song was a big inspiration for the mood i wanted to go for in the game and this particular level. for a bit of explanation of the Story going on in this level... before the level even starts u get a cutscene where trees "explains" what is about to go on in the level, saying they're going to break into some facility for some burgers, and you're just dumped into the level with no real context as to what's actually going on. Section 1 starts out with Trees quickly running through and killing the strange, mutated creatures inside, until you get to Section 2 where the mood suddenly shifts and Trees becomes carefree as they reach what they've actually been there to do. I dont want to talk about it too much just yet, but in the background of section 2 you can see a large purple light brightening up the strange organic structures surrounding it... this purple light is one of the seven Eyes which have been a subtle important part of the game's story, and Trees is after it so that they don't make a mistake theyve made before.. most of whats going on this level is barely communicated and also mostly exists in my head, but i hope you can see a little of my intentions. the halcali song fit so well for me, as it's a very uplifting song being used in a level where Trees is about to do something Very Terrible Which I Won't Talk About Yet after they've just been through something Very Horrible which is not communicated with in the game. and the song gave the perfect feeling for what i wanted to do...

But Anyways... eventually when i made UNITRES Dreams into a full game, i wanted to have a completely original soundtrack for it. it was really difficult to put together however, as i was like 17 when i was making it and i had no way of making money and didnt know a whole lot of composers (especially ones thatd be willing to work on my silly little game). But then, shortly after the original tech demo that i met RRThiel and then slowly started getting a whole team of composers.. i am so lucky to have the soundtrack UNITRES has now and im so greatful for all the composers who made it for my silly little game and i beg all of you to check out the soundtrack and all the composers, they are all wonderful.

Anyways. about brand new world's new music... for most of UNITRES Dreams' development i was unable to get anyone to make music for it. it was pretty low priority as i had to find people who could make music for the rest of the game, but it was still Really Important to me as i wanted someone who could capture the same feeling i was going for with the placeholder music. it wasnt until near the very end of development that i got MiniMacro and R3tronaut to make the tracks for the two sections...

https://youtu.be/ZPpCJtvq0HA?t=2253

MiniMacro worked on the track for Section 1 and it came out really freakin good.. the song sounds really Urgent and it fits really well and he did a really good job and you all should check out his work and the games he made. What i especially want to talk about is R3tronaut's song for Section 2..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpCJtvq0HA&t=2369s

i don't really have any favorites in the game's soundtrack as all of the music is unique and fits really well for their specific parts and i love every track in this game deeply, but if i Had to pick a favorite , R3's track for Brand New World - Section 2 would be Really close. once again i am bad with words but is such an Emotional but upbeat and magical song that it manages to capture everything i wanted with this level so much.. i love how both level's sections music came out and the tone shift that suddenly comes with this track.. it fits the weird little story that i have going on in this level... anyways ummm You Must look at all of R3's music and buy all their albums.. NOW !!! EHHEHEHE!!!

anyways. one last little thing i will tell you.. originally in the tech demo, after beating the boss you get a really basic cutscene which shows the Trees character going to sleep, which ended up setting up the plot for UNITRES Dreams... but i removed the cutscene in the final game and never replaced it which im still upset about as nothing really communicates what happens after the level. Originally, UNITRES Dreams wasnt even supposed to exist and the cutscene was just to set up for something completely differnet, but after making the demo i Really wanted to explore more of the gameplay and story... and so i started working on UNITRES Dreams...

thats all i feel like talking about right now. i am tired and want to eat food. maybe i should talk more about this game sometime...

Oh btw that last sentence was before i wrote any of da other Big Posts i made. i actually have had this in my drafts for A While and wasnt sure how to properly put my words together. im still not sure if i did a good job talking about this... oh well. ummmm play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com , teehee !

Ohh Ohh Actually SIKE !!! before igo i should actually talk about The Level Itself... i just realized at the end of typing all of that that i havent even talked about what the level Plays like and how it Looks and how it was made... Well. being the first level in the Entire Game, it is Incredibly Basic and Linear. since the controls were simpler, the challenges in this level were just basic platforming challenges with enemies thrown around. in Section 2, i introduced gravity swapping mechanics which i Like. some people have complained about it, but honestly i like how the controls are reversed when upside down.. it makes more sense to me. Also, being one of the earliest levels ever made, i wasnt actually Sure how to make the artwork, so everything is very simple and basic. Actually, the palette and a little bit of the art is was updated in the v3.0.2 update which is shown in the screenshots.. so things are a little more vibrant and prettier than they were in the original tech demo. Last thing i can tell you about gameplay wise is that the bosses Sucked, as i made them really quickly and the first boss is Really Easy and basic (with you having to Wait to damage it.. which is annoying) and the second boss is also incredibly basic but with a ton of projectile spam and an attack that is instant kill if you dont shield. LOL !!!

OKAY OKAY ONE MORE THING !!! if you didnt know... the original tech demo was actually made for the 'Really Amateur Games Expo' (or RAGE for short), which was a joke event run by the people who run SAGE where u have to make a joke game in under a week. i never attended one of them before and just felt like doing it right then just because it gave me an excuse to make UNITRES into a thing. the theme of that year's event was to make a bad game based off the newly revealed Sonic movie and its design... so i decided itd be funny to make a game Completely Unrelated to Sonic and the sonic movie and make it an Actually Good Game With Effort Kind Of. so That's why theres a bunch of posters for "Fast The Rat" and the egg guy... it was supposed to be making fun of the original sonic movie teaser. the game was actually accepted into the event.. but it was completely ignored and also it wasnt even shown on the stream they did for the event. oh well. around that same time i also joined newgrounds for the first time and posted about it.. but it also did not occur to me that i could have exported an html version of the game which i Kind Of regret not doing then. Oh Well, at least the version of the game that came out on newgrounds is way more polished and Good, LOL !!!

EDIT: ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE MORE THING !!! i forgot to mention that Technically, section 1 and 2 actually take place in the same layout and thats why theres a smooth transition into the two sections compared to every other level. LOL!

[unlimitedtrees]

awhile ago i uploaded two videos shwoing off the test levels from my game 'UNITRES Dreams'. i dont think i have Too much to say about them.. but i just thought id tell u a little about it for documentation purposes . . .

(also here is part 2 of the video cus at the end of part 1 the game soft locked and i was too lazy to just edit them together to one video)

So. throughout UNITRES' development , i made a bunch of little test levels to test out a bunch of things such as gimmicks and the general mechanics of the game n stuff. you can only find these in a secret debug level select... which u can only access via a code which i will not be sharing for now.. but i figured id at least show off all of the levels and explain whats goin on in them !

to make things a little easier.. i will split off each of the test levels into separate groups , as a lot of them were made during specific parts of the games development and show just how much the game changed throughout..

first off, there is the UNITRES - Tech Demo phase of development. this was just when the game was a short level, so there were only two test levels made for it

Test Area 1 - the Very first test level in the game, and Also the very first Layout made in the game. For Context, this game was made in Construct 2... so every level takes place in its own Layout, which has Layers n such. when development first began, i used this layout as a place to test out the basic movement and controls of the game. there is a little bit of area u can move around here , and there used to be test enemies for figuring out the enemy mechanics.. However... after the game became UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition, i used this level as a sort of dumping grounds. You See, construct 2 has this Weird setup where an object HAS to be placed in a pre-existing layout in order for it to have variables and behaviors and other values set. you could Probably set all of this up via events and setting every instance's variables at the beginning of a layout... But it was Way easier to just Dump all the objects in a layout you arent using. as a result , a lot of the test areas have just a bunch of random objects dumped into them. this particular test level has nearly every object dumped into it... from assets for the LOVER boss to random visual effects... some other test levels also have objects dumped into them but not as much as this one. I was actually afraid of ever playing this level as i was worried everything would Break due to how many random objects and code are at play here... but luckily nothing really happens here and i can just show u the level in its full glory.

Test Area 2 - the only other test level made for the original UNITRES tech demo, it started as a basic room to test the camera boundary mechanics ... but then i used it to test the Rat boss, and i moved the player's position near it so it could be quicker to test. a shame that u have to backtrack just to see what the room was supposed to be for...

that was all of the rooms made for the original tech demo... but then i expanded the game to become UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition , and planned on making an entire campaign with whole entire levels and bosses... so i made a ton of test levels jsut to test gimmicks and try out ideas

Test Area 3 - the first new test level made for this era of UNITRES... it primarily was used to test the new game mechanics... Bars, Ariel Faith Plates, and even the original car that was used in the early version of Dreamscape Distance - Section 2. at the bottom left of the layout, u can see a little diamond shape from the collision.. this was actually supposed to be used to test an idea i had for a sort of gravity switching mechanic... but i gave up on it quickly cus it was too complex for me to make ehehehehe

Test Area 4 - this room is just for testing the barrels for Chaotic Carnival, but also included is a scrapped gimmick of a sort of touch fuzzy get dizzy sort of thing... there is a weird object here that u can touch and it makes the screen have a crazy effect. i dont remember where exactly i planned to use this... i think i planned to use it in either Dreamscape Distance - Section 2 or Tranquil Trench - Section 2.... but i just never got around to it and couldnt think of a good place to put it... plus i was too lazy to make art for it.

Test Area 5 - a place for testing various gimmicks for the game, mainly Dreamscape Distance and Chaotic Carnival gimmicks. working on the rotating bars from CC was really difficult but i liked how it came out hehehe.

Test Area 6 - so at this point in part 1 of the test level videos , the game soft locks, so i couldnt see all of whats in this level... But i think i do have a good memory of what this level was For. it started to test the fire gimmick for Tranquil Trench, along with a few gimmicks for Subconscious Scenery (mainly the portal gimmick). a few more gimmicks were added for Tranquil Trench.. such as the moving walls and the darkness gimmick.. but then i started working on the Dialogue system , and Thats what broke the layout. i started with a few test objects to experiment with the dialogue system... and there were a few test dialogue events created just for this.. but then i think later in development i removed these dialogue events from the game's script and now, when u go past the dialogue trigger, the game soft locks as it's calling for a dialogue trigger that doesnt exist.

Test Area 7 - this test level which u can see in part 2 was just for testing various Tranquil Trench - Section 2 gimmicks. nothing much to say. there is an object from the LOVER boss fight that was dumped here which is pretty funny. i Think they May have been to test the moves for the boss ??? maybe not. idont remember.

that ends the test layouts created for UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition ... after this , we get into the UNITRES Dreams layouts, which are pretty interesting ...

Test Area 8 - just a test level to test multiple stuff for Greenhouse Frenzy ... particularly the water.

Test Area 9 - This is where things get interesting ... this room was first created with a flat area with a bunch of slopes to test an idea i had.. i was wondering if i could implement slope physics into the game (i could not, in fact, implement them). But Then i started implementing the Directional Attack.. and this changed Everything. i had to struggle to implement a hackish way of allowing the characters to go beyond their top speed in a game that was Originally slow paced and with a set top speed.. and this layout was perfect for it. eventually.. i used this layout to test a Bunch of gimmicks for UNITRES Dreams... mainly the new ones which involved the more fast paced gameplay. i eventually moved the player's starting position to later in the level to quickly test a bunch of new stuff.. but going back u can see where everything started. i think its neat how u can see this game's growth just from these test levels alone..

Test Area 10 - in this level, i introduced a different tileset for handlilng collision... this tileset is bigger than the original tileset i used, with this being 32x32 pixels compared to the original's 16x16. it was a Lot easier to use this tileset (as construct 2's tile editing system SUCKS especially for small tilesets). i ended up using this tileset for the rest of the new levels.. but i was forced to still use the bad 16x16 collision set still for the older levels that still used it. i wish i started the entire game with this 32x32 tileset.. itwouldve made making levels So much quicker u have no idea. Anyways. this test level is just a mix of random gimmicks from various levels, particularly the New gimmicks made for the remade levels from the main campaign. at one point u can see me messing with top solid objects... i wanted to try and implement sloped top solid objects into the game as it wouldve made for more interesting terrains and level design (mainly in Tranquil Trench)... HOWEVER construct 2's built in platformer behavior has AWFUL collision detection for top solids. you can only really use flat objects.. as anything that is Remotely at an angle will cause the player object to fall through them, especially when going at fast speeds. as a result.. the only sloped top solid u can see in the game is the 135 degree one.. which is not very useful and u can still phase through it if ur not careful. top solids suck in construct . Especially moving ones. the moving platforms which rotate in dreamscape distance in particular are annoying... you sometimes dont get your abilities back when landing on them as the game thinks you havent landed on anything... theres nothing i couldve done about this and it Sucks. Last thing revolving collision.. later in the level u can see me attempting to figure out a way to make colliding with sloped ceilings better (as normally, if u collide with ANY sloped ceiling your speed would just Stop like u hit a wall). But ... i couldnt do anything about it. as a result , i tried avoiding ceilings with slopes. and it really hurt a lot of levels. it is what it is i suppose.

Test Area 11 - nothing much to say about this one, just testing out various new gimmicks and enemies for Greenhouse Frenzy. u might notice that the background is dark blue instead of a blinding white... it is because testing in the old layouts Hurt My Eyes cus of how bright they are and how much time i spent in them.

and that is all the test levels i made for the game. test levels are important. theyre good for quickly figuring out ideas and testing if things work. always make test levels for ur games. i just thought itd be interesting to show them off...

oh, i also showed in the part 2 video a few more levels that u can only access in the debug menu so ill just go over them real quick. the 'Tranquil Trench 2 Cutscene' level was the basic cutscene level that existed before i made the 'Vanished Dreams' level for the SAGE 2020 update. its a lot more basic, just being a straight line and i was always disappointed with it just being a boring dialogue dump room, so i made an entire new level to jump around and explore a little to make things way more interesting. and the 'Trailer Sequence' layout is a little thing i made just for the Christmas update in 2019.. u can see it here btw

thats all. remember when i said i didnt have much 2 say about this ?well i lied ehehehehe

[unlimitedtrees]

the earliest build i have from my very first game, 'Mr. Waffle Lover'

wat da freak ... im about to make Three posts in a row ?? impossible... so Hi. in case u havent seen my Last Big Post, one of my first projects was a game called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. it started in early 2014 until late 2017 and it went through Tons of wildly different iterations. and also, if u read da last post youd know i lost nearly All of those builds of the game.

Despite losing like, 3 years of my own history, ive managed to find a few builds from multiple iterations of my game, with this one being the earliest iteration i have. this is the Third iteration of the game's development.. and there isnt a whole lot to say about it. it is a Very Basic, Very Primitive platformer made by an 11 year old. this build in particular has only Two levels . i Think more were made at some point, but it's hard to remember. at one point, i made a ""mobile version demo"" of the game for the tablet i had at the time (the game did not work on it), and thats the version u see in the video i posted. For Some Reason, i decided to strip any other level that may have existed in the game and just made it a demo even though i was the Only Person who could play the game.. so i dont have much from this iteration. i Do have an Earlier build that i put on github, but there isnt a whole lot of differences to this demo version.

Anyways, i think, for the rest of this post, imma go a little in depth about the Origins of this game and what it was actually Supposed to be .. click the Read Me thingy if u Dare !!!

So, it all started in 2013 . i was a Bored little creature who liked to draw things and was Deep into Minecraft for the Xbox 360. and one day i created a little comic with a character called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'.. And He Looked Like This:

That's Right , my very first OC is Just a skin from one of the minecraft xbox 360 edition skin packs. this was the skin i played as a lot back then, and 'Mr. Waffle Lover' was my self insert in the comic. why is he called 'Mr. Waffle Lover' you may ask? because i liked to eat waffles a lot. that became his main character trait. Eventually, when the game became A Thing, i would slowly change his design from just a copy of a minecraft skin, first giving him heterochromia and Gloves which spawned TNT, then later giving him a yellow shirt to match with his love for waffles, and then i just make him a Girl (but That is a story for Another Day . .. )

Anyways , on my birthday in 2014 i got a windows 8 laptop, and then in october i learned about construct 2 and decided i Needed to make a video game. ever since i was a fetus ive always wanted to make a video game,, with one of the earliest ideas for a game i remember having is when i was like 5 and wanted to make 'New Sonic the Hedgehog Wii' (a copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii but featuring multiple colored Sonics).

ANYWAYS , one of the first video games i ever made was Mr. Waffle Lover......... Well Actually, Technically that is not true, as a few months before i tried using some Random in-browser game program that i dont remember the name of to make something called the 'Egg Game'... but it never went anywhere beyond me putting a stock Egg image into the program and then giving up.

my initial inspiration for making a game about the Mr. Waffle Lover character was when i played a game called 'Ms. Splosion Man' on the xbox 360. i thought the game play was interesting but i got stuck at one of the puzzles so i was like 'I Want to make this game but Better and with MY character !'. And So, i thought of the idea of Waffle Lover having Gloves that spawn TNT that he uses to jump high like in Ms. Splosion Man....... but i never got to actually implement it until the 'mid 2015' build that i posted earlier... and i removed it entirely afterwards and just made the game a Basic 2D Platformer for awhile.

so yea. this game was supposed to be just a simple 2d platformer featuring my sort of self insert OC based off a minecraft skin. there wasnt really much to it conceptually... just wanted to make a video game! that's all my ideas were at the time.. the only "Story" this game has is 'Waffle Lover gets his Waffles stolen by some Scientist People and he needs to Stop Them !!!!'. the game eventually got some sort of story over time... but for now all u need to know is that this game is A Game that I Wanted To Make. it doesnt get purer than that.

with the first iteration of my game being my first game Ever, i had No Idea how to do things. all of the small sprites were stretched out to fit the HD screen resolution, making everything blurry. the gameplay was Very Basic and the levels were simple. the HUD didnt even stay centered on the screen... instead it used the 'pin behavior' to be pinned on the player object (which did not work and the HUD would move around the object). And the worst aspect of it was that i did Not know how to make layouts in construct 2 use other event sheets or Objects from other layouts..... meaning every layout (meaning every level) uses Completely Different programming And objects .... Not Only That , but i only had the Trial version of construct 2 at that time.... so i could only use 100 'events'... meaning i could only put So Much code in the game before i reached the limit (and with every level using its own separate events for everything, i ran out of events Pretty Quickly and couldnt make any more levels.

I So Desperately Wish i could show that first iteration of the game with you. it was Very Weird and Bad but it was so Lovely. to say the least.. it was quite the learning experience ! I can Vividly remember me making the very first layout in the game,, with it just being the Waffle Lover sprite moving around a white background and a bunch of badly placed collision objects. it was a Sight to Behold . But Sadly... when i decided to completely redo the game, i deleted the whole project file for it, and its pretty much Lost forever now. the only remains are some random sprites from it i still have... other than that there Was a trailer i made for it once and i Think i released a demo for it once... but both of those are Long gone now.

anyways. for the second iteration of the game i decided to make it an ""HD"" version of the game, using higher resolution sprites and a 3d animated version of Waffle Lover.... However this 3d version is Actually just a minecraft skin of him made in Mine-imator, an Old 3D animating software Exclusively made for making minecraft animations. So , the game had a bunch of bad tilesets and a badly animated prerendered sprite of a minecraft skin for its player character. i dont remember much from that point of the game's development other than it did not last very long and it looked Funny. i dont even think it got past one level... as i struggled with making high resolution art (i only had ms paint and construct 2's built in image editor, so, yea). i Think everything from that era of the game's development is Gone, HOWEVER i THINK i might have the files for the Mine-imator animations Somewhere... maybe. i Think i saw the files on my old laptop for some mine-imator project but i was unable to open them and i dont know if i saved them anywhere so. Idk.

and now, this leads us to the Third iteration of the game... which is the one i showed in this post. as you can see in the video, i finally figured out how to make pixel art look not blurry. i also figured out how to make different layouts use the same event sheets. i even figured out how to make a HUD... incredible ! other than all of that, there's not much to say about it. it's just not as silly looking as the earlier iterations were... and its not really Fun to play. its not even all that janky.. its just basic. i worked on it for awhile, but then i gave up on it and moved onto the mid 2015 iteration.. and the rest of the game's history is a story for Another Time..

if there's anything i can say about this old game.. it's that you can Definitely see how much ive grown since then. whoever is reading this, i Really hope this is not your first introduction to my work.... cus my stuff nowadays is Insane compared to this... a lot has happened in the like, 8 years since ive started game development. and i have so much stories i want to share,,, i hope i can keep sharing those stories with you. oh and also, if you Really have never heard of my work before... um.... Play UNITRES Dreams on Newgrounds dot com. LOL!!!!!!

That is All i want to talk about for today i think. I Think. hope my posts are comprehensible to u ! Oh , And Before i forget , the build of the game in the video i posted is in the ProjectWaffle google doc archive ... and the Earliest Build i have is on github. check it out If U Wish !

[unlimitedtrees]

a build from mid 2015 of my old game 'Mr. Waffle Lover', and why everyone should archive their work

hello. this is gonna be a quick little post to talk about something. as you might already know. i've been making games since 2014. one of my Very First projects was a game called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. i have a Lot to talk about it, but i want to save that for later. For now, i have something else i need to talk about.

So. this project was/is pretty important to me. it was one of the first things i made Ever, before i was even called 'Unlimited Trees' and before i was involved in Any online communities. i was learning A Lot from making it... a lot of the stuff i did for it is Unrecognizable from my current work.. and i havent made anything like it since. it means a lot to me, at least now.

Back Then, However... i did not treasure my work as i did now. You See, this game went through TONS of iterations. from 2014 to 2017, this game went through many changes across Multiple different project files, all with different assets and programming. during the early days, when i gave up on one iteration of the project, i would simply Delete the old files off my computer. And Then, at the beginning of 2016 when i changed my username to 'Unlimited Trees', i deleted ALL of my old work.

TONS of old games ive made were lost. some of the Very First works ive done Ever are completely missing. years of work went down the drain because i wanted to move on from my old work. But as time passed.. i became more fond of my old work, but realized that i could Never see any of it again. and since i never shared any of it to anyone outside of a few old friends (who i dont even have contact with anymore), there was no way i could get any of it back.

But. about over a year ago or so, i went through my old laptop and was able to find a bunch of old files with quite a few of my old games... some of these files werent the latest builds of these games so there was still a lot missing, but i was So Glad i found them... i have So Much i want to share and talk about and im happy i can share at least a little bit of the work ive done alone for years. even if no one cares about some dumb old games, im at least happy i dont have to worry about losing them again..

ANYWAYS. about this build of 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. it is the fourth iteration of the game. it has ideas which no other iteration has done (mainly the 'TNT' jumps). it has art and levels which i kind of like compared to the other early iterations. and it actually Plays Kind of Good , even if it is a little janky and basic. unlike most versions of the game, i actually remember sending builds of this to old friends, but i dont know if they ever played it or even still have it (i doubt they do Lol).

there's a lot more i could probably say about this, but i dont have the energy right now and will probably talk about it later in another post about 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. i have a Lot to share about it... just now is not the time. the video i posted speaks for itself, i think. its just a simple platformer with a basic OC. theres some stuff that wasnt shown in the video, such as an unfinished boss fight. but aside from that, thats all there is to see.

anyways, the point of this post is that i want to encourage more people to archive their work and not do what i did and delete all your stuff. even if in the moment you dont think your stuff is important.. you should at least keep your stuff saved in case you ever want to look back at it. Especially if youve been making things for Years... you might want to see just how much youve grown.. thats how i feel anyways. i am still missing a ton of work that ive made.. and ive since tried to archive everything i make. ive been making games for 8 years, and i put a Lot of time into the stuff ive made.. i never want to throw out any of my work again.

thats all i have to say for now i think. By The Way, the source code for this build of the game can be found here. just in case u want to give it a look. And By The Way, it's in my pinned post, but i have a few google drive folders full of All of my old projects, including everything i have from Waffle Lover (or 'Project Waffle', as it's called). i plan on moving more stuff onto github and making more posts about it.. but for now u can look thru it if u like

[unlimitedtrees]

i am Unlimited Trees. i make video games.

hello. this is a little pinned post for me. i am unlimited trees and i am a pixel artist and game developer who has been making video games since 2014.. ive worked on tons of original projects and fan games, with my newest games being 'UNITRES Dreams' and 'TREES' ADVENTURE' which are on newgrounds dot com and itch.io. i am the silliest game developer of all time ! click the read more for More Info ...

important Links

my games

UNITRES Dreams - (Newgrounds) (Itch.io) (Github) (Cohost) (WinXP) TREES' ADVENTURE - DEMO - (Newgrounds) (Itch.io) (Cohost) UNITRES LUCID - Prototype - (Newgrounds) (Itch.io) (Cohost)

important tags

here are some Important Tags for organization and also for if u want to look thru my stuff... i havent done a Lot of posts yet so i may add more tags later !!

#TreesThinks - general tag for all of my Big posts where i talk at kind of great lengths about Things i am Interesting in or feel like talkin about ... Mainly game development stuff. give it a Read hehe ! #UNITRES - general tag for anything involving my games from da 'UNITRES' series. #UNITRES Dreams - tag specifically for my game 'UNITRES Dreams'

#art - art tag. u will see my art here. lol

other links

heres some links to archives for my old games (i may need to move these to somewhere other than google drive LOL, but for now just have some google drive links) (UNITRES Archive) (ProjectWaffle Archive) (Misc Games Archive)

anyways heres some links to da other places i am at Lol ! (my newgrounds) (my twitter) (my github) (my itch.io) (my youtube) (my cohost)

By the Way , check out the UNITRES Soundtrack on youtube, and check out all the composers in the desciption !! they are Awesome ...