#sfghq

[blazehedgehog]

If one decides to start a creative project about their favorite thing, be it fanart, fanfic, fangame etc. , which approach do you prefer, the creatives involved fully dedicating themselves to recreating and recapturing what made the original works...work, or make an active choice to be derivative (this doesn't mean artists are ignorant about the original material, not necessarily) How do you feel about either, and are there any other approach you can think of?

There's this guy who used to post at SFGHQ named Sam Beddoes who now runs Freakzone Games. He's made the official Manos: The Hands of Fate game, he did both AVGN Adventures, he's the project lead on that Toxic Crusaders beat'em'up, etc.

But he's an old guard Sonic head and I've heard him turn up on a couple of Sonic podcasts, specifically to talk fangames, and by his account he got really fed up with the Sonic fangaming scene when everybody became obsessed with perfectly replicating the Genesis games, because to him, all the creativity and magic went away.

I remember hearing that and both agreeing and disagreeing with him. And I have enough thoughts about it that I've actually considered doing a video about it, and about fangaming overall.

I think there is a stigma to replicating something perfectly that's very adjacent to people who are concerned about young artists who start out by tracing pictures other people have drawn. Plagiarism is a real, legitimate problem. But it's only a problem if you lie about tracing.

I'm of the mind that if you're starting out drawing, half the problem is just learning control. Tracing can be a valuable tool in helping you to understand hand motions and give you a perspective on the construction of an image. For the earliest beginners, I don't think there's any shame in starting out by tracing. It's building muscle memory. Just don't say you drew it.

Similarly, my game development skills went way, way, way up about the time I started to analyze and perfectly replicate existing games. Like, the long canceled Sonic Forever project used an early enough version of the Sonic Worlds codebase that I had to read the Sonic Retro Physics Guide and use their data on how to add Knuckles in from scratch. My code matched how he worked in the Genesis games almost 1:1, because it was largely me just interpreting the values into something Clickteam Fusion could understand.

Something similar happened when, in 2012, I started (and never finished) a remake of my famous Mario Blue Twilight DX fangame. That's when I started really paying attention to how the source games worked so I could get a better sense of how a Mario game needed to "feel" in order to be correct.

And that trend continued with every fangame project I worked on following that, like when I figured I could make my own version of Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone, since I wasn't happy with the Retro Engine version. The idea was to be accurate above all else. In some cases, I'd even watch recordings of official gameplay in slow motion just so I could see exactly how the game was created, and in some cases, count frame by frame the duration of certain actions.

And all of this just makes me think of when I showed a friend my game jam game, OverBite. He complimented me on how nice the controls felt, in that kind of backhanded way where he said "When did you learn to make games feel so nice?"

Because if you go back to those really early games of mine, they all feel like garbage to control. And I attribute it to putting in a lot of time pulling apart the nuts and bolts of real retro games and putting a microscope up to why they work the way they do. Deconstructing all of their little nuances and sub-states and then trying to put it all back together again in a different programming language.

You learn a lot when you're forced to stop and understand why a piece of code exists in the way it does. Why there are all these little edge cases that you never notice but still exist to make a game feel just a little better.

At the end of the day, yes, Sam was right. Games need to have creativity and seeking out the perfect replication of the Sega Genesis Sonic games can feel somewhat futile. Every SAGE for the last ten years, there will be at least three games that instantly vanish from my memory because they are basic, plain Sonic Worlds Delta fangames with no style of their own. They just want to make Sonic 4 and we've had a lot of different Sonic 4s by now.

But the thing about learning is, you gotta learn the rules before you learn why and where to break them, because breaking (or at least bending) all of those boring, standardized rules is where your personal style starts to emerge, and that personal style is ultimately what people are going to be interested in at the end of the day.

So I think it is vitally important to start at 1:1 exact recreation and once you've made a comfortable replica, only then should you start asking yourself what you'd change and why. Make sure you understand the material before venturing further. You gotta learn to do it right first.

[thesonicstadium]

Sonic Community legends Rlan, Andy Wolan, SSNTails & Saxman will be "getting the band back together" for a series of panels on classic #Sonic game modding and the Sonic Stuff Research Group site. They'll be at the Retro World Expo on Aug 26-27. #SonicNews

[sagexpo]

A month late, but here's the closing SAGE '23 Artwork by @techpack! Enjoy. The full resolution artwork should be available over at the SFGHQ Discord.

[possqueen]

Breezy Bluffs || Tricky and the Dream Caster: THE TRIAL

SFGHQ || itch.io || Patreon

[engineerkappa]

It's here! The BUDD demo for SAGE 2023 is now available on both Itch and SFGHQ!

Download Pages:

Itch.io

SFGHQ

[gk999fangame]

February 2024 Devlog - A minor distraction (?)

This devlog was originally supposed to be about Gameknight999 Rebooted until my submission to a certain joke game contest on a certain Sonic fangame website ended up taking up most of my time this month. As such, I unfortunately couldn't get much done on GKR this month, but hey, I'll make sure to get some good stuff ready next time, alright?

Now that I have your attention, how about I tell a retrospective of my experience in that game jam? I can promise it will be worth it. (since this is not related to GK99R, it won't be tagged gk999fangame_devlogs like usual)

Context

Sonic Fan-Games HQ (SFGHQ) is the number one Sonic fangame website in the world for years by now, and is most well-known for it's yearly Sonic Amateur Game Expo (SAGExpo), an online E3-like dedicated not only to Sonic fangames, but also fangames of other IPs as well as indie games.

For a while now, SFGHQ has been regularly organizing Really Amateur Games Expo (RAGE), a side-event dedicated to Sonic joke games. Unlike the main event, RAGE is basically a game jam; people have 14 days to make a Sonic joke game following a given theme, and SAGE hosts livestream themselves playing through the games. For example, RAGE 2024's theme was "Sonic Mania 2", and the games were streamed by MotorRoach on February 17th.

I originally didn't intend to participate to that year's RAGE (I never even did a single Game Jam once in my entire life) until I rewatched past streams of Rummy (former SAGExpo host, very cool guy) playing old RAGE submissions. I told myself "god, it would be awesome if he laughed like that at MY game" and so I set off for my first RAGE, and first real game jam… 6 days late. Only 8 days left to make Sonic Mania 2 from scratch.

A troubled development

My submission was originally going to be called "Sonic Mania 2" until I actually started making the logo; at that time, I settled on the Mania soundalike "Majonga", for a full title of "Sonic Majonga". I later added the sub-title "The Trial" after rewatching the RAGE playthrough of Melpontro's INSANE 2019 submission, to imply that my game wasn't actually finished and only a trial version of a much larger thing yet to come.

From beginning to end, I had NOTHING even close to a project outline, and work was done in a real erratic order based on what I felt like working on: the title screen was ready before I even started working on the character controller, the last cutscene was done before the first, the second level was the last "scene" made from a chronological standpoint, etc.

This became a problem roughly three days before the deadline, when I ended up having pretty much everything ready, save from the actual levels. I had to rush things real hard to meet the deadline, and the level design for these levels more than suffered from it. At least, from other people's playthroughs, the levels took a balanced amount of time to clear; not too long, not too short. I still wish I had time to add more stuff in (springs, other varieties of enemies, speed shoes).

Gameplay mechanics

I'll get straight to the point here: I have no idea of how Sonic physics work, and can't even work with pre-made Sonic engines (Sonic Worlds, etc.). So, I decided to just not use Sonic physics at all, and make a regular platformer character controller. I am not the only one to do that by the way, "Sonic" games without the physics are commonplace at RAGE. I still ended up referencing this paradox in the actual submission through a non-functional, purely decorative loop with the text "imagine having functional loops in a RAGE game".

To compensate, I attempted to make the playables as unique as I could as well as add a touch of innovation there and there. Sonic's biggest changes revolved around the ground spin attack being replaced with the SA2 somersault attack. Due to a lack of time, I decided to make the drop dash and spin dash also go into a somersault. Knuckles cannot climb walls from a glide, but gets a dash punch, ground pound, and uppercut (now also usable mid-air as a makeshift double jump!). I also coded in small physics differences for each character, such as Knuckles having a lower top speed than Sonic.

The game's real big gameplay addition was Tails going from a semi-controllable CPU follower to a gun minigame; if playing as Sonic and Tails, the mouse will behave as a cowboy shooter minigame, where clicking around the screen can shoot down and destroy enemies and obstacles. You also have to handle an ammo gauge in the top-right, which can be reloaded at any time with right-click. There is also a hastly-implemented combo meter that's even programmed to not drain while mid-air, so you can theorically keep the same combo going for an entire stage with a bit of skillful movement.

Jokes galore

My number one objective for this game was to put a LOT of references and in-jokes. I often ended up naturally adding in jokes there and there while developing the game, so that wasn't really all that hard. Most infamously, it is filled to the brim with Scott Pilgrim jokes and references; most notable one is the title screen animation included the movie scene of Scott Pilgrim tying his shoes with Sonic's head edited in, and MotorRoach's chat went absolutely WILD when this part came on.

There's also various references to several past RAGE entries: These go from "Green Hill Man Man" from the eponymous RAGE 2018 submission ominously staring at you in G.Hill Act 1's background, or sprites of Cory in the House and Bradfordhound appearing inside the gold ring sprites (referencing Dankles' amazing Cory In The Ded 3.5 game). The one I am most proud of is the SEGA executive from 2022's "Operation Shadow Shoot" making a cameo at the end of the game, which prompted a reaction in chat from Rummy himself (who previously played Shadow Shoot at RAGE 2022 and lost his mind over it).

Other jokes were simply based on stuff I had in mind at that time. For example, the Sonic eyebrow face plastered all over the game was a Discord emoji I used for a lot of time, and the boss battle theme is the audio of "ytpmv elf", my favourite ytp of all times.

The future of the game

The game was streamed alongside other RAGE entries on February 17th at MotorRoach's twitch. In order to keep screentime even between all submission, MotorRoach couldn't showcase every piece of content that's available in the game during his playthrough (missing content include playable characters, alternate level routes, etc). So, even if you watched him play the game, there are still secrets waiting for you in there, including a big one that permanently (though subtly) alters your copy of the game.

One day after the full stream of the games, I was so proud of the game I decided to publish the game on itch.io ahead of RAGE's results, following the example of all my fellas on SFGHQ's discord. This was not only my first real game jam, but I also somewhat managed to accomplish my original goal: while Rummy wasn't the one playing the game, he still had a really positive reaction to it, and that's absolutely priceless to me.

I originally didn't really intend to update the game after the game jam (I thought I would just finish it, submit it, watch the reactions and never think about it again), but I had so much fun working on this and am really proud of what I had done, as flawed as it is. I genuinely want to keep working on this! First thing I will have to do though, is cleaning up and refractoring the engine (preferably from the ground up on a blank slate) as it was thrown together hastily with no regards toward working on a large scale.

This project won't have a major impact on my work on Gameknight999 Rebooted, as the latter remains obviously my main project; nonetheless, I still want to dedicate Majonga's future expansions a bit of my time, and will thus work on both projects side-by-side for the time being. Don't worry, GKR is still in the works, and I can say with certitude that I should have some nice stuff to show by next month!

Post closer

If you somehow read through all of this, I sincerly apologize for not adding any images. Otherwise, I don't really have a really good way of closing things out, but if you wanna try out the game while waiting for the next GKR devlog, it's available on itch.io right now!

[dmrgame]

Dragon Man: Reignited is a Mega Man fangame taking a new spin on the refined, classic style, with 8 all new Robot Masters to take on in a mysterious tournament! This'll be the official blog for all future development updates and releases.

Try the demo on SFGHQ: https://sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/dragon-man-reignited-sage-22-demo.1421/

[aquillis-main]

I remember a sonic fangames with playable sally. It was called Sonic Epoch . It was a DOS game I vaguely remember from my childhood. Played it on the family PC (and may or may not introduced a virus on it LMFAO).

It was really dark and edgy AF, even moreso than the . There was an Expy of metal Sonic with a really dumb name. Sally was playable , she walked and shot enemies with a blaster pistol. I don't recall the other FFs being playable .tho

Sonic... Epoch? I have never heard of this fangame...

*insert one Google search later*

... Huh. It exists -

Ah, yes. Because nothing says 'we're so relevant, guize!' like equating the Sonic Fandom's success to this obscure as fuck fangame with a Back to the Future style plot and edginess upon edginess.

... Wouldn't have it been more... thematic to have the GBA game version of it be a Gameboy game? I mean, if one wanted to go for the sweet, sweet nostalgia points, I'm sure a dedicated group of fangamers would have been able to fit the 'epicness' of Sonic Epoch into a Gameboy game. /sarcasm

But then again, apparently the GBA version wasn't made by the original creators, from what I'm getting with this blurb, so it might not have been their intent to make Epoch an unlicensed GBA game.

This bit's apparently from the original FUS version of the page itself:

LOLs, they actually admitted this game sucks, and telling people not to actually play this hot mess! That's so funny!

This little bit comes from an update from the SFGHQ, and it practically sums up what this is supposed to be:

There's not really much of a game in this, apparently. Last I checked, a Fangame needs to be more than a bunch of still images and some interactivity for it to be a, well, game. I won't be counting this 'game' as an actual game.

Link to the Sonic Epoch website, for everyone else to laugh at it's ameturishness along with me. (Warning you now, I kept on trying to look through the other bits of the website, only to find it giving me a 503 error. I think only the landing page is avaliable)

[sonichedgeblog]

The fan game ‘Sonic Robo-Blast 2′  Version 2.2 is now out! Check it out here: https://www.srb2.org/2019/12/srb2-version-2-2-release/#more-2233

[cheesesteak-horror]

The #SAGE2020 Demo for Project: Mania is available now!

Run, jump, climb, and Pogo where no mare has gone before. Check it out at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo! https://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/project-mania-sage-2020-demo.559/

Or in the backup download link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/7ptdyp1mdanybka/Project_Mania_SAGE2020demo.zip/file

[blazehedgehog]

If one wanted to contribute creatively to the Sonic fangame scene, what would be the best way to start connecting with people to find games to offer one's own skillset to? Some extra context: I am capable of drawing, pixel art, 3D modeling, story writing, as well as animating in 2D and 3D, but I have very little experience with game engines or code so I would like to contribute visuals and story, not programming or level design.

Well, if you aren't part of SFGHQ, you should consider it. It's not what it used to be in terms of website presence, though the forum still sees some activity. There's plenty of topics in the resources forum asking for help with various projects.

The Discord is significantly more active with people constantly posting about upcoming projects, with art, music, and video. I'm sure if you shared whatever your current art project was and caught some attention, maybe offered constructive criticism on what other people post, etc. then you could probably find what you're looking for eventually.

[latin-dr-robotnik]

This fangame has Amy featured both on the title screen and on the life counter (a la Sonic Advance 3), yet I can’t find a way to play as her, just Sonic. Am I missing something? Is she not implemented yet?

I guess Classic Amy isn’t playable in a Sonic game once again...

Latin Dr. Robotnik’s SAGE 2019... Coverage? Sonic Remastered.

There isn’t much more to say. Also Green Hill ftw.

[sagexpo]

Dreams do come into Reality! The SAGE '23 Trailer is coming. We will be premiering the trailer AUGUST 13 at 12PM PDT on Youtube. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/rov4-sQuStU Length: 27 Minutes and 30 Seconds

As well, feel free to come down to the SFGHQ Discord and join the watch party as it happens tomorrow! Link to the discord here: http://discord.sonicfangameshq.com/

Credits for Render: @rummysm Andreas Scholl

[possqueen]

SAGE 2024 HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED! TRICKY WILL BE THERE!

TRICKY AND THE DREAM CASTER: THE TRIAL will launch on September 6th on itch.io and SFGHQ

[engineerkappa]

The BUDD Demo 2 update is now live on both SFGHQ and Itch!

This update adds a new original Soundtrack, difficulty settings, and a Christmas mode just for the holidays!

Full Patch notes can be found on itch

[yoritoshi]

Jogos da SAGE 2021, parte 1

Jogos da SAGE 2021, parte 1

A Sonic Amateur Games Expo é uma feira online anual organizada pelo pessoal da SFGHQ que desde o ano 2000 se dedica a divulgar fangames do ouriço azul da Sega. Com o passar do tempo, jogos indie com intenção de lançamento comercial também tem marcado bastante presença no evento. E como de costume eu vou jogar o que eu puder aqui e relatar o que tem de bacana na exposição. -Sonic Classic 2 A…