#sonic hacking contest

[sonichedgeblog]

The Sonic Hacking Contest has begun for 2024! For the next week, we'll be posting about every entry that's showing up! Check it out at https://shc.zone/ Support us on Patreon

[evajellion]

Mean Bean Tsuu Demo Review

Wow, cool. This is a thing that exists as a work in progress. Gonna shoot my shot and give criticism while praising some stuff, as I do.

Biggest praise right away, love the graphic and soundtrack adjustments to to the main gameplay. The remix of Green Hill Zone is great. The main three now also use the final boss theme that Dr. Robotnik had. It's a neat touch.

Actual criticism I have (that isn't the lack of offset rules, they are gonna add that in the full game) so far is that apparently this game is going to follow "a story more in line with that of Japanese Classic Sonic canon"…

I mean not for nothing, but the whole appeal of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is that it's set in the AoStH universe and has the characters. I would lean more into that aspect than just using generic Badnik designs. I asked what some other peeps thought, and they agreed.

I love the effort put into Coconuts, but… as much flack as DiC gets, I definitely always thought this design was an upgrade from Sonic 2 to the cartoon.

There is room for compromising the designs, which would have been to use the reboot Archie comic one-

But yeah, I mean, I would have reskinned Humpty into DOS Holiday instead of altering Coconuts for the demo. And of course, I think they should just use characters from the cartoon. AoStH does have good designs despite how out there they are.

Also- not criticism, but damn, how do you expect me to pick on poor Humpty when he's so sweet? I could never. 😭

Not sure if the fan favorites are gonna be removed from the final, that doesn't bode well, given how popular Davy Sprocket always was with deviantArt users.

One last thing I would like to go over, is that although the game is based on Puyo Puyo Tsu, it probably isn't going to have the… frankly, insane roster it had for the time. A whooping 33 opponents (37 in the Sega Saturn one), with a score system that determined how quickly you can get through the game. That's a tall order that no one could easily fulfill unless you reskin Puyo Tsu in its entirety.

But I do hope the full game does at least have more than 13 opponents, and includes the "first boss of the first game becomes a penultimate enemy" that was done with Draco. Arms deserves a redemption arc. :)

Besides offsetting, I hope they add the rest of the Puyo Tsu features such as "ALL CLEAR", Rule Henka (Point Puyo and Hard Puyo), and how crazy the nuisance queue can get.

Maybe also make a silly name for the title, since the whole "tsu" thing only works in Japanese. "Robotnik's Eggspertise Machine"? "Mean Bean Part 2: Electric Boogaloo?" I dunno.

So yeah, dunno if anyone from SHC will see this post. I don't have an account there and joining the Discord makes me nervous, so this is just a drop in the ocean I'm making here lol.

Hope my silly yaps are taken into consideration. If not, then that's okay too. We AoStH fans will take anything at this rate.

Demo can be found here if anyone wants to try it out.

[vadapega]

One thing I do when porting or composing music is to hide the PSG channels since I'd rather the FM take precedence, here's what this song sounds like when split between FM, PSG and the DAC & Noise tracks:

In my works, PSG is most useful for normalizing channel panning, since the YM2612 can only do full panning, no partials! It can also work as a good echo.

Sound Effects are also a big factoid so to avoid sudden stops in music channels, redundancy is necessary. In other words : despite the fact we have 5/6 FM and 2/3 PSG channels, in reality we only have about 3-4 channel polyphony.

[segadriven]

The hacking contest coverage continues with a look at Sonic 2 Archives developed by Team Conquest & Team Technical!

[hazelspooder]

STONE SHC 23 DEMO IS OUT!! GO PLAY IT NOW!!

[chopp-6467]

[artsyyumeyume]

H-H-H-Hey, Move Over! Announcing a mod that I am working on featuring my favorite, genderless tenrec and Sonic OC... Asutora (or if it is easier, Astra). Astra in Sonic 3 is a passion project of mine that I hope to get out by SHC '26, but any SHC contest works. Astra in Sonic 3 is not a ROM Hack (technically?), but an Extra Slot mod for Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited. I hope to post more progress eventually.

[claire-starsword]

me: i am ridiculously busy, i don't have time to check out the sonic hacking contest lmao, i'll just watch the trailer and download stuff for lat-

REIMU????

[sonicfangamebot]

'Sonic Pocket Winter' (2016) by ValleyBell & @VAdaPEGA (Hack) A small proof-of-concept hack, made using a disassembly of Sonic Pocket Adventure. Adds Tails & Knuckles with flying, and an edited stage. https://archive.org/details/sonic-hacking-contest-2016

[amyfarbright]

Sonic 1 Mega CD Port

(download here)

(if you think this is cool, consider helping me find work/money <3)

Welcome to the Next Level!

NOTE: I'm aware of issues regarding audio playback and transitioning between zones, and intend to push an update once the contest judging period is over. In the meantime, you can use level select (Up Down Left Right A + Start at title screen) to explore the game.

At the 1992 Consumer Electronics Show, a teaser for a Mega CD version of Sonic 1 was shown within a sizzle reel. No Mega CD version of Sonic 1 was ever produced, and this footage is almost everything we know about this project, but it's extremely likely that this idea is what morphed into the separate game Sonic CD, the only Sonic game officially released for the console.

In 2006, Stealth released the Sonic for MegaCD tech demo, marking the first time any substantial effort was made to bring another Sonic game to the console. It contained the title screens and first levels of Sonic 1 and 2, with three playable characters. In the following years, he would build on the ideas in that demo further, eventually reaching a point where his setup accommodated a Mega CD version of a rom hack called Sonic Megamix.

For a long time, this rom hack was the only way to experience Sonic 1's levels, and was the closest you could get to playing the original game on your Mega CD...

until now.

This is a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (revision 1, mostly) to the Sega Mega CD (running in Mode 2/off a CD). Not a mere one-zone demo, not affected by an original hack's mechanics, this is a full playable Sonic game running on the Mega CD, with the source fully available, and with the intent of enhancing the game with the extra hardware.

I started this project about a month and a half ago to enter into the annual Sonic Hacking Contest. This was done as both a learning experience for myself to learn new hardware (I was already familiar with programming for Mega Drive, but wanted to explore its addons), and as an example others can learn from.

This has been tested with BlastEm, Fusion, Gens, and on real hardware using a Mega Everdrive Pro.

Features:

Expanded Sound.

The Mega CD comes with a chip supporting PCM playback for up to 8 channels, complementing the 10 sound channels already in the Mega Drive. This port leverages that by moving playback of drum samples to a custom PCM sound driver running on the Mega CD CPU.

Because drums no longer need to play on the Mega Drive hardware, an extra sound channel was added in the main sound driver to allow for more sound effects to play without cutting out channels of the music.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get CD audio playback fully implemented in time for the initial release. Most of the pieces are there though, and I intend to add it in a future update.

An open-source Mega CD game. The scene for Mega CD has grown significantly over time, and over the years there has been new homebrew and hacks of other games, but not nearly as much done with the blue guy this contest is about. This port aims to change that; this is a full game running on Mega CD, with source code and development history available for browsing right now. Code for the kernel programs to load and run the game from disk is written in mostly C using the megadev toolchain. Rom hackers and developers more familiar with the Mega Drive standalone can use the code repository as an example of how to bring more full-fledged MD projects over to Mega CD with as few changes as possible.

Other features:

Custom loading screen while files are loaded from CD

Modified title screen, to remind you that this is indeed utilizing Mega CD hardware

Various bugfixes applied (for those familiar with Sonic Retro's Sonic 1 disassembly, FixBugs is turned on)

Much smoother special stage. The movement of objects making up the maze was unlocked, and the walls now display with 128 degrees of rotation (up from 16).

Even though I started this project to have something for the contest, I'm incredibly happy with what's been done so far, and I intend to work on it further after the contest to add more features. I consider this the beginning of a goodbright future for Sonic games and hacks on Mega CD.

Note: Debug mode and sound test have not been fixed to accommodate for the code that has been moved around. Try at your own risk!

Credits

Main developer: Amy Farbright

Playtesting and bug reporting: The Let's Talk About Sonic Discord

Special thanks: @fiffle, @milly, @crepe

Code used/referenced:

drojaazu's megadev toolchain

Devon's partial Sonic CD disassembly

SCHG How-to Guide

tversteeg's Rust implementation of rotsprite

Graphics used:

CD graphic on title screen: Sega Multimedia Studio, converted from sprites ripped by Mister Man

[blazehedgehog]

Mostly an "is it me?" question, but like... is it fair to say Shadow got a massive power buff purely out of popularity? I feel like he had two good narrative threads, years pass, then Forces grandfathered him into boosting and the Generations remake rewrote a fight he lost in 2011 (I know it changes nothing, but it annoys me nonetheless.)

Yes.

In my mind, the point of Shadow and Biolizard are lab-grown versions of Super Sonic and Perfect Chaos. Professor Gerald reverse engineered them from Echidna legends.

All throughout the final boss, Sonic expresses concern for Shadow. He seems to be having trouble maintaining his super form. He looks tired. And if you get far enough into the boss fight, Shadow comes to a realization: "Sonic... I think the Ultimate Lifeform... is you!"

Almost as if Shadow realizes what he was created from. Shadow is accepting his role as nothing more than a synthetic clone of Super Sonic. He was invented to become the very thing standing in front of him. And he can't keep up. Because he's just a clone.

But Shadow won't give up. Even if he's just a clone, he can still fulfill Maria's wish. He's going to give the earth a chance to find their happiness.

He succeeds. But it kills him.

It's been retconned now to make Shadow the ultimate coolguy vigilante hero, but that was Shadow's complete character arc in 2001. I mean, some of the most infamous exchanges in that entire game are Sonic and Shadow arguing over who copied who. Shadow fans have told me to my face I'm wrong, but Shadow realizing in the end that he's the copy is how that pays off. Sonic Adventure 2's storytelling is a hacked up mess that's poorly translated, but that's a real, actual character arc. One of the only ones in the entire game.

Shadow is brainwashed into doing evil deeds, attempts genocide on the whole of planet earth, and redeems himself through self-sacrifice because he was just a clone anyway. He was never real, and always living on borrowed time. In some ways, the care he and Maria shared for each other was the only thing real about his entire life. And so he must live that truth and become more than just Gerald's creation.

But everybody loves Shadow. We can't just tell them no. We've got to bring him back from the dead. They think Shadow is the coolest. But what if he was even cooler? What if he was a tortured soul, gifted a strength beyond anyone else, and is constantly torn on how to use that power? Does he serve himself, or does he serve the greater good? And who deserves to benefit from his power?

And so Shadow goes from "not quite as powerful as Super Sonic" to "significantly more powerful than anyone else in the franchise." Because now Shadow's like a character that may as well be in the Super Sonic state at all times. And presumably, when he uses all seven emeralds, he just becomes even more powerful.

In my own personal headcanon, Shadow is the most powerful character in the series... but only because Sonic never really pushes himself to his limits. Sonic's too carefree, Sonic doesn't like to punish others too harshly, and nothing in his life has ever actually tested his limits.

Weird comparison, but it's sort of like Frieza in Resurrection of F. Frieza reveals that his race are just naturally the strongest in the galaxy and as such he's never actually done any kind of real combat training. So he plots his revenge against Goku, which can basically be summed up as "plan ahead, do some training for the first time in his life, and actually put a little effort into it this time."

Sonic is similar. He gathers the emeralds, transforms into Super Sonic, and effortlessly wins almost every single time. But if it came down to life or death Sonic vs. Shadow, no holds barred, no going back, I think Sonic still wins, no contest.

[monarchcelebi]

Check out the trailer. The updated visuals, abilities, and momentum are huge changes. This mod looks really cool, and the team clearly put a lot of work into this.

‘New Genesis: Gameplay Overhaul’ (Frontiers Mod) by LexStorm High Speed Style (a initial momentum-based mod) has been revamped into New Genesis https://shc.zone/entries/contest2024/1153 Support us on Patreon

[tailschannel]

The annual week-long showcase of hacks and mods by the Sonic fan hacking community has finished for another year

[starlos-soulmate]

Oh my god apparently one of the games in the sonic hacking contest this year has an uty reference... I can ask my brother for the details

You are JOKING!!! PLEASE let me know any details, I need to see what it is! :3

[segadriven]

The hacking contest action continues with a look at Sonic 3 Master Edition 3 developed by Xebninmaj!

[hazelspooder]

I am pleased to announce that Agent Stone in Sonic 3 A.I.R. will be making an appearance at Sonic Hacking Contest 2023! It won't be the full version as we may need more time to cook in regards to what we have planned. However, I can guarantee that it'll certainly hold everybody over until then, as this version will be jam-packed with several new bosses, features, palettes, music, and so on! Let's take a look at a few things, shall we?

Eh? That doesn't appear to be Stone, though it certainly has his color scheme....

Yikes! Whose idea was it to put legs on this Gapsule!?

Y'all may have seen this already, but what about when Knuckles makes his way here?

...hey, who broke the door off????

What a coward, hiding behind the lava! Come out and face me!

Hey wh-what the heck are you doing he-

Stone's sprites got a major revamp thanks to MiaCDi! In addition, several new palettes have been added, plus an option to randomize the palette used!

A brand new boss theme now plays whenever you fight Stone in any Act 2, composed by @cartoonsanimate22!

Miscellaneous new additions and changes include both 3D Blast music options being merged into one option, some minor tweaks, fixes, and refinements, and Stone being added to the No Way screen.

I also have a backstory put into place that explains how he made his way to Angel Island, met and teamed up with Dr. Robotnik (& Knuckles, begrudgingly), and why he's out for revenge on Knuckles after the Death Egg's inevitable destruction. Consider it an alternate timeline of S3K's events, if you will.

That's all I'll share for now, there's a few more things I haven't shown yet, but I hope it'll be worth the wait! See ya soon!