There are over 30 fan projects to check out!  Newcomers, like the popular Sonic 2: Dimps Edition, is on display and playable.  Sonic Redux, Sonic Zeta Overdrive, Sonic the Hedgehog 3D and Sonic Phoenix are back, Sonic Babies, a demo at last year’s show, is now a full release and some heavy-hitters make another return appearance in the form of Sonic Time Twisted, Sonic Fusion and Stealth’s E:02 Engine.  The featured game, however, is Retro Channel, a SAGE-exclusive project that features a wealth of interactivity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the events side, check out this line-up!:

• Eggman Voice Challenge with Mike Pollock (Wednesday, August 11th @ 7 PM EST): Think you’ve got the huevos to fill the role of Eggman? Join the REAL voice of Eggman, Mike Pollock, and contestants on Skype to see who can be the best Eggman of all!
• Q&A with Corey Bingas (Friday, August 13th @ 2-3 PM EST): The one-time voice of Tails from Sonic Adventure stops by to answer your questions in the SAGE chat room.  Since you guys worship voice actors like gods, this chat is for you!
• Bad Fan Fic Readings: The heads of the Sonic community get together to read ban fan fiction!  Check in daily for times!

Contests?  Yeah, SAGE has them.  Try your hand at any of the following:

• Original Sonic Tune Contest (ENDS Saturday, August 14th @ 12 PM EST): Write your own original Sonic level tune! No remixes allowed here. Be as creative as you can to write music for an undiscovered Sonic world! Winning entries will be decided the last day of SAGE.
• Sonic Parody Tune Contest (ENDS Thursday, August 12th @ 12 PM EST): Take any existing Sonic theme with lyrics and turn it into a horrible, twisted parody! Winning entries will be decided on Thursday. This is a written-entry contest, but feel free to record yourself performing your parody too!
• Write for TSSZ Contest (ENDS Tuesday, August 10th @ 12 AM EST): In a one-day contest, write the funniest, most inflammatory article possible on something about the Sonic community, whether real or fake. Winners are decided at the end of the day.  Can you be the biggest douchebag the community has ever seen?

What are you waiting for?  There are games to play, chats to partake in and casts to listen to.

VISIT SAGE 2010 NOW!

TO SUBMIT A BOOTH

The subject of your e-mail should be “Booth.” Your e-mail should contain a link to your booth where we may download a working demo of your game. This should be the final booth location of where you would like your demo to be linked to on the SAGE website. If this booth location changes, please notify us no later than 48 hours before the beginning of SAGE.”

TO SCHEDULE AN EVENT

The subject of your e-mail should be “Event.” Your e-mail should contain a description of the event you would like to host and what day(s) you would like the event to occur on. If you require specific time(s) to host your event, please provide it to us in your application. If no specific time is provided, we will schedule you at the most appropriate time(s) alongside other events. You will be notified of the time(s) we schedule for you within 24 hours after your intial application e-mail.

The deadline for demo and event submissions is August 1st.

More information, like guests, events and confirmed fan projects, to come in the near future. Get excited!

More fangame action flyin’ at ya!

We’ve covered Sonic Fusion (by Felik of SFGHQ) here at TSS before and it has been better with each demo.  We haven’t played anything since the demo at SAGE 2009 in July, but this video is more than good enough.  On display here is “Flooded Capital Zone,” a lost empire submerged underwater, complete with ancient Greek/Roman architecture.

The level design is incredibly well thought-out and creative.  It bears a striking play-style to that of Marble Zone, except with a bit more bells and whistles.  Have I mentioned the graphics yet?  I haven’t?  Oh, uh… well… they’re THE BEST.  Rarely do you see custom graphics for an Advance-style fangame, so I’m thoroughly impressed.

A resident member of the SFGHQ forums, my buddy Cstyler showed up on Monday with a pleasant and awesome surprise.  He has created these images of the old Genesis levels with a pseudo-3D viewpoint.  Each aspect of a level’s background is twisted and skewed to create a new, yet trippy, perspective.  In short, they’re epic.

These images have become an instant hit and I thought that I’d share them with the rest of you.  If you have a standard 4:3 monitor, they make a great desktop wallpaper (they’re not quite to scale, but they’re close enough). Spring Yard, pictured above, is especially epic.  Check out the entire gallery of these new look classics past the jump:

Cstyler is working on some more, so if he releases them, I will update this post.

Aside from the fangames, there are many cool events to check out.  The SAGE chat room is always happenin’ and ridiculous.  An awesome chat client is provided on the site, but can be accessed through programs like mIRC (irc.rizon.net, #sagexpo).  In the chat room, you will be able to talk to Mike Pollock, the voice of Doctor Eggman, and Tom Payne, the level artist for Sonic 2.  Check the “Events” tab to see when they pop in the chat room.

Also, the ever-entertaining SAGEcasts are broadcast from a flash player on the site.  Sonic community members from all over will be broadcasting their music, thoughts, and sketches throughout the week.

The biggest online Sonic community event is waiting for you to come on over and enjoy yourself!  It runs from July 25th through the 31st.

ENTER SAGE 2009

A long-standing community tradition run by Sonic Fan Games HQ, the Sonic Amateur Games Expo is an online showcase of the dozens of Sonic fan projects in the works.  This year’s event will be run by community oldbie, InstantSonic, along with KTZ.  The show will be a week-long celebration from July 25th through the 31st. With the show a little over three months away, that gives prospective participators enough time to whip up a project and a booth (website).

Submit all booth registrations to sageboothmania@gmail.com, along with a game demo to be displayed in a SAGE Attraction video.

Submit all SAGEcast radio show concepts to sageradiomania@gmail.com. If you DO NOT send InstantSonic a concept of what your show will be called and what it will be about, you will not be able to broadcast. Also, try to limit all broadcasts to 30 minutes to an hour.

The show will feature regulars like Sonic: The Fated Hour, Sonic Nexus, Emerald Ties: Crossing Fates, Sonic Nebulous, and much more!  I am truly optimistic for this year’s show.

Read up on the last few years of the expo at Sonic Retro’s Wiki. Ah, 2007… so many memories for me as director…

Sonic Stadium is your place for all kinds of positive, community happenings.  Stick with us and you’ll find more fun things to do with that blue hedgehog who happens to run fast.

]]> http://www.sonicstadium.org/2009/04/14th-annual-sonic-amateur-games-expo-dated/feed/ 12 http://www.sonicstadium.org/2009/02/make-your-own-fangame-with-a-new-build-of-sonic-worlds/ http://www.sonicstadium.org/2009/02/make-your-own-fangame-with-a-new-build-of-sonic-worlds/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:52:36 +0000 Brad http://www.sonicstadium.org/?p=4716 Continue reading →]]> We have a community project over at Sonic Fan Games HQ that’s not a fangame, but rather, the essential tools for you to create your own.  Yeah, it’s something manageable and not a community game, which never see development past the first stage (if even that far).  Making an engine is one of the most tedious parts of the game creation process, especially with a Sonic game, so Worlds provides a pre-made engine with a basic set of objects and features in order to allow designers to mainly focus on level design. Due the collaborative nature of this project, everyone can freely use this pre-made engine, modify it and submit additions to the official releases to enhance the quality of the engine.  The engine is created in the Multimedia Fusion 2 software.

The engine has been used a countless number of times since its initial release in mid-2007.  It was debuted alongside the release of Sonic Nexus’ second demo at the 2007 Sonic Amateur Games Expo.  The engine has become incredibly popular for fangamers and you can see many YouTube videos whoring it out.  Yeah, the downside to a engine completed for the public is that there’s only about one good project for every dozen or so.  Still, when you get a good project, it is good.

Here is the entire list of improvements, with authors cited, to Sonic Worlds:

Ceiling Landing – If Sonic hits a curved ceiling at a high enough speed, he’ll “land” on it and continue run on it. (Damizean)
Peel Out – This has been set so only sonic can do this action (look in Actions [10] Peel Out) (APPO)
A save point – This saves all the data such as ring count, what shield you had etc.. so that at the beginning of the app if you press continue all of this will be loaded (AZU)
Checkpoints – Not the same as a save point as this only places sonic at the last checkpoint you ran through and doesn’t hold ring count, or what shied you had, just position (APPO)
Protection shield – Sonic can be hit a number of times before loosing his rings (AZU)
Magnetic shield – Rings are attracted to sonic when in frame also sonic does an extra jump if you press jump in the air again (NITEMARE & APPO)
Flame shield – Makes sonic immune to fire and also allows sonic to do a little dash forward if you press jump again while in the air (APPO)
Water shield – Stops sonic from drowning and does that bounce thing if you press jump again in the air (APPO)
Boost pads – gives sonic a boost as he runs over them (APPO)
Water slides – sonic slides down them (APPO)
Drowning – If sonic is underwater for to long the music will change and a warning will flash above sonic if he doesn’t manage to get air, sonic will drown (APPO)
Air bubbles (under water) – Gives sonic air if he’s drowning (APPO)
Water run – the ability to run on water at a fast speed (AZU & APPO)
Breakable Rockswall – When jumped on or rolled into destroy and produce

I hope you fangamers create a nice, solid product out of what is provided for you.  Study how these gimmicks and badniks are programmed so that you can create your own, thus making your game more original!

Click here to get the .mfa file of the latest Sonic Worlds build!

EDIT: Link updated to a site that didn’t exceed bandwidth!

The minigame has a sweet, 80s vector look that I absolutely love.  It’s like colorful version of Metal Gear Solid’s VR Missions.

Download the special stage in normal resolution. (7z file)

Download with high resolution (recommended). (ZIP file)

Z is jump and X is boost.

Don’t you tell me that this isn’t cool!  SFGHQ member, Ironrind, posted this yesterday in the General Fangame Discussion forum and I j’d in my p.  He explains his concept:

This is still an early protype, but the idea is that each act is broken up into three ‘tracks’. Scattered throughout each track will be buttons, switches, doors and various types of gimmicks which link all tracks together. I plan to design most of this game in a team-based fashion simular to Knuckles Chaotix.

Visit the True Chaotix thread.

January 8th’s 9th’s  featured player is my main man, Amesuki, and his glorious return to the fangaming scene. He has returned to shed some light on new details of his fangame, Sonic Chase, formerly known as Sonic Mayhem 2. Sonic Chase is an 8-bit, Game Gear adventure, something that is rarely seen in the fangaming scene. Did I mention that there’s a demo?

Amesuki is planning on making a staggering 25 zones for Sonic Chase. A number that is down from his originally planned 35, but it’s still a feat nonetheless. He is also trucking along in order to finish this game in time for SAGE 2009. He might be the only person there with a finished game!

Hit the break for a gameplay video of Mechanic Coil, Act 1.