Messages

1

VGMaps Social Board / Re: Nintendo's Backlash and Hubris Worsens

« on: April 12, 2025, 09:27:27 am »

It's clear that after what they unveiled from their latest trailers about their next system, Nintendo's already flaring such heightened levels of their greed, arrogance, vanity, anti-consumerism and preservation, and, moreover, hubris of their very own actions against their fans, and I can already feel it already getting more worse than before, and so far, no one, even anyone outside of Nintendo is doing anything about this. Even people already called Nintendo out on it, and more.

Sorry, but that had to get out of my system.

From numerous people's unprecedented strong negative reactions about their next system, and still rising, it could be that Nintendo may possibly be in for an unfortunate downturn, and despite what people have been saying, I feel in my perspective, they cannot, and surely will not, do a thing to turn it around, and may leave the gaming industry suffering worse than before.

Even their next system is not entirely different, only following the same, unchanged structure and blueprint of their previous, which is the Switch, and never distancing it from others. It only still delivered the dull experience of gaming from that system. Each system from Nintendo offered different menus and experiences that stood them out, and that's what made them more memorable and well-loved than the Switch.

I still can't feel nothing but aching, untold disappointment in them after what they did, now and even before, and, no, nothing from life or people to blame won't change it(seriously, blaming won't ever work). It's Nintendo themselves that created all this. That company may have saved the gaming industry after the Crash of 1983, but if such actions out of their hubris continues, they could, and might as well may, devastate the industry, too. A rather grim bookend for Nintendo, if you could picture it(not that we want it or anything, but only an outcome if certain things around there don't change for the better).

Dual-screen handheld gaming from the Nintendo DS has been, and still it a TRUE game changer for true handheld games as a whole, and the true experience is well-ingrained into our memories, even some childhoods to those that played it for the first time, and is too beloved by gamers to just let go, which we won't.

When we saw the 3DS first announcement trailer, people really felt they were looking forward to their next true handheld system, as well as devs working with it. After its launch, the price wasn't well met, but that got lowered shortly, and people loved having to afford the system and their games' prices. We had more good handheld games from the get-go, and plenty of good online multi-player matches through them. Another good outlet for it, if you will.

I can only say this, if Nintendo can't reason with people after they got such worsening backlash, what will? I feel, in my perspective, we can't bank on trust in Nintendo any longer(about how they're handling their changed directions of gaming in the industry, that is).

I speak of this out of GREAT concern for both outlets of preservation towards the entirety of traditional gaming as a whole, and we should think about this.

Certain traditional lines in gaming as a whole cannot be crossed nor blurred, no matter what people think or say otherwise. Home consoles and handheld consoles are our true two gaming outlets, but hybrid consoles, like the Switch, they just doesn't deliver the same experience we've still enjoyed.

That company's lost their identity and soul very shortly, and Satoru Iwata's words and warnings about the company heading into any wrong direction away from true gaming were obviously ignored after he was gone, and the present management behind Nintendo(key specific people with such mindsets, attitudes, and visions of anti-consumer and preservation actions in that kind of management, to be precise), in all regions, has only made it far worse.

The flaring, negative backlash against Nintendo from people's comments on social media already proves it(don't need any examples to ask why).

Whether Nintendo likes it or not, we the people have to make our own true handheld gaming systems and their software dev kits, not influenced by the likes of Switch(seriously to say, there's far too many products and offshoots influenced and inspired by it), but influenced by the likes of DS & 3DS, but better and more stronger than before. We need a true "Plan B" for true handheld gaming as a whole. True foresight is needed to counter this.

And, we have to take actual steps in preserving actual handheld gaming and the games made for them only, because, let's face it, nothing can replicate the same experience of the originals. And we need to ensure these kind of games last far longer than just decades of playability for new and present people to come. So many exclusives are still in need of preserving out there...

Even if such handheld games are ported to home consoles, the experience and configurations of them are never the same, and we're loaded with the unnecessary weight of slower reaction times in doing so much dual-screen action on only one screen.

*sigh...*

I apologize for this being long, but I can't let this stay in waiting any longer. I worry much, and I also apologize if it bears repeating. And I don't want to downplay anyone's decisions for it. I do express my rights to be concerned at times.

2

Map Gab / Re: Eternal Daughter

« on: April 11, 2025, 03:24:03 pm »

Yeah, I found two tools. One allows to view the levels, but requires a .gam file, while the game only comes with exe. The other could extract game's files, but not the levels. Both are open-source and come with level format specification, so I could try extracting it myself, but I don't even have experience with binary formats. Now that the map is done I don't really need it anymore. (though I wonder if there aren't any hidden Easter eggs in some unreachable areas)

There are other past Clickteam made games yet to be mapped out there, including those ported to consoles, I think, so, I would recommend saving your tools for later.

I also think that later games made with newer Clickteam engine versions have been formatted to .MFA, so, seeing their maps & contents may require different tools.

I've seen the button, but it seems to take you directly to sending e-mail. I couldn't find any guidelines, preferred formats etc. even on the forum.

If you think the map is good enough I will wait a couple more days and submit it as is.

Basically, for any sending maps without guided steps, the lowdown is this; after clicking "Submit", you'd have to put any made maps, singular or a set, in the email as images, preferably in .PNG for best clear quality, then, when ready, send them to complete your map submission.

Thanks. I would think that upon good, close inspection, there would be a few rough spots you might have missed somewhere, aside from whatever small oddities you mentioned.

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Map Gab / Re: Eternal Daughter

« on: April 11, 2025, 11:23:35 am »

Nice! Took a good look at your map, and it is well-made. I never played it myself, but I do like seeing such freeware games being mapped for preservation and additional appreciation about their artistry.

If any part of the map gets obscured or occupied by the HUD, don't worry. I don't know any tools about extracting maps from any Clickteam engine made games(not that I've seen any), but, if you're still concerned, seek and ask anyone who's more experienced in it.

The overall map size, from its time, I can see it was from when we didn't have very huge maps yet, but I can guess the small rooms put together in a whole map took some memory Derek Yu had at that time, guessing from plenty of Megabytes to maybe a Gigabyte or so. The complexity's quite noticeable, though.

Really not bad. You got about every secret and hidden Easter Egg room down, too.

And, I could think the game was made through Multimedia Fusion 1.

The map submission button is found on the site's homepage, labelled "Contribute". That's where you can submit your map. If you're in thought of some slight refinements to your map before that, well, the decision's up to you.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: What 2D Game Engines are best for making levels and their maps?

« on: April 08, 2025, 01:55:32 pm »

Isn't the Hatch Game Engine just a code framework/library and you have to code/write your game around it? I.e. it's not a visual game maker program like Game/RPG maker or Clickteam Fusion.

Yeah... I kinda grasped it. And the steps to build it from scratch pretty much needs to be learned, not to mention having some knowledge and experience.

Guess that's a difference from engines that are visual game makers, not like what I thought the Hatch Game Engine was.

I thought there weren't any tutorials in setting up that framework for anyone, even for those who aren't familiar with game and engine programming yet, especially when it comes to doing it by C++, which as I've read the engine's made with.

So far, I've seen its capabilities with Sonic Galactic, due to it following, and adhering to, the formula started from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and continued into Sonic Mania(Freedom Planet, though, did actually bring that formula back when no other game seemed to continue it before it got slightly modified while undergoing its change from a Sonic fangame to an indie game, from what I read and remember before), and I thought it would be a great 2D engine or framework for anyone to work with.

Retro Engine took on the visual game maker state, from what I've seen, but Hatch, being a framework... Yeah. I thought otherwise.

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/03: Escape From Mars: Starring Taz (Genesis) - John Brain

« on: April 06, 2025, 06:22:56 am »

It was a nice game that continued from Taz-Mania's blueprint, but really, no game's yet to carry it from Escape From Mars' blueprint.

Nevertheless, it was rather fun, a good journey from Mars to Earth and, well, back again to stop Marvin's scheme involving, we guessed it, planetary conquest. I still shudder at the sight of Moleworld's giant boring machine, from its second level, that kept catching up to Taz, no matter how far he seemed to be, and should've been, away from it.

Honestly, its rubber-banding's not lenient enough to warrant chances of quick escapes for more than a few seconds, nor allowing anyone to get an extra life and a continue at once. I kept trying it, and I still ended up getting demolished by that machine time and again! *Ugh...!*

Still, its mostly original bosses were good.

I still love how it got featured as March's Map of the Month, here. Great honor, indeed.

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Map Gab / Re: Jurassic Park (Sega Megadrive/Genesis)

« on: April 02, 2025, 04:27:11 pm »

Nice!

Don't worry about what Imgur did to your map's image quality. Not all alternate online outlets convert any image to .png. It won't be a bother once your maps are uploaded to the Atlas. Can't wait to see them!

7

Gaming / Gravity Circuit

« on: April 01, 2025, 09:40:13 pm »

We all have seen many Mega Man games, their spin-offs and their installments, and many more games inspired from and improved upon the whole series Capcom provided over the years, but I spotted one that is quite a bit different from many...

That would be "Gravity Circuit", made by an indie game called Domesticated Ant Games, with publishing help from PID Games for consoles, and the game's framework was run on the Löve Framework itself(Small Fact; the framework's version codenames are referenced from Nickelodeon's "Invader Zim" series, and I do mean, they are all based on its references. The devs behind really love it so much to garner fans attention and quote nods to it. I can already imagine "Florpus" as a later version codename *laugh*).

The story of Gravity Circuit centers on a rather alien-ish world populated by what I can pretty much presume a whole race of alien-like robots that established their colony on that planet eons ago, but for what, few know not. On a particular digging operation, a buried structure was found beneath the planet's depths, plainly called "The Ark"(name could've been more uniquely fitting instead of being generically plain and dull, in my perspective), and the robots that found it are curiously eager to uncover its great secrets and unfold many mysteries...

Not too long, though, a great force of its evil emerged...

That force took on the form of a large army of vile robots of different shapes and sizes called the "Virus Army"(again, obviously generic, and could've thrown in a unique name change to stand it out more), and unleashed great destruction on their cities, in numerous waves of attacks the citizens couldn't handle.

To combat this threat, a heroic faction has formed as their means of quashing out the army's forces, which would be called the "Guardian Corps", and their formation would give rise to a new roster of strong protectors capable of stopping threats, including the Virus Army, which is called the Circuits.

With their strength and powers, the Circuits drove out the Virus Army's attacks and protected the citizens of their world after long battles against them, but one Circuit, the soon-to-be central hero of it all, the Gravity Circuit, Kai, went and got damaged in battle, leaving him down and out for the count, and needed to undergo repairs for his service in fighting against that army.

The Virus Army appeared to be subsided, but the true source of it wouldn't go inactive after such a thwarting, leaving its return inevitable...

And it came to pass many years later, and to make matters a bit worse, most of the Circuits that fought against that army went rogue on them, re-dubbing them the "Rebel Circuits", who have obviously fallen under the influence of the Virus Army, and another horrible conflict continuing the original carries on... until one day, Kai re-awakened, and seems to have no memory of what's going on...

Still, he and the Guardian Corps, led by Kernel, would not let this war go unnoticed, and it would soon be up to the Gravity Circuit himself to take the fight to the Virus Army and put a complete stop to them and the actual villainous force behind it once and for all, beginning his adventure.

The gameplay follows quite much of Mega Man's games, more strongly "Mega Man X", having an "Opening Stage" to get any player up to speed on controls and goals in the game, and upon defeating the boss, a batch of stages are given to be completed before going to the multi-stage finale. The only difference is, the robot hero doesn't actually rely on built-in weaponry and armaments from their metallic limbs, but rather through good-old humane defenses of fisticuffs, an anchoring grappling hook, and many different upgrades that provide numerous abilities, along with hidden health and energy increase found on each main stage's secret paths.

As we guessed, each main stage is themed on the boss robots themselves, the Rebel Circuits and their villainous purpose they're committing to disrupting the robot citizens' livelihoods in each stage, in this case...

The Power Circuit, Cable.
The Optic Circuit, Ray.
The Cooler Circuit, Blade.
The Break Circuit, Crash.
The Patch Circuit, Trace.
The Cipher Circuit, Hash.
The Wave Circuit, Medley.
The Shift Circuit, Bit.

And, at the end of each stage, a boss fight against them takes place, and their central essences are obtained and stored into the Guardian Corps HQ's vault in victory.

The game really delves into Hi-Bit territory, but the palettes are a bit more colorful than those of Mega Man's games... at least, comparably. The stages were loads of fun to play through and the enemies were a thrill to trash! The sprites are quite expressive in-game, too.

To better adhere its Hi-Bit meaning and aesthetics, the game's account on Twitter/X explains the game's fantasy console rules for it, as proven in this link here - https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1271825136132526080

There's so much to explore and obtain in each stage, and patches providing more than cosmetics kept providing us with a bit more to do. I don't mind it, though, but I still strongly feel the game should have a sequel that continues its formula, with a couple of improvements, even having longer and bigger stages, and maybe actual voice acting.

The sound effects are mostly made through FamiTracker, which is nice, and I do enjoy hearing good sounds made from it. The soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark is excellent to hear, too!

The game only has two minibosses, Scrap Golem in Trace's stage, and V. Assault Heli in Bit's stage, which are unfittingly bunched into the bestiary as enemies, rather than giving their own section there. Disappointing to me. I expected more.

One user asked about each stage having a miniboss from the game's Twitter/X account after playing the demo. The only answer was that not every stage has one, unfortunately, and it would take time to retrofit the minibosses into the remaining stages that don't have them. It sounds simple to say, but to actually do it with the process in patching the game, not entirely impossible, only they just don't feel the effort in doing it. Hopefully, the sequel can take care of it, even towards the opening and finale stages(Mega Man X3 does have unique minibosses in its opening stage and Doppler's Lab's stages, and I enjoyed toppling them).

The answer is in the game's Twitter/X account's link here - https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1674094880501399553

Of my favorite stages, Medley's was my great favorite, from a good ascent to the top to confront her, to the music itself giving out a good feel to dance to it.

The (SPOILER) Ark's 2nd Stage, Machinery, really put a place as a favorite stage of mine, even the theme, but the fight against the Crystal Circuit itself really puts a completely different twist on the boss rush structure from past Mega Man games; those had us fighting each boss robot one at a time, at our non-linear choice before facing Dr. Wily in his Wily Machines and Wily Capsules.

In Gravity Circuit's case, the bosses are all fought randomly NON-STOP as part of ONE WHOLE FIGHT against Crystal Circuit, who uses their essences to form virtual husks of the Rebel circuits inside its digital arenas, all using their same powers from before. It's like the standard Mega Man boss rush, but STREAMLINED! And, I love it!

Aside from it not yet being mapped(though we do have tools and techniques on doing so, and more yet to be made), Gravity Circuit remains a great Mega Man inspired game to be enjoyed! If anyone's up to giving it a go, feel free! I'm still eager to see "Gravity Circuit II" real soon!

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Gaming / Re: Apologies

« on: March 31, 2025, 04:41:11 am »

I understand that you didn't understand what it this theme about.
This theme titled "Soniс 3 Competition the my fan-game" and this means that this theme about unofficial game, in which I tried to recreate full-fledged playable levels based on official STH3 Competition mode maps.
This theme is not about another unofficial games and engines.

I asked specific question - what needs to be fixed, changed, improved or implemented? I don't asked what engines or fan games are there. I don't searc information about them, I just asked "what needs to fixed?". This means that no need to write long articles about other games, this theme non for it.

OK. Sorry. Didn't mean to go a bit off-topic here. Drifted away bit too much about this post because I got a bit too enthusiastic about what I spoke of after I thought you were switching engines for your project.

If anything, I can discuss that in another topic and post, another time.

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Gaming / Re: Sonic 3 Competition Plus - my fangame

« on: March 30, 2025, 10:05:18 pm »

Well, I did some searching, and I've found Hatch Game Engine's link from GitHub, and here's this link to it, though that hasn't apparently been touched in a while...

Hatch Engine's Link - https://github.com/aknetk/HatchGameEngine

Though I did find a more active page with a more public release about that engine, and it's right here - https://github.com/HatchGameEngine/HatchGameEngine

The demonstration video's description about the Hatch Game Engine and OpenMania framework said I could obtain it from the former's link, but I couldn't seem to find the download links to it... at least, up until I found the latter's link with a more public release, if I'm sure its more active and accessible there for anyone.

That game engine looks like it is much more capable of making more than just Sonic fangames alone... The only annoying matter of it is finding it and the steps on how to use it to make games there, let alone finding the application that starts it after downloading it.

I'm really hoping for clear guides to it... I'm a bit frustrated on what to find after downloading such a game engine as Hatch and how to use it.

I've thought I would provide those links here, because you were a bit well versed into your kind of work, G.E.R., for you were using an engine for a Sonic fangame.

On a more related note, I did enjoy seeing what the Hatch Game Engine can do, making great 2D games from watching that video and playing Sonic Galactic's demo.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: How in the world can you find and use Hatch Game Engine itself?

« on: March 30, 2025, 12:21:53 am »

A very small annoyance about finding the actual application to see and run Hatch Game Engine, after downloading the engine's source code, there's big confusion on where to find it so anyone can use it.

It's been updated lately to 1.3, as I've read, but newcomers who downloaded it have currently no guidance on how and where to find the engine to actually start making games on it.

I do, however have this link for the engine from GitHub itself... more or less.

Here's the GitHub link to it, in its public release - https://github.com/HatchGameEngine/HatchGameEngine

I've read the release notes about the updates because I got curiously intrigued about the engine, and yet, as far as I've seen, I don't see any desktop shortcut to start and use that engine to make and create whatever game anyone wants, for I thought it was a far more accessible 2D game engine that's really fun to use, and it really bothers me, for I've been curious about how and what it does. I only saw the source code to it, but nothing else.

If someone could take time to give guidance on how to find the engine after downloading, any tutorial, step-by-step guide, video or otherwise, or even talk to the devs behind the engine about increased accessibility, well, that'd be great. Hopefully, if any of you've got time, you can ask the creator responsible for it and/or the users that are versed into it.

The creator's name is Aknekt, a talented programmer, who, as I've briefly read, worked on Evening Star in Sonic Origins as Support Engineer for Retro Engine.

Pic link from his Twitter account is here as proof - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FV9Fx_0UIAAuC54?format=jpg&name=large

One note, the level editor's not included in the engine, but I already know Tiled covers that concern when using it to bring levels to that engine. The editor's format is compatible, after all.

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Map Requests / Re: Metroidvania games

« on: March 18, 2025, 02:29:19 pm »

Just some thought, but, there should really be a section or a post containing a list of the largest Metroidvania maps by far.

I do enjoy seeing larger and larger Metroidvania maps, but the question is how can we keep track of 'em?

It may be rather interesting to have such a list in VGMaps at some point.

Speaking of, I may have more yet-to-be mapped Metroidvanias right here, with some context to their stories. I kinda ordered them by the largest maps yet.

"Afterimage" - Made by Aurogon Shanghai, and made through Unreal Engine, this Metroidvania places the amnesiac girl, Renee, and her partner, Ifree, the world of Engardin, created by a great, powerful deity, has been left to ruin by a horrible cataclysm called "The Razing", and put much strife and trouble to many people, even giving rise to darkness and rampaging monsters overwhelming the world. Having been reawakened, Renee and Ifree set out to cleanse out the evil overrunning Engardin, and discover her lost memories, along with loads more secrets beneath the world to see the final outcome of her actions.

Small thing to note, the game's map appears to have officially superseded Hollow Knight's map as the largest yet. None of us know yet, but I have a strong feeling its larger than Hallownest's. Playing through that game to see the whole overall world map kinda exhausted me time and again, but I kept on going until I could see every inch and corner of Engardin. My curiosity for the largest Metroidvania map yet led me to it, but I've been having a lot of fun.

Any mapper wanting to take on the task, I hope it can be done as a team effort instead of solo, and, good luck.

"Aeterna Noctis" - Made by Aeternum Studios, that Metroidvania is set on the world of Aeterna, made by the Supreme Deity Chaos himself, and populated it with creatures and people of different kinds. Though life seemed well, his creations later turned against him and sought to claim the world for themselves. Enraged by the flaring rebellion, he placed Aeterna under a curse to quell that, and sent out the King of Darkness and the Queen of Light to keep fighting each other for eternity... but, of course, a steady hand of intervention plans to change all that...

The game brought out greater challenges for platformer fans alike, and tested their reflexes through many tricky sections and paths, with animations made hand-drawn and frame-by-frame, to envelop great feeling of animated fluidity. And with free DLC updates. Up until Afterimage, it seemed to have held the place of the largest Metroidvania map yet. Now, it seems to be the second-largest.

"Death's Gambit" - Made by indie dev White Rabbit, that Metroidvania takes place in the world of Siradon, Sorun, a chosen individual, serves as Death's right hand to challenge the undying guardians of the realm, endure the eternal struggle to purge them clean, uncover the world's mystery, and acclaim rewards, including the discovery of the price of immortality. The question is, what choices would Sorun make to achieve it?

I happen to come across that game, and thought this would be a good one for any mapper to play and map it. There's tons of challenges to face, and the deep Soulslike RPG elements help give it depth and complexity, and there are multiple endings to see how the final outcome is determined by Sorun's actions. The expanded and revised edition, "Afterlife", gave more to the game by adding more levels, new weapons, new bosses, and overhauls to mechanics to give out a better experience.

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Gaming / Re: Happy St. Patrick's Day! - Zelda Games

« on: March 17, 2025, 09:44:57 pm »

Happy St. Patrick's to you, too!

The Zelda game I'm a bit fond of was "Tri-Force Heroes", and its about its 10th anniversary for that game.

It kinda gave a neat change in the series for once, such as, saving Hytopia's princess from a horrid fashion situation caused by Lady Maud herself, rather than Zelda from Ganon, or whoever else from captivity and stopping them from ruling Hyrule, and any other kingdom they want to conquer, not that it gets tiresome, mind you.

Among a few changes in that game, the dungeon progression structure is what was changed from most games; venturing each dungeon in The Drablands that's been treated as a regular, linear stage, somewhat, avoiding dangerous traps, stopping numerous monsters at every corner, and collecting additional goods for the town and the team to get to the goal at the end, all still harboring what's made many Zelda games great.

Moreover, each area's second dungeon holds a mini-boss, which are all, undoubtedly, stronger variants of enemy monsters in Zelda history, both past and new, but with unique designs to stand them out instead of being just time and resource-saving copy-and-pastes.

Small fact: Mihikaru Oiwa from Grezzo, the developer company behind that game, is responsible for designing ALL of the bosses, including the mini-bosses.

Sure, that game is not without complaints, especially about the multiplayer, but, a different change of formula and pace is sometimes good now and then.

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Map Requests / Re: Full map set for Sonic the Hedgehog's games

« on: March 14, 2025, 05:24:23 pm »

I just recently noticed something, about Sky Park Zone from Sonic Rivals...

I took a brief visit to the Spriters Resource, visited the game's "Miscellaneous" section labelled "Screens and Banners", uploaded by a user called "Boilingpot", and found one little interesting discovery.

At that sheet, located between Venoom, one of the Badniks, and two of the bosses, Egg Eagle and Egg Turtle, on the rightside of said collection of loading screens that give out random hints, I spotted an unused boss, and it looks like it WAS intended to be fought at Sky Park, with Dr. Eggman, or rather Eggman Nega in disguise, as the mech's pilot. And it would've been fought as the 3rd boss after finishing 1st Place in Act 2 of Sky Park Zone, as would it always be for every Zone in that game.

I kinda had a thought on why Sky Park lacked a boss to fight, as all the game's Zones have, and I have no idea why that boss was cut from that Zone. It could've rounded out the roster of bosses there.

I can only guess that boss was cut out because of time constraints.

I don't have any idea what is that boss' name, but if I were to guess right, it also has the "Egg" prefix in it, as all others have.

Did anyone around here knew about this discovery? I didn't. And I'd sure like to see how and why that boss would've turned out, had it remained in that game.

The image's link is here as proof - https://www.spriters-resource.com/resources/sheets/110/113165.png?updated=1548274767

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: What 2D Game Engines are best for making levels and their maps?

« on: March 09, 2025, 06:05:36 pm »

Well, I hardly saw anyone send in their thoughts on 2D engines lately, 'cause they seem a bit busy or forgetful to reply, so, why not I give it a go? I didn't depend on waiting too long for it, anyway.

The Hatch Engine, from my perspective, is a real good 2D game engine, and its usage seems really good for 2D games, one of which is a Sonic fangame, Sonic Galactic. From what I've seen in the second demo, the engine is capable of handling levels much larger and longer than what we've got so far, even Coral Garden Act 1's size seems to surpass that of Sonic Colors' DS version's Asteroid Coaster Act 2's size and length, by comparison.

I can see loads of potential for making new 2D games of the Hi-Bit variety, not limiting to games made for NES, SNES, nor PS1 alone. If I only know how to easily download that engine, I'd use it to see what it is capable of.

Maybe it could be helpful to past games that ran on prior engines that lacked upkeep and specific features to keep it smooth and efficient, such as Clickteam's Fusion, whose version was MMF2 before it updated to CF2.5 and used for Freedom Planet.

The Retro Engine is a good engine that delivered Sonic games, from past reduxes of past 2D Sonic games to the original game, "Sonic Mania" and its update, "Plus", its great potential is amazing. Its recent usage was for the latest compilation, "Sonic Origins", which had it updated to Version 5U to allow past versions of the engine work in it, but so far, no other game's use it yet. Hope people get to use it more soon.

...That's what I've got so far.

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Map Gab / Re: Jurassic Park (Sega Megadrive/Genesis)

« on: March 07, 2025, 07:00:20 pm »

Yeah, this was my way of submitting the maps. I could email them over if that would be easier, but I noticed that the Bubsy maps had been submitted via links on the forum kind of like this, so thought this way might be okay.

Well, yeah, but I kinda have the foresight to play it safe for that, just in case such outlets could be temporarily out for maintenance. I mean, its fine, but, better safe than sorry, I say. Map submitting to alternate outlets besides VGMaps has never been carved in stone. And, that was from quite before I mentioned to the mapper responsible they can still be submitted to the Atlas.

It is a *weird* way of doing it, especially as the loop is technically a tiling effect, rather than the Sonic style of teleporting from the bottom to the top of the level. I'd guess it's part of why that level lags so much, there's a lot of geometry loaded into memory.

The game is generally super hard. I got started mapping by just doing River and Pumping Station, because those levels are *designed* to make the player die repeatedly - there are drops and jumps that you can only learn to do safely via trial and error. The game could really do with an Ecco-style system in which you have unlimited lives, so can afford to throw them away. I think there's a Game Genie code that can do that, but in my version it makes Grant unable to jump off moving objects.

Yes, and not a pint of time and thought has been spent optimizing the geometry to smooth the lag out.

Too bad that game didn't have chances to gain extra lives by a bonus stage, nor have extra lives hidden in levels. There's only three, no more. Would've made the game a bit more lenient.

*sigh* Well, we all grew up with enduring trial and error in games all the time, its natural.

A rather nice alternative, but, I felt that could've been an unlockable option by clearing the game.